English 1010 Reflection

The final project for English 1010 was to create a portfolio so that colleges can see our

work but also see how we have improved throughout the class. My website has multiple tabs a

few of them are for college classes that I have attended including English 1010. I chose the name

of the other tabs because that was the name of the course I had taken. I chose to give each tab a

simple name so it was easy to navigate. The first tab of the website is tilted home because it is

the start of my website but it also helps give some background information into whom I am

making the website feel more personal.

Next, I have my goals and outcomes, taking college classes helped me stay organized and

prepare myself for getting a higher education while in high school. By taking English 1010 I

greatly improved my writing skills. In this class, I also learned how to stay on task and be greatly

organized. On my English 1010 tab, I decided to have my work branch off so it was easier for a

viewer to navigate my work and know exactly what they were looking at. I proceed with these

tabs with my resume to show colleges what I have accomplished while in school. I wanted to

have a tab outside of the classroom to again give the website a sense of feeling personal and give

the viewer a better look into who I am rather than just who I am on paper.

When I first made my website and started to take college courses my focus was just to get

credits and move on but as I approached the fall semester my focus shifted to wanting to get

everything out of the class that I can and experience it. My focus shifted to learning to be better

with my writing and how to communicate my thoughts clearly on paper.

The first assignment that I put on my website was my rhetorical analysis, which was

written in an article on why villains tend to have a foreign accent. Through the article, I was able

to find that shows and movies use accents as a way to subconsciously reinforce a stereotype or a

message of foreigners. Before writing this assignment I had done rhetorical analysis before but
taking what I had learned from the class to make my writing sharper. My paper came out well

and I was able to get my message across without providing too much information for the reader

at once and allow the reader to process the analysis. After reading the article I figured out what

rhetorical devices were used by the author but also what message they were trying to get across.

After deciding these things I was able to start finding evidence of my claims and begin to write.

Since I already had background knowledge with creating a rhetorical analysis I felt that my first

try was well done and didn’t need to be revised. A challenge with this assignment was to not

allow personal beliefs to get in the way of what the article truly stated. My goal with this piece

was to make people think about who villains are and why we portray such characters in a certain

light. After I felt I had reached my goal for this paper it was ready to be published on my

website.

The next assignment that I chose to showcase was my flash narrative, which was one of

the biggest challenges for my writing skills throughout the course. This assignment made me

step out of my comfort zone and write a story that only showcased a little moment in time.

Before this assignment, I usually was only writing essays for reflections or based on research,

which I was used to so switching my gears was a challenge. My goal for this assignment was to

be clear but to also get the emotion I felt while writing it across to the reader. We had started

writing this paper at the beginning of the semester so I knew as time went on I would have to

revise it. When I first started writing I was just trying to get everything on paper and not paying

attention to if certain parts were truly important. At the end of the semester and improving my

skills, I was able to take a look at my flash narrative and revise it. I took out pieces of the paper

but I also added parts to make it clearer and not seem like the story was thrown together and

forced. After some time of figuring out what worked best for my flash narrative, I was finally
ready to publish it, and on my website, I provided both versions of the paper to showcase the

improvement.

The next assignment that I showcased was my annotated bibliography, which was a

resource for my civic engagement project. A challenge with this assignment was condensing an

article to just a paragraph and to write a paragraph explaining why it was helpful to my research.

My goal with this was to not become repetitive and find new sources with different kinds of

information. Before going into this assignment I had a background of already doing an annotated

bibliography but it was as in-depth as this one was. With learning skills of how to get the reader

to believe the information you are giving them and learning to be too concise, I chose to revise

this paper. While revising I added a few more sources to paint a clearer picture of my research

topic which was how trauma can affect relationships. I also revised my introduction and

conclusion paragraphs to fully let the reader know what the paper is about and to make sure they

processed the information.

The last project that I showcased was my civic engagement project which was done on

how past trauma can affect a romantic relationship. Along with a partner we did a PowerPoint to

showcase the different ways trauma can be harmful in relationships and how couples can learn to

cope with these effects. When we first started this project it felt like a PowerPoint would be the

easiest way to get our information across. We approached this project with our knowledge of

rhetorical devices and different ways to get the audience to connect with the information even if

they felt they haven't gone through anything traumatic. In the end, I felt like the PowerPoint had

so much information on each slide that even if the audience tried to understand everything it was

just too much at once so I chose to revise this assignment. Instead of a PowerPoint, I put my

information on a brochure making it clear what information I wanted people to know and have it
stick with them. A challenge with this project was to not be so negative that people disconnected

from the topic but share the reality of what trauma can do. My goal with this project was to get

people to reflect on their lives and think about what causes some of their actions.

In the future, I will take the skills I learned from doing an annotated bibliography to my

future classes and anytime that I need to write a research paper. Finding sources like this and

determining if they were helpful and credible to my claims helped make sure I used the correct

sources and had the right information on my topic. I will also take the skill of going back to my

work and looking at how I can improve it and make it better for the audience. This class helped

further my knowledge from what I learned in previous classes and when looking at past pieces of

work I can see my improvement from just a semester of English 1010.