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Analicia Ronquillo
Instructor Maya Alapin
English 220.010
Reflective Letter
Going Forward, Looking Back
In this English course, we explored different readings and ideas about education. After
completing English courses where it was expected to compose structured essays, I really had to
put my thinking cap on in order to compose and present my ideas and interpretations through
various mediums. The first project was to write an essay along with a multimodal presentation on
our interpretation of Platos Allegory of the Cave. Project 2 was to create a blog agreeing or
disagreeing with one of Bill Clintons Big Ideas that were presented to us. The final assignment
was to present our own education manifesto by exploring different forms of multimodal tools. In
this class I was introduced to new forms of media. Not only was this engaging but it really
stressed how important a sound rhetorical argument using different genres and mediums can
enhance the content you are presenting. Throughout the course we were expected to reflect on
our project using every outcome. This has given me a better understanding of the Student
Learning Outcomes and how to apply them to different genres.
The first learning outcome I achieved this semester was to Analyze Rhetorical Situations,
which is: Students will analyze the subject, purpose, audience, and constraints that influence and
determine what kind of document (genre) they will write. Once understanding the rhetorical
situation one can further continue the process of determining what kind of genre to write. In
project one is when I felt I really had to analyze a rhetorical situation. After reading the Allegory
I had to determine what my interpretation was to then be able to present it to my audience. My
paper was about the warnings Plato gives his readers and how we have the power to be
enlightened on our own journey. The audience I chose was college students, because this is the
age range where students are influenced the most. I made a creative poster that had the same
representation of the cave image, but I filled the cave with words I felt holds college students
back from receiving their own education. Before I even thought about my creative poster I had to
determine my subject, audience, and purpose, and the comparison of the two caves can be seen
under project 1 on my website.
The second learning outcome I achieved was being able to Find and Evaluate Information,
which means: Students will develop research strategies for their rhetorical situation, and then
gather information from primary and secondary sources; they will evaluate the sources for
quality, validity, and appropriateness for the rhetorical situation. Choosing the appropriate
sources to reference in a document gives the content credibility, which then strengthens the
claim. I felt most confident reaching this outcome in project 2. After deciding my point of view
of Mr. Clinton's idea, is when I decided to research sources. I agreed with him, therefore, I used
sources that supported his argument. The first link I chose was the official No Child Left Behind
home page, which made additional information to the audience available. The second link I
chose was to the official National Assessment of Educational Progress website that also gives
more information about NAEP. The third link is probably my favorite because it gives the pros
and cons of standardized testing and it also provides short clips of those that support and disagree
with NCLB. These links along with my sources I felt gave the most credibility, and also gave
sense to the reader that I knew enough about the subject to try to sway them. The clip of Mr.
Clintons interview is considered a primary source because this is the original source of him
speaking and the rest of the sources are secondary. Throughout this whole semester I first used
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Zimmerman Librarys academic journals, because I felt those were more reliable and I used
search engines for more opinionated sources.
The third learning outcome I achieved was to Compose Documents, which is: Students
will develop strategies for generating content, organizing it into a logical structure, and
otherwise shaping it to address the needs of their audience within particular disciplines. In other
words, composing coherent documents is having the ability to generate content that addresses the
audience in a way that is understandable. I always have trouble forming a thesis, so as ideas
popped in my head I wrote them down along with quotes that helped support my ideas from my
sources. I then read over my paper to see if there was a common theme or message, which then
helped my form my thesis. In class I have always been taught that you create a thesis first, and
build off of that, but this is the strategy that worked best for me in composing and organizing the
content for my document. After reading over chapter 19 in Writing Today about introductions, I
compared my introduction paragraph to the examples given. The grabbers I used that were
specified was, using a quotation, a scene setter, and addressing the readers as "you." I identified
myself with the audience as "we," and compare "us" to the prisoners, that I set as my scene in the
cave. My intention was to paint a picture for the audience and compare them to the prisoners, in
order to get the purpose across. These examples of addressing the needs of the audience can be
seen in my introductory paragraph of my essay in project 1.
The fourth learning outcome that I achieved this semester was Present Documents, which
is: Students will edit and revise their writing to provide clear meaning and coherent structure;
they will use effective document and paragraph structure, documentation and genre conventions,
and document design to create a rhetorically complete presentation. Presenting documents is
important because the presentation is what ties the overall project together. It is what is appealing
to the eye of the audience and what flows well. When first reflecting on these outcomes I felt that
Composing Documents and this outcome were very similar, so I applied Composing documents
to the content and presenting documents to the layout hence presenting documents. I thought I
best achieved this outcome in project 2. Since I knew right off the bat my opinion about Bill
Clinton's idea, it made the process easier. When I received my peer review, he felt that my
paragraph structure was confusing, but I disagreed. Personally, I thought it flowed better
summarizing Clinton's points, discussing NCLB, then other alternatives, then my perspective and
how I felt about both systems, and how I would change them. I felt that if I arranged the
paragraph structure to start with my opinion, the reader would be confused as to what I was
referring to. I feel the way I presented my content was in a logical structure that is easy to
comprehend. Also in my project 1 feedback, I was told to use headings and sub headings, which
was really helpful in this project. I shaped my content to identify myself with my audience, how
"we" need to take Mr. Clintons advice to better our society as a whole, which you can see in the
conclusion paragraph of my blog. The website overall I feel is an example of this outcome,
because it is a presentation of what I learned throughout the whole class, the only thing that I
disagree with is you cannot see the improvements made like you would handing in a outline,
rough draft, and final copy. In life though you do not do this therefore, this outcome just shows
how important presenting documents really is.
Looking back on this semester I have progressed far more then what I expected of
myself. On the first day it was hard to grasp that we would be able to achieve all of the student
learning outcomes, but now I feel confident that I can go forward using what I learned from this
semester and apply it to not only my future classes, but to life in general.