Before I came to UWRT 1102, I thought it was going to be a lot like UWRT 1101.

My
expectations were met in some ways and were wrong in others. The similarities I had from
UWRT 1101 class and the UWRT 1102 class was how we used class and team discussion to talk
about what we had learned in class. What was different in 1102 was we did a lot less team
projects in pursuit of the final portfolio. Also, another difference was that we read a lot more
articles and did not read novels as we did in 1101. In this class, my goals were to improve my
writing, use better conventions to attract my audience, and understand pieces of writing through
discussion. Understanding pieces of writing through discussion and using better conventions to
attract my audience are both goals that I have achieved in this class. By reading these articles
pertaining to the types of violences, I viewed the various routes the authors took to emphasize
their stands on every argument. The authors used things such as flashbacks, statistics, quotes
from accredited people, and using emotional language to appeal to the emotions of the readers. I
have used those techniques in my own writing to make my readers conform to my opinion and
see the issue through my side of things. A prime example of my goal being reached comes from
my argument essay in my final portfolio. In my final portfolio, I discussed how violent lyrics
could affect teens through my own personal experiences, statistics from research experiments,
and proven quotes. Through using these conventions, I was able to improve rhetorical
knowledge.
Understanding pieces of writing through discussion was a goal achieved by our various
homework assignments. In each homework assignment that required us to analyze a piece of
writing, we would record in our commonplace books summaries, the conventions used in the
writing, and who the audience is. We then shared these thoughts with our groups and then the
whole class to obtain different ideas from different groups. This helped me learn that a nonfiction

type of writing is very ambiguous in its meaning to its audience. I came to this conclusion from
the fact that everyone in the class had similar opinions but there was always some difference in
each one about what the text was about. Hearing Ms. Mortons and my classmates opinions
about the article at hand made me truly understand the purpose of the writing from every angle.
All of the opinions talked about in class discussion helped me achieve my goal through
understanding a piece of writing inside and out.
Artifacts that I chose for my final portfolio were placed in there because they were proof
of my growth in the class. Growth is shown through the various artifacts like my commonplace
book entries consisting of the notes on the articles, free-writes, and drafts. I created these
artifacts through my background knowledge and each one shows how much I knew before, and
what I know now. The other documents in my final portfolio such as my final reflection and my
argumentative essay are proof of my growth from my commonplace book artifacts. My
commonplace book entries include writings about the audience and purposes of every article we
have already read. By recording these in my commonplace book, I could look back and study the
notes taken. From studying the notes, I could efficiently take the techniques from the authors in
other writings and use them for my own argumentative essay.
Another artifact I used in my final portfolio that showed my growth through my journey
throughout UWRT 1102 was my free-write about rhetorical knowledge. Rhetorical knowledge is
having knowledge of your audiences and how to reach them through writing. Through this I was
able to determine my audience in my argument essay through the necessary conventions. Drafts
in my final portfolio include my argumentative essay outline and my topic statement draft. I did a
short outline of what would be talked about in my argumentative essay with subtopic headings
and various questions. Questions were bulleted under each heading in my outline so when I

looked at the outline it would be easier for me write paragraphs regarding the questions. Briefly
outlining my argumentative essay helped me grow in my writing because it gave me a good
starting point consisting of my research. My drafting approach was different when it came to my
topic statement draft. In my topic statement draft, I talked about my topic and the things I would
talk about regarding the theme of my project. This draft was very rough and showed that I did
not have enough background information nor did I have enough subtopics to explain my main
topic. Without the necessary subtopics, I would have never known how to even begin my
research. Originally my draft consisted of my topic and how it related to the theme of violence.
Due to rereading my draft plenty of times, in my final draft of the topic statement, I was able to
include research subtopics to back up my idea on the affects violent song lyrics have on
adolescents.
When I first created these artifacts, I did not know what to expect from them. When
creating the commonplace book entries on our responses to the articles, I was simply following
the directions on Moodle and having something to share with my team the next day. Now, I look
back at these entries and saw they had so much more meaning. These entries showed me the ins
and outs of any argumentative essay. Without these entries and recording the aspects of their
audiences, I would have never found a solid way to construct my essay and my final portfolio as
a whole appealing to my intended audience. My drafts, outlines, and free-writes also had little to
no thought in the start of their creations. Originally, when I created these artifacts, my intentions
were to use them as a means of organization and putting my thoughts on paper. As of now, I still
see them as that with the same purpose, but with a little more. These organizational artifacts
show my growth from the ideas I dumped on paper, to the ideas I have formed into clean concise
paragraphs within my essays.

The revision process of my portfolio was a major key in putting it all together. When I
was writing, I used my old commonplace book entries, notes from my research, and sample
essays on the Moodle page. Each tool I used when writing my entries for my portfolio, matched
a specific aspect of my writing. The commonplace book entries helped me reach my audience
through various writing techniques. The writing strategies I used in the entries for my final
portfolio are emotional appeal, elaborating my research with my own personal conclusion, and
my adamant argumentative statements. By implementing these strategies, I was able to form
writing that was persuasive and proven with research.
During my revision, the main documents in my portfolio that went through specific
changes were my annotated bibliography, my topic statement, and my argumentative essay. In
the process of creating my annotated bibliography, I created an individual mind map of all the
sources I found, their citations, and a brief explanation of what they talked about. But when I
looked back and revised my mind map, I saw some faults. Some of the citations I drew from the
mind map into the annotated bibliography were not reliable, so I could not use them in my final
argument essay. Going back through each citation, and deleting the unreliable sources and
replacing them with other research sources helped my annotated bibliography flourish and
improve my individual mind map as well. These revisions also lead me to coming up with
another subtopic within my research involving more positive effects of violent song lyrics.
Revision in my topic statement was another important fix in the creation of my final
portfolio. In my original draft of the topic statement, my topic was about how violent song lyrics
in rap music affect people. When I read over that a couple times, I figured then that I had to
completely alter my topic statement due to how vague and the difficulty to find research for a
whole inquiry project on it. In accordance to my research, the most accurate results I came up

with had information on how adolescents were affected by violent song lyrics in music in
general, not just rap music. Due to the results I collected on the modified version of my topic
statement, I was able to revise my topic statement and change the theme of my project slightly.
Through this revision I came to the conclusion that all the research I collected would make for a
better backbone to my arguments throughout my essay.
Lastly, I did major revisions to my argumentative essay as well. The second half of my
essay was the part that needed the most revising because I made an outline for the first half and I
was having trouble meeting the word count requirement for the assignment. This difficulty
caused me to ramble on and not polish my writing as well as I should have. When I turned it in to
Ms. Morton I received a B for the assignment along with methods on how to improve my
writing. Ms. Morton suggested that I have a stronger conclusion and a lot of other little errors
within my essay. I accepted her feedback and made those changes to make every paragraph clear
and concise.
The feedback I received from my classmates had the smallest effect on my writing. I say
this because I rarely changed my essay because of their comments. Some of the students had
great points but the other comments just made me think and come up with my own revisions.
The only time I truly accepted feedback from my classmates was when I presented an unfinished
draft and wrote them a letter in what I wanted to check specifically. Most of my peer-feedback
came from Ms. Morton and my acquaintances in the college of engineering. I used their
knowledge because in our engineering assignments we must have clear and concise writing that
goes absolutely in depth with the topic at hand. Even though the subjects and the tone of the
writings in UWRT and ENGR classes are completely different, they go hand in hand when it
come to writing clear concise paragraphs with efficient grammar and word placement.

When creating my portfolio, I had my own way of organizing my information. First I

would implement my artifacts such as the drafts, outlines, and commonplace book entries. I
started with those first because they showed how I obtained the knowledge to create the other
documents in my portfolio. I would input the team genre remix project because it also shows the
start of my journey in 1102. Next I would include my topic statement, annotated bibliography,
argumentative essay, genre remix project, then lastly my final reflection. I chose this organization
of my documents because it shows the journey of my writing and how each document has
aspects that learns from the document before it. In terms of colors and pictures, I tended to use
pictures of the artist I talked about in my essays. Also I would use relatively dark colors to show
the theme of violence, but then I would sometimes use light colors to show the true meaning
behind this so called violent thing.
In my about me page, I included a brief biography of myself and my experience in
UWRT. Along with that, I included my love for music to give a sneak peak of what the bulk of
my final portfolio will consist of. In conclusion, this portfolio shows my own personal opinions
on a topic related to violence through the growth of my writing techniques through UWRT 1102.