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Jordan Pleasant

Ingram

UWRT 1103

28 April 2015

Final Portfolio Essay

Organization and Design

I used a simple approach to my website. The main communication modes are

visual and spatial. The background is white, and the text is in black. The main

buttons are FPE, Blog Posts, Midterm, Annotated Bibliography, and MultiGenre

Project (which breaks down into genre pieces, genre reflection, and my writer’s

choice artifacts.) Spatial is a communication mode used because of how each button

is evenly spaced out on the main bar. Linguistic is also a primary communication

mode in my portfolio, since this is a writing portfolio. I feel that my portfolio is set

up in a very clean, minimalist fashion.

Blog Posts

The blog posts are what I feel helped me the most in this class. When I first

started my multigenre project, my research thoughts and ideas were scattered

everywhere. The first post helped me to list possible topics that I could do my

project on. The second post was when I decided on a final topic;  “The question that I

am going to go with is ‘How do gun laws in America compare to those in other Western

Democratic countries, and would having a more European approach to gun ownership

change the high rates of gun deaths in America?’” The third post gave me a very crude,

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rough outline to my research project. It helped me get a general idea for how I

wanted to plan. The fourth post, the roundtable, was extremely helpful to me. It

made it so that I had to look up viewpoints that were in opposition to my own,

something I was not particularly eager to do. But once I looked at these opposing

opinions, it made it much easier for me to decide how I wanted to present the

information that I had gathered. Blog post five made crystal clear what genres were,

because I thought by genre it meant “action, horror, etc.,” thought it was almost

completely unrelated to that. Blog post six also helped give me an outline for my

project, in a more detailed way that post three. Post seven helped me by making me

think about how I wanted to connect with my audience. Post eight was the most

helpful because the questions were detailed and made me think the most about my

project, and how I wanted it to look and feel. “ The primary way that I will appeal to my

readers will be to present my information in a relatable way. I hope to appeal to a simple

"common sense" value; what reason could you possibly have to not make background

checks mandatory for all gun purchases, no exceptions.” Blog post nine made it so that I

looked back over the previous posts that I had written, which was like a path I had

travelled upon.

Midterm

The midterm helped me become of aware of what exactly the key concepts in

this course were. Since I had to stop and actually think about these concepts, it

showed me how I had (or had not) been already using them. Providing and receiving

feedback was a key concept that I struggled with.

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I have never been particularly good at this because I never know exactly

what to say. In high school all I ever did was check for grammar and spelling

mistakes. Personally, I’ve never been particularly comfortable suggesting

that the way someone did something themselves is not the best way.

A key concept that I felt I was doing well with was independent inquiry and

curiosity;

Curiosity has always been something that has affected me. Because of this,

Wikipedia is an extremely challenging website for me to be on, because I just

keep clicking on more and more pages. One time I went from the Battle of

Antietam to a train crash in Brooklyn. I have no idea how I got there.

These key concepts helped me learn in this course by making me aware of the many

ways that learning within a class can take place.

Annotated Bibliography

My bibliography helped me organize my sources in a very visual way. I have

never done a bibliography like this before. I had also never really written about my

sources; I just took the facts that were stated by my sources and used them. I didn’t

decide if they were good enough sources, because I had never really been told to do

that by a teacher/professor before. My favorite source came from

http://www.statista.com/statistics/248845/number-of-victims-of-mass-shootings-

in-western-democratic-countries/.

This particular source is a graph showing the number of victims of mass

shootings in western democratic countries from 1966 to 2012. The source

shows that of the 32 shootings listed, half took place in the United States. The

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only other countries that had more than one instance of a shooting were

Finland, France, and Germany, and those countries only had 2 instances of

mass shootings. Of the 16 shootings in the United States, 8 of those happened

within the past 10 years. Almost half of the 529 deaths were Americans.

I really looked into this source and personally deemed that it was worth me

presenting, and it leads to one of my favorite visuals in my PowerPoint.

This visual helped me learn because it gave me a very clear view of how much more

deadly America is in comparison to the other western democracies.

Genre Pieces

Tribute Video

One of my genres was a video that I made that paid tribute to victims of mass

shootings, those being Virginia Tech, Fort Hood, Aurora, and Newtown. This video

helped me learn because it just showed me how absolutely heartbreaking and costly

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that my topic was. It really gave me the desire to get my facts straight and to try to

present my information in the best way that I could.

PowerPoint Presentation

My second genre was a PowerPoint presentation. In my presentation I gave

statistics on mass killings (“Nearly 33% of victims are under 18 years old.”), showed

the types of guns used, the frequency of mass killings, how the US stacked up in

homicide rate as compared to the rest of the western democracies, particularly

Switzerland. I also showed slides on guns per capita, rank of gun ownership

compared to homicide rate, homicides by guns per capita, and information on gun

laws in Switzerland and gun laws in America. It helped me learn a lot of information

about gun control and gun homicide rates that I have not previously known.

Text Message

My third genre was a screenshot of a text message between someone trapped

in a library with a shooter and that person’s brother. It gave a very relatable and

very personal touch to the topic that I was covering.

Genre Reflection

I honestly enjoyed writing my genre reflection. It helped me learn because I

had to give into my genre pieces. I had to discuss the communication modes I used,

appeals that I used, timeliness, and how it was relatable to my audience. It gave me

somewhat of a look inside my mind as to why I chose these pieces and why I felt

they were effective in the ways that they were.

It is absolutely the most relatable piece, and now is a good time to show it

because gun violence is happening every single day in America. I think this would

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be fairly successful with my audience, because it is a) relatable and b) easy to

understand what it is all about. Similar to my video, I think it would make anyone,

regardless of their views, stop and think about gun violence.

Process Work

1. This artifact was when I first started thinking about potential topics for my

research project. I included it because it is essentially the very first step that I took

in making my project. It is the beginning of this whole thing and helped me learn

the many different areas that I could focus my research project on.

2. This mad jumble of numbers came from information that I got from statista.com.

The website gave me basic information, and because of this I had to crunch all the

numbers that the sight gave me to be able to present the information in a better

way than just showing the graphs that I got the information from. From doing this,

I learned that half of the worst shootings in western democracies have happened

in America, and half of those have happened in the past eleven years.

3. This artifact was a brief outline of how I wanted my slideshow to go. I used it

almost to the “t” in my presentation and it helped me organize my information

and allowed me to show how I wanted it presented.

4. My fourth process work artifact was a warm up from March 16th. “The European

powers, especially Switzerland, have gun laws that are radically different than

gun laws seen in America.   These laws save countless European lives,

without   hampering on the right to possess a firearm.” There wasn’t much to this

artifact, but it was one of the first times that I had written down a solid opinion on

how I felt in regards to my topic.

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Feedback Artifacts

1. My first artifact is from speed dating. It’s not really the information on the paper

itself, but that the paper reflects this activity. This activity gave me lots of ideas to

implement in my presentation, and I don’t think I would have gotten as far as I

had without it.

2. This artifact was my midterm letter from Ms. Ingram. I included this because of

all the feedback I received throughout this entire process, this was the most

detailed and most extensive.

Writer’s Notebook

1. This artifact is the “questions for rhetorically analyzing websites” handout. This

helped me learn because it made me more aware of what in a website made it

reliable and it helped me understand how to determine whether to trust a website

or not, and just overall what a particular website was all about.

2. This is the “improving peer review” handout. It helped me learn because I have

always struggled with peer review, because I’m uncomfortable suggesting ways

for someone to do something. It helped me learn how to do peer review in a more

relaxed, less stressful way, and it made me more confident in giving feedback as

well.

Wild Cards

1. This artifact is a picture from Newtown, Connecticut at the Sandy Hook shooting.

It’s a woman, the sibling of a teacher inside the school, and she doesn’t know if

her sister is alive or not. Unfortunately, she was not. It shows the pure anguish

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that gun violence unleashes on the American populace. This was one of the first

times that I had realized the effects of gun violence. Sure, I was alive for the

Virginia Tech shooting, Fort Hood, Aurora, and others. But this was the most

recent “big” shooting, and this picture made me want to understand what had

happened more. This picture got me interested in the topic of gun control in the

first place.

2. The second is Ms. Ingram’s website. I had never had a teacher use a website to

this extent before, and it was very helpful to have access to a large amount of

class information without having to email questions; most of them were answered

in there. It helped me learn what I needed to do for class.

Final Portfolio Essay

This is my final portfolio essay. Something to note is that any underlined text

in this paper is a direct quote from my own writing. This is helping me learn because

it is helping me organize and explain my entire portfolio.

Writing Growth

I don’t personally feel that over the course of this class that my writing has

changed much. However the stuff that I did write did change, particularly my

annotated bibliography. Though hard to see on this paper, the black text on these

stickies from my bibliography is what is different since the last time Ms. Ingram

viewed it. This black text is visible on my website in my annotated bibliography, I

just liked the color that it brought to this somewhat dull and bland paper.

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When first writing my bibliography, I tried to squeeze by with the bare minimum. It

did not cut it. On the sources that I felt I could add more information to, I did. I feel

that this shows that I recognized what was wrong in my writing and attempted to fix

it.

Though I did not have a FPE draft to share during the penultimate class

period, reading through other students’ essays really helped me understand what

exactly this assignment was and helped push me to start this essay.

Key Concepts

Independent Inquiry and Curiosity

I think that this particular key concept is best shown in my first blog post,

when I had to come up with potential research ideas on my own, those ideas being:

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1. Should the president continue to be elected via the Electoral College or should

they instead be elected via the popular vote?

2. How different are gun laws in America as compared to other Western

democracies and would tighter control change the high death rate via guns in

America?

3. Free speech is a guarantee in the Bill of Rights. However, free speech is often

hampered in schools; the strongest restrictions are in elementary school, and the

least restrictions are at universities, though there are often still limits. Should

freedom of speech be guaranteed in high school and in college?

I think it was also said well in my midterm: “ We had to be curious on our own to be

able to narrow all of that down to only three questions, and then we could only pick

one.”

Rhetorical Awareness

I used rhetorical awareness extensively during the process of doing this

research project. I had to look at my sources and deem whether they were

trustworthy, and once I did that I could then implement my sources into my

bibliography and thus into my research project itself. This course taught me how to

do that.

Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone and The Writing Process and Revision

I’m choosing to include these together for a very simple reason. Revising my

work and going through the writing process is out of my comfort zone. I usually just

write an essay and turn it in, that’s it. During this class I had to go through the

writing process and revise my work, something I did frequently, particularly with

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my PowerPoint presentation. This class also pushed me out of my comfort zone via

the making of my portfolio itself. I’d never done anything like this before and it was

very, very new.

Grade

I think I deserve a B on my final portfolio essay. Here is why:

e-Portfolio is complete, thoughtfully arranged and navigable.

o This is an accurate statement about my portfolio. I have all the required

pieces in it. I feel that it is easily navigable with the calm color scheme,

and I also feel that it is arranged well.

In the FPE, the author can somewhat illustrate his/her engagement with writing

process(s) and revision by quoting and analyzing pieces of his/her writing from

the course but may lack detail and explanation.

o I did quote from myself in many pieces of this essay, but I feel as if I

could have added more details and explained these quotes better than I

did.

In the FPE, the author discusses his/her engagement with at least 2 key concepts.

o I mentioned 4 key concepts within my key concepts section of my

portfolio essay

In the FPE, the author quotes from 3-4 texts from the course (by other writers) to

illustrate his/her engagement with course materials and to highlight what was

most meaningful to his/her learning.

o I do not believe that I did much of this, however.

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The e-Portfolio may leave an unanswered question for the reader/teacher about

that author’s work and engagement in the course.

o I don’t think that there are any unanswered questions for the

reader/teacher. I feel like I explained what I needed to in the way that I

needed to.

In most of the bullets, I did what was stated there, and in a couple bullets, even a little

more than what was stated. In one bullet, I did not do much with that particular

requirement. A couple requirements are more than what was needed, and one was less

than what was needed. I feel that this balances out to the grade of a low B.