Portfolio

Cover Letter

Arriving in English 102 second semester with pure high school writing experience under my belt, I was unsure of the expectations I would be help to, unsure of the type of writing, and unsure of how much writing would be required.  I had been through years and years of formal writing at a college prep school; MLA was crammed down our throats and teachers emphasized the use of proper English without any conjunctions or “be” verbs.  While all that stuff is handy, what we learned and how we wrote assignments is totally different from that which I had been taught previous years.  The service learning based curriculum of this course was geared for digital rhetoric where writing for a target audience did not need to be crazy Nazi-formal like teachers in high school had stressed.  Because we were posting our writing to the internet, where writing is less formal, there was an ease about writing which let words flow, apposed to overthinking everything trying to sound intelligent.  The biggest change I have experienced this year is to be more relaxed while writing, not to stress out diagramming sentences or organizing my paragraphs in a strict 8 sentence format.  This has helped me establish my voice as a writer, my own style which I own, not the type of writing where everyone’s papers look the exact same!

The specifics of what I have learned in this class have been the topics of lateral research and using Wysocki as a way to look at digital media differently.  Those two elements greatly contributed to my work in unit two, making up the bulk of how I would acquire information and how I would present that information to my audience.  I spent a lot of time during unit two fine tuning my website making it visually appealing while paying attention to what I had learned from Wysocki; keeping in mind the fonts I was using, the organization of the page, and the color of items I was using.  My most accomplished project this semester was the creation of my website; knowing that I can take a simple idea such as labeling and turn it into a huge project with a custom website with tons of information.  The ability to research anything I want is a huge advantage for discovering all sorts of information quickly without having to read millions of books in the library.  Lateral research was another new idea which I had not learned in high school, which would have been extremely useful!  But really it is common sense…using your source’s sources as a way to navigate and discover new information and material which otherwise may be hidden.  Lateral research is an idea you re-discover and say to yourself, “why wasn’t I doing this in the first place?”  I count myself one of the lucky few who found really helpful sources early in the semester, and using lateral research, I was able to complicate my ideas and think about things differently early on instead of rushing to find a topic I could research and use for my unit two work.  I contribute the quality of my work to the strategies we learned in class accompanied by fighting the urge to procrastinate and finish assignments early.  

Turning in my unit two work I was very pleased with what I had accomplished, and made sure to eliminate as many flaws as possible to cut my workload during finals week.  While I was pleased with what I had created I knew it was perfect, everything can be tweaked or fine-tuned; concerning my website, I received feedback of other’s perspectives regarding issues they thought would improve the quality of my work.  From Jeremy’s feedback I focused on working on the front page and “where to label” section mainly organizing how the introduction page would set up the following pages and how the “where to label” could be modified to be more clear on what I was trying to communicate.  From a fellow classmate’s feedback I realized a few of my pages had too much plain text, where the reader would get lost/bored with what they were trying to focus on.  Looking at my website from other’s perspectives I organized the first page and its introduction to be as clear as possible to what the website is all about.  The majority of my corrections to my unit two work was cutting the “fluff” from the bulky pages and adding in some visual elements to appease the reader.  Lastly, knowing that the majority of internet users do not read every word of a sentence while browsing the web, underlining and making important concepts bold would help readers understand and remember what they had read, drawing their eyes to focus on what I want them to focus on.  

What I have learned from this course will help me in situations beyond the classroom; there are certain skills which I have learned which I know will help me, and there are always possibilities of encountering issues I will be able to apply these skills towards.  Already I know when I will start my dental office up after college I will definitely be able to use my ability to create website to get my name and company out in the public.  Even with business cards and advertising, I will be able to use the things Wysocki emphasizes in her work to help me create more effective tools to communicate my practice to the masses.  From the service learning side part of English 102, volunteering in the community reinforced the great feeling of accomplishment one gets when giving back to society.  Volunteering is great because you contribute to the world for a cause; you serve others which in return you get the satisfaction of knowing you are helping others.  I plan on volunteering this summer at the University of Washington Medical center, and I would not be looking forward to this as much if I had not volunteered this year at the Discovery Center.

Website URL: http://discoverlabeling.weebly.com/