December 15, 2017

Aaron Benedetti
UWP 001
University of California Davis

Dear reader,

At the beginning of the University Writing Program (UWP), each

individual student was given learning outcomes that had to be met by the
end of the quarter and not only have I met every single one of these
outcomes, but I have come to excel in them. These learning outcomes that I
need to demonstrate consist of: rhetorical knowledge, processes, and
knowledge of conventions, research, and metacognition. During the course,
we were given a reading named Literacy Is Not Just Words Anymore by
Pavel Zemliansky where it described the world as being a visual place. It
stated that we the people are surrounded by visuals with meanings and being
part of this world; we have to understand how to read all type of visuals. In
addition, we were given one multimodal assignment, meaning it had to
consist something other than just text. While taking on this assignment, it
made me expand my horizons by trying to think of ways to construct a piece
of writing in a creative manner and ignore the more traditional way. In my
portfolio, I decided to incorporate my piece of writing surrounded by images
in order to create a visual. The course consisted of three writing projects
where I had to compose a total of three drafts, a rough draft, revised draft,
and a final draft for the end of the quarter. Creating these pieces of writing
became a process because there was a lot of editing involved while trying to
perfect the paper. Adding on, for each of these three writing assignments,
they each had to be reviewed by at least two other bodies in order to receive
feedback and vise versa, I also had to give feedback to my colleagues. My
feedback had to be constructive, meaning I had to give suggestions on how
the writing could improve. Giving feedback has guided my writing without
even realizing it, by looking over my colleagues writings, I developed a
skill of giving constructive feedback that I could now incorporate in my own
papers such as the final drafts of my papers. Discourse community is
vaguely a group of people who have the same goals and communicate in
order to accomplish those goals. In my portfolio, specifically in my research
paper, I discuss discourse community within my own community. I describe
how while the natural disaster was happening, everyone had the same goals,
for all of it to end and ease the pain for those directly affected. The
community communicated these goals by spreading out many positive
messages around the city so people could hang on to hope. That is how they
used discourse in the community. One of the term papers assigned consisted
of doing research, where I formulated a question and then supported it by
undertaking primary research and secondary research. The method I used for
creating my primary research was through a survey poll on social media
(twitter) and by conducting an interview. I shared my question on social
media twice, the first time for 1 hour and the second time for 24 hours with
the addition of comments. The way I conducted my interview was through
someone who had a strong relation with the research question I shared,
where I asked her questions about her experience, mood, and reaction to the
situation. Now that Ive proven that I could perform primary research, my
approach with secondary research was slightly different, I reviewed a few
articles, which I included in my paper and shared the ideas of others in order
to support my statements. At the beginning of the course, I described myself
as an average reader. I did not have a plan for reading, the way I approached
it as dead on reading word for word even if a single piece of information
wasnt grasped while reading. I would read the same passage over and over
again and nothing, or I would be reading and all of a sudden realize I was
thinking of something else while doing so. Throughout the course I was
introduced to a concept, which, was read smarter, not harder, and because
of this I have noticed myself becoming a strong reader. The reason I chose to
include these particular drafts is because they tell my story. In every single
addition to this portfolio, there will be part of my truth and experiences. As
an individual, it is satisfying to know that there are people out there that
know my story and it will not go unrecognized. Some of the further
revisions I would make in my portfolio would be in my pieces of writing,
specifically because I feel as if I wrote it in a particular way where I
understand the story and I simply want it to be clear enough for my audience
to understand the message behind it and what I am trying to get across. Even
though it may be finished there is always room for improvement. At the
start of the quarter, I believe I walked into this class with below average
reading and writing skills, but as the end of the quarter approaches, I would
describe myself as being above average. I have noticed a complete
improvement throughout the course of this class, every assignment, as little
as it may have seemed at the time, played a huge role in my development. If
we take a closer look into some reading and writing assignments I took on in
the class, I can conclude the effectiveness it had on me. I had three essay
assignments, each one of them held a topic that I could call my own; we had
the freedom to approach it however we desired. Also, one of these writing
assignments was required to be multimodal, which was something different I
had been introduced to. Doing something like this created an opportunity to
think outside of the box and be creative with my writing. When it came to
reading, I was fairly surprised. My initial thought was, "great, we have to do
a bunch of unnecessary reading throughout the quarter," but I was
completely wrong. These readings were in fact necessary and provided me
with knowledge on how to approach pieces of texts; for example, smart
reading over hard reading. All these factors will come into play even when I
step outside of this classroom, I will continue to practice them in the future
as I proceed my educational/professional career and also when a demand is
present throughout my life.

Sincerely,

Luis Ochoa Martinez