Running Header: PORTFOLIO REFLECTION

WP4 Portfolio Reflection

Annalycia Morales

Arizona State University

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Abstract:

The following is a reflection about the coursework throughout English 102 in the spring

semester of 2019. I will go into detail about how the assignments, readings and projects have

affected me as a writer and how I will continue to use what I have learned in my academic and

professional future.

Keywords: ​Writing, Experience, Skills, WPA Outcomes, Habits of Mind

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English 102 has been an extremely beneficial class for my development as a composer

and student overall. The semester preceding this class was a sufficient introduction into college

writing, teaching us basic skills that could be used later on in other classes or even

professionally. In 102, we built upon these skills fine tuning them even more, strengthening our

confidence as writers and composers. The basis of the skills that we practiced were the WPA

Outcomes and Habits of Mind. These documents listed writing techniques and ways of thinking

that work together to improve the way one composes works such as writing and film. The WPA

Outcomes list included the following, Rhetorical Knowledge, Critical Thinking, Writing

Processes, Abilities to Compose in Multiple Environments and Knowledge of Conventions. As

for the Habits of Mind, Curiosity, Openness, Engagement, Creativity, Persistence,

Responsibility, Flexibility, and Metacognition were included. Throughout this semester each of

the parts of the WPA Outcomes and Habits of Mind have not only changed my understanding of

writing, but also how I approach life in general, each of these have been of significance to me

over the course of this semester.

My understanding of writing has changed throughout my academic career, but especially

so in the past two semesters of college. Entering college I did not have a positive relationship

with writing, in high school my experiences had been restrictive and unenjoyable. I was rarely

able to choose a topic to write about that I was interested in, most of my assignments were

centered around rhetorical reflection of literature that was a required part of the curriculum or

something based on historical events. Every time I was assigned an essay I was only concerned

with meeting the word count and writing what I thought my teacher would want to hear. This did

me well through high school, but was not a positive impact on me as a composer. Once I began
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my first college English course I was given much more creative freedom to choose what I

wanted to write about and how I wanted to write. At first I didn’t know where to start, but as

time went on and we learned more with each project, I became more confident and trusted my

abilities using things such as the WPA Outcomes and Habits of Mind.

Project 1 was an essay about a specific mural, of our choice, in the Downtown Phoenix

area. The mural was analyzed through visual, rhetorical and contextual processes. Aspects of the

mural such as scale, color, light, location, context and more were discussed in the hopes of

discovering the meaning and purpose that the artist intended. Prior to this project I had not done

any type of visual analysis so it seemed rather daunting at first. The main difficulty for me in this

project was converting the prior knowledge I had about rhetorical analysis to describe a visual. I

had to use a different thought process for this project compared to previous ones. To overcome

these struggles I practiced several Habits of Mind such as, curiosity, engagement, metacognition

and openness. I had to reflect a lot on my own thinking and feelings from the mural in this

project which is a part of metacognition. I also had to be engaged and curious about the meaning

that the artist intended and the strategies they used to convey it. The message was not obvious to

me at first, I had to put effort into piecing together my thoughts and the visual evidence to come

up with an answer. Lastly, I had to be open and think of how others might view the image in

addition to how I felt, this helped me to get the entire picture. This is a quote directly from my

project in which I analyze a woman in painted in the center of the mural I chose, “The viewer is

able to see into her womb which shows the outline of two​ ​fetuses painted in the color blue. She is

the biggest object in the mural and has a large bright halo behind her head which suggests that

she is of importance. The fact that the artists chose to portray this figure as a woman and a
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mother likely means that she represents a caretaker or provider. Projecting out from the woman,

underneath her are flowers, plants and small creatures painted with bright, happy colors on both

sides of the mural”. Practicing these techniques allowed me to overcome my struggles and

greatly improve my visual and rhetorical analysis skills.

The next project of this semester was an annotated bibliography and informative essay

about a topic of your choice. As my topic, I chose terrorism in the United States. The set up of

this assignment was much more familiar to me than the last one, I have much more experience in

informative essays than I do with analysis. With that said, I still had a few difficulties along the

way, such as keeping a neutral stance. I think this would fall under Critical Thinking or

Rhetorical Knowledge in the WPA Outcomes. I had to think of other strategies to inform my

audience and keep them interested without trying to persuade them in anyway. Once I realized

how to do this it became much easier to compose and organize my thoughts while informing my

audience to the best of my ability. Experiencing this difficulty pushed me to improve in these

areas.

Last was project 3, an extension of project 2 in which we took our previous research and

wrote an argumentative essay about a possible solution to the crisis or issue we chose and

created a mini documentary depicting the message from our essay in a visual way. This project

targeted, the Ability to Compose in Multiple Environments and the Writing Processes sections of

the WPA Outcomes for me. Again, I had experience with writing argumentative essays but I did

not have much experience with making videos so that was a challenge for me. Aside from the

video, another difficult part of this project was having such a controversial topic. It is hard to

make people change their opinions when they are so strong. I had to address the opposing
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viewpoints but still try to prove why my stance was the right one. It was also difficult making my

own opinion, There are pros and cons to both sides of the solution that I chose. The Habits of

Mind that I used to overcome my struggles was mostly Persistence. I had to keep the bigger

picture in my head and collect all the information that I could in order to be able to put together

an essay that would persuade my audience. This project taught me to push my limits by thinking

outside of the box and approaching situations from different perspectives.

In conclusion, what I learned in English 102 already has, and will continue to, make a

positive impact on my academic, personal and professional life. Unlike other classes, the skills I

have learned in this class not only taught me how to approach writing but how to approach

challenges and problems of many kinds. I can translate what I have learned in this class to

accommodate almost anything. I have definitely improved in many areas after taking this class

and I am eager to see how I can use what I have learned in the future and continue to get better.