Marcelus 1

Renel Marcelus Jr.

Dr. Steffen Guenzel

ENC 1102-0M37

April 27, 2021

Self-Assessment

At the start of my second semester here at the University of Central Florida, I didn’t

know what to expect from this 1102 English Composition class. Even after I read the four

learning outcomes on our class syllabus, I was still uncertain of how we would learn the course

material and whether or not I would finish the class being a better writer.

The four outcomes stated in our syllabus:

1. Students will be able to analyze and synthesize complex texts in ways that demonstrate

an understanding of the situated and intertextual nature of writing and research.

2. Students will engage in a recursive, inquiry-based writing and research process that is

meaningful for a specific community.

3. Students will be able to interpret their research findings in order to produce arguments

that matter to specific communities by addressing real-world exigencies.

4. Students will examine their own conceptions of writing and research in response to their

inquiry, reading, and writing throughout the course.

One of the very first things that were taught to us was rhetoric. Now I thought that I knew

all that I needed to know about rhetoric from my 2 years in an IB English class in high school,

but I couldn’t be any more wrong. In the assignment “What is Rhetoric”, we read an essay by

Doug Downs who defines what rhetoric is. By the end of the assignment, I understood rhetoric as

being a “set of principles that explain and predict how people make meaning and interact”, so it’s
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basically a set of human interactions whether that be verbal or nonverbal. Before, in high school,

I only thought of rhetoric as something that can only be conveyed through writing and speech,

not from nonverbal cues. Another thing that we learned was the principle of understanding

argument as a conversation. For this assignment, we had to read an essay by Stuart Greene to

understand how arguments can be understood as conversations, that anybody is allowed to enter

and provide new perspectives with backup or “evidence”. Even though I may not have noticed it

at the time, this was our introduction to how intertextuality works and how we can analyze it.

This is where we begin to understand the “first outcome”, where we are able to analyze and

synthesize complex text.

The next assignment to assist in my understanding of the first outcome was

“Intertextuality”. There we read an essay, by James E. Porter on what intertextuality is. My

understanding of intertextuality is that all texts are intertwined together, being influenced by

past/present texts. I learned that there are two types of intertextuality. The first type being

iterability, where Porter defines it as being “the repeatability of certain textual fragments” from

other texts/writings to make one’s own text stronger. The second type is presupposition, where a

text makes “assumptions” that readers will understand certain context about the text that isn’t

explicitly stated. So as can be seen here intertextuality is very important that I learned in this

class, as it will also be used to help my understanding of the 3 other outcomes.

The final things that I believe helped me to reach the understanding listed in the first

outcome were the assignments about the different modes of argumentation. The first mode of

argumentation that we learned about was the Rogerian Mode of Argumentation. Here we read an

essay by Carl R. Rogers talking about this style of arguing. By the end of the assignment, I

understood the Rogerian Mode of Argumentation as being a style where we listen to an opposing
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viewpoint and understanding their side of the argument, whatever it may be. The second mode of

argumentation that we learned was the Toulmin Mode of Argumentation. In that assignment, I

read an essay that described how this mode of argumentation was made up of six different steps:

the claim, the grounds, the warrants, the backing, the modal qualifiers, and the rebuttal. I learned

how those six ideas can be placed within a text, picture, or even an ad. So after learning these

concepts, I believed that this is where I gained a good grasp of the first outcome. As a writer, I

feel as though that I’m still new to these concepts, but it’s a better place than where I started off

at the beginning of the semester. The understanding of these concepts also helped me to

understand how to interpret research findings, which is also the third outcome.

Going all the way back to the assignment about “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics”, it

was here that I believe my understanding for how to “engage in a recursive, inquiry-based

writing and research process that is meaningful for a specific community” began, also known as

the “second outcome”. The essay that I read in this assignment was by James Paul Gee. In that

essay, he discussed what discourse communities were. What I understood from that essay was

that discourse communities are how we present, interact and react with each other as human

beings. I also understood the concept of each community having an “identity kit” where people

of that community can recognize certain actions of others. Understanding what “community”

you’re conveying your thoughts to can help to make your rhetoric better, as it did for me. As a

writer, this idea of understanding communities will help me to focus my future writings,

speeches, and conversations on things that are of “concern to the community”.

When we move to the “third outcome”, where we “able to interpret their research

findings in order to produce arguments that matter to specific communities by addressing real-

world exigencies”. We are starting to create our own type of research paper that I believe
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requires an understanding of all four of these outcomes. For this period of our class, we creating

our own research papers that use sources to basically strengthen our arguments and analysis. The

assignment “A Rhetorician’s View: Rhetorical Analysis 1” helped me to gain a grasp of this

outcome. The previous outcomes were undoubtedly needed for me to reach this level of

understanding, but this assignment helped to make my understanding of this outcome even

better. In this assignment, we were told to read “Writing an Analysis of an Argument”, I started

to gain a better understanding of what is how to analyze texts with the utilization of past

concepts learned before this point in the class.

The last and final outcome was the “fourth outcome”. Here we had to “examine [our]

own conceptions of writing and research in response to [our] inquiry, reading, and writing

throughout the course”. I believe this is the point where we begin to do our research paper drafts.

It’s here where we have to make adjustments to our own writing based on what we learned in the

course and through peer reviews. In conclusion, what I learned throughout this class can be

displayed in this e-portfolio. I feel as though I have gained a firm grasp on the first two

outcomes; and although my understanding of the last two outcomes isn’t terrible, I can use some

extra learning to be able to properly execute the two outcomes.