Kussmann 1

Kevin Kussmann
Dr. Erin Dietel-McLaughlin
WR 13300
10 December 2014
Personal Reflection
This semester and few months of writing has been a very transformative period of my writing
career. During high school, I did not take any advanced writing classes, and my confidence as a
writer when I came into college was minimal. Throughout the semester, however, I was
challenged as a writer and my ability grew. I know have more confidence than ever as I approach
my writing. My writing process, mindset, and ability has all changed for the better.
Throughout each and every writing assignment this year, the journey to completion of the
assignment has been a process. Each of my assignments shows this. In the audio narrative, my
recording and final presentation was not the end of the process. Even afterwards, I made more
edits to the piece as it was necessary. In the rhetorical analysis essay, substantial edits had been
made after the original, stressing the importance of editing my work and the effects that editing
has. Also, there were proposals and numerous outlines of the paper created to focus and organize
my thoughts before writing. The longest process can be seen in my research essay. It began with
crafting a proposal and moved to intense research and outlines before writing. My TED Talk
showed my process as I rehearsed it many times and edited my presentation as I went along.
Throughout all of my essays, one new step in the writing process that I learned this year was
implemented. In class, we read an article about writing shitty first drafts, written by Anne
Lamott, and that article has helped me to get my first draft and ideas down on the paper so that I
can edit later. It has been a very useful technique, and I have applied it to essays for other classes

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as well. My process-oriented skills are most evident in my research essay. There are clear steps
that I took in the process of refining my topic, researching it, and creating numerous outlines of
it. In my research essay, rhetorical analysis essay, and TED talk, the outlining process is evident
as the organization of those essays is strong, which comes outlining in the beginning of the
process. The evolution of my writing process is evident through my research essay. It was my
best and most complete work of the semester. It contains the most sources, strongest
organization, and a clear thought process. This essay came late in the semester, and it contains
these strong elements because my process evolved over time.
My portfolio demonstrates my understanding of rhetoric and argumentation in both my
analysis and use of these elements. In my rhetorical analysis essay, I looked at the rhetoric of the
film The Social Network and analyzed several aspects of its rhetoric. This analysis forced me to
look at the film from a whole new perspective and shows my new understanding of rhetoric in
the film. In the research essay, I had to use both rhetoric and argumentation myself to appeal to
my audience and show my audience the findings of my research. My TED Talk expanded on this
use of rhetoric even further, as I used both my words and my performance to appeal to my
audience.
This portfolio shows my critical research, reading, and thinking skills most in my rhetorical
analysis and research essays. My rhetorical analysis essay greatly challenged me. I had never
been exposed to this type of writing before, and I struggled to put a lot of my thoughts and ideas
down on paper. This essay required me to go back and look deeply at the readings in class to
help me understand more about what I was supposed to write about. In the end, I came far from
where my previous knowledge of rhetoric was, and it took hard work to do so. This essay is
specifically where critical reading was prominent. My research essay shows the important role of

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research in my writing process. In order to write a ten page essay on a topic that was previously
foreign to me, it required a lot of research before writing. I used a variety of sources when
crafting this essay, from books and websites to journal articles and government hearings. The
sources gathered from the research that I did were crucial in developing my paper.
Throughout the development of my skills this semester, multimedia has been impactful. It
served as a medium and platform for the development of my skills. It was a medium for
development in the audio essay and TED Talk. In the rhetorical analysis essay, I had to look at
multimedia in the form of a film and develop my skills through the analysis of the film. During
the multimedia projects, I had to seamlessly integrate my writing and research to performance
while using multimedia. This posed a challenge to me as I had not dealt with those types of
projects before.
The purposes of the specific assignments varied, yet they all were connected together. The
skills used in one assignment applied to the other. The audio essay forced me to craft an essay
that told a story about multimedia in my life, while connecting with the audience and allow them
to relive my story through my words. This essay forced me to maintain focus throughout the
essay while also being description and reflecting. In the audio aspect of the essay, it was one of
the first introductions to using rhetoric myself. This rhetoric was then further examined and
analyzed in the rhetorical analysis essay. The rhetorical analysis essay was supposed to analyze
the rhetoric of the film The Social Network. Learning about and integrating rhetoric into my
essay was crucial for this assignment. In the research essay, I had to expand my research skills
and present an argumentative research essay to a specific audience. The argumentative aspect
forced me to use more rhetoric and appeal to my audience. The rhetoric in my research essay was
improved from my previous two assignments as I had more exposure and practice with them. For

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the final assignment, the TED Talk, all of the rhetoric and research skills that I learned came
together. I had to use research, which I had practiced through the research essay, and rhetoric to
convey my argument and purpose to my audience. The TED Talk forced me to bring together all
that I had learned throughout the semester to master my skills.
The project that I am most proud of is my research essay. I put the most effort and work into
that essay, as it was a long process. From the beginning, I had to choose a topic that interested
me and related to the class themes. After I found that topic, hours and hours of research was
required to develop my argument. I then had to carefully bring together all that I had learned,
while making an argument in the essay. It was a long process, but it was worth it in the end, as I
was proud of the work that I had done. I felt that the final product successfully used everything
that I had learned from the previous two projects, showing my growth as a writer. The essay was
well organized, coming from my extensive outlines that help me to focus my essay and develop a
good plan.
This semester has forever changed me as a writer. This change has mainly come from the
many challenges that I faced. Although I may have gotten frustrated or felt as if I was at a road
block sometimes, I am grateful for these experiences now as they have allowed me to grow and
develop as a thinker and writer. I will use the skills that I have learned this semester in the future,
and continue to develop them as I move forward. I have fine-tuned my research essay and audio
essay for my final portfolio even though I did not submit them for a rewrite.