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Dear Professor Douglas,

The portfolio I have constructed is to show you what I have learned and been working on
over the course of this semester. The main focuses of this reflection is critical thinking and my
better understanding of it. The portfolio also focuses on pieces I have done with analyzing and
summarizing through my blogs, multi- genre project, and critical thinking page. The purpose of
this reflection is to show you how I have grown as a researcher, writer, and student.
Over the course of this semester, I have grown as a writer, researcher, and person. Unlike
last semester, this semester generally focused on rhetorical analysis, proposals, critical thinking,
and line of inquiry. This semester unlike last semester, I believe my research and writing skills
have greatened due to the topics that were taught. I believe the beginning of the semester was
really focused on critical thinking but overall, I believe the semesters focus was on writing a line
of inquiry. At the beginning of the semester I would have not really considered myself a critical
thinker but over the span of the course my critical thinking has developed. As you read through
my daybook entries and the entries on the critical thinking page, you can see how I have grown
as a critical thinker. For example, I used some of my Proust Questionnaire responses in my
critical thinking page. In my daybook I just wrote down an answer but never explained why I put
that or even gave much thought as to why I put that as the answer. One of my critical thinking
responses pertained to question fifteen on the Proust Questionnaire. I put that if I were to die in
my next life I would like to become a tiger. I never given much thought as to why I would want
to be a tiger in my next life other than the fact tigers are my favorite animals. I then began asking
myself why I would want to become a tiger in my next life and why a tiger is my favorite animal.
So, I began to research the symbolisms behind tigers and how a tiger is a spirit animal. As I

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researched I began to see that the characteristics a tiger (spirit-animal) possessed are
characteristics that I wish to embody some day. I believe what a tiger symbolizes and stands for
is the reason why I am so intrigued by them and would want to be one in my next life. Through
out the semester I began noticing how much critical thinking skills began to develop. I began
using critical thinking skills in everyday situations even outside of the classroom. One day I was
in my room and noticed my rose was dying and began using critical thinking and how a flower
dying can relate to relationships and feelings by just looking at a dying flower. Using rhetorical
analysis throughout the semester has helped me grow as a writer and has helped me better
understand as a reader what the writer of a piece is writing about. Being able to understand who
the writer is speaking to, the background of what the writer is writing about, and the point the
writer wants to get across to the reader really helped me understand what I was reading about.
For example, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote a letter called a Letter from Birmingham Jail, a letter
he wrote during his time spent in the Birmingham Jail in Birmingham, Alabama. His audience
was practically everyone during the Civil Rights Movement as he tried to get people especially
Caucasians to understand why he was in Birmingham doing the activities he was participating in.
The purpose of the letter was to get others to realize what he was fighting for and why. MLK was
fighting peacefully for peace and equality. He obviously did research and used biblical references
in his letter to help people of the white church to understand the importance of just and unjust
laws, equality, and peace. His letter was very well written and addressed all of his points and
concerns clearly which helped his audience better understand his message. Using the critical
thinking and learning rhetorical analysis helped me when writing my line of inquiry. I chose a
line of inquiry that related especially to me. My line of inquiry was the stigmatization of mental
illness. I find this topic very important because I suffer from mental illness and one of the hardest

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things I face because of it is peoples stigmatization behind it. I feel that through my line of
inquiry and all the research I have done for it, it will help people understand mental illness and
the negative effects stigma has on a person with mental illness. My blogs focused more on what
exactly mental illness stigma is, the effects of it, and how we as a society can help diminish it.
Through doing research for my blogs I found out that the stigma of mental illness can effect not
only the mentally ill but also the mentally ills family and I also found some damning effects that
stigma has on a person. My multi-genre project mainly focused on campaigns to end stigma,
educating mental illness costs, and to help readers understand what a person with mental illness
goes through. One of the things that I researched most about was how interaction and acceptance
helps diminish stigma, as you will be able to tell in both my blog page and multi-genre page. I
made a scrap book page of pictures of me with my friends. This is to symbolize how interaction
and friendships can help better the mentally ill and help diminish the stigma behind mental
illness. By doing these projects on this line of inquiry I developed better research skills through
learning how to summarize and analyze which also further benefited my writing skills. I found
that it is easier for me to write about a topic I am either intrigued about or feel strongly about.
Through this course I have also greatly learned more about myself by wanting to become an
advocate for the mentally ill and mental illness stigma. Hopefully, through this portfolio you can
see my growth as a researcher and writer in this course.

Sincerely,

Julia Wenger