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Ellie Deaver
9 December 2015
UWRT 1103
Ms. Ingram
My Journey Through UWRT 1103
At the beginning of this class, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It was the
required freshman English course that I just had to pass. True learning was not going to be
necessary. While that would have been fine, I would have done the assignments and gotten my
grades back and been satisfied, that is not what happened. I have learned not only about the
writing process and what it takes to be a good writer, but more about myself and who I am as
a person. I have learned who I am as a writer: my strengths, weaknesses, style, and voice.
Organization
At the mention of creating an E-Portfolio, the first thing that came to mind was the
organization of it. With already having some background knowledge when dealing with
websites, I was excited about the process of designing one. Over the course of the semester I
became very specific about the arrangement and simplicity of my site, editing it slightly
everyday. Using the spatial mode of communication, I placed pictures neatly making sure to give
a clear proximity between any visuals and pieces of writing. I decided to change the header
image for each individual page to photos I found personally appealing, this would add to the
visual mode of communication. My favorite page on my portfolio is my home page. At the top in
a large font, I placed the quote be the energy you want to attract. This is a saying I have tried to
live by this past year: to have a positive mind-set will only attract positive energy into your life. I
also incorporated two photos that represent myself, along with some with some insight about my

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life to help my viewers grasp an understanding of who I am. I attempted to make the home page
very visually appealing in order to keep potential viewers interested.
I chose to organize my E-Portfolio based on the major assignments in the class: the
Final Portfolio Essay (FPE), my blog, the Exploratory Essay, the Midterm, and the Inquiry
Project. All of these pieces of work challenged me in different ways. The five compositions each
allowed me to learn something new about myself and my style as a writer, therefore it made
sense to arrange each one under there own tabs. I placed the Final Portfolio Essay page adjacent
to my home page so that my readers can clearly find and use it as a guide to navigate through my
E-Portfolio. Along with the organization, I used a progression style to present the process of
some of my writing. For example, under Exploratory Essay, I placed my first draft of the paper at
the top of the page. Next I included a process work artifact that helped me add more depth to my
essay, followed by my second draft, then focus questions that were used to help my peers and I
with our writing, teacher and group members feedback, and finally my polished essay. Through
this chronologic style format my viewers can clearly see how I engaged with the composing
process, along with the effort and revision I put into my pieces of work.
Blog
When Ms. Ingram explained that we were going to be creating a blog, I thought to my
self, Ive never even read a blog, how am I supposed to write one? And at the beginning of this
class I realized that to be true, as I always found myself staring at the given prompts for each
specific post with a not a clue where to start. I feared that I was not doing it right but I quickly
realized there is no right way to blog. Blogs allow writers to be free in their content, layout,
and style. My blog consists of weekly assignments that allowed me to state my opinions,
questions or ideas. It also helped me organize and review my writing throughout the semester

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and introduced me to the reflecting process. The first reflecting we did within our blog was on
post two. We were asked to respond to certain questions such as, Take some time to practice
thinking rhetorically by looking at your Exploratory Essay. In Addition to Fulfilling the
Assignment, what was the purpose of YOUR exploratory essay? Reflecting on my draft, I
explained how
The main goal of my exploratory essay is to not only inform those of the unnecessary batter of
animals but to persuade those reading it to take a stand with me. I want to convey a message that
stands out in the readers mine and shines a light on the corruption of public handling of wild
animals.

I also reflected on my experience with small group peer work shopping in post four, including a
list of Dos and Donts of peer editing that our class came up with. I used this as one of my
wildcard artifacts because I constantly found myself referring back to these techniques when
workshopping through out the semester.
Along with reflecting on my work, my blog allowed me to organize and develop ideas,
especially in regards to my inquiry project. My post three really had me engaging with topics I
might want to expand on, and had me asking questions such as How would our society be
different if social media such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook didnt exist? and What are the
negative and positive effects of becoming a vegetarian? Even though I ended up not writing
about either of these topics, this blog post helped me grasp an understanding about what I found
interesting and could potentially form into an inquiry project. Blogging my way through UWRT
1103 has been challenging at times, but in the long run I know each post was only setting me up
for success in the class.

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Exploratory Essay
The exploratory essay was our first large assignment in the class, and it was a great
starting point. This essay taught me a lot about myself and helped me realize what exactly
defines me. As a prompt we were given a white sheet of paper with the words What are you so
passionate about you cannot ignore, written on it. The first thing that flooded my mind was
animals, but more specifically the harsh treatment of wild animals in the circus. On this page you
can find my first, which I labeled a process work artifact. This draft was a simple five-paragraph
essay, with little flare. Knowing I could add so much more, but not knowing where to start
frustrated me.
During the next class, we did an activity where Ms. Ingram told everyone to close our
eyes and recall a memory associated with our passion. In seconds, the one moment or a few
moments vividly came into my head, and I put them on paper. Another large part of this second
draft was dialogue and sensory detail. Ms. Ingram was challenging us to create these very real
scenes so our stories could be felt clearly. I struggled with this at first, but I eventually got there,
creating a detailed scene, that my viewers can visualize when reading my paper.
I can remember the smell of popcorn and cotton candy filling my nose as a man yelled from the
stands, Popcorn, popcorn, who wants some popcorn. Laughing hysterically at the miscues of
clowns falling off of their unicycles and the sheer beauty of the exotic animals incorporate some
of my fondest childhood memories.

To thoroughly commit to this activity I had to engage with the key concept of making
connections. I was able to use this personal memory to connect to my passion to give in depth
detail to my essay. This activity is labeled as a process work artifact because it contributed to the
brainstorming and drafting of my exploratory essay. I also included my second draft as a process
work artifact, because it illustrates my writing process and efforts at revision.

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One of the next classes we were told we were going to be engaging in small group peer
workshopping. The thought of others judging my writing made me cringe. During the workshops
I engaged with the key concept of getting out of your comfort zone. Before this class I struggled
with comfortably reading my work out loud. The workshops forced me out of my comfort zone
and in the long run helped each of my pieces of work tremendously.
On my Exploratory Essay tab you can find two feedback artifacts, one being focus
questions we were encouraged to use while giving responses to each others draft. The other
being physical comments that both Ms. Ingram and my peers wrote on my second draft. All of
the feedback I receive helped me improve my writing greatly. I was given comments such as
include more you in this section, and to create a better transition from paragraph to
paragraph. Work shopping through my peers and from Ms. Ingram gave me a stronger idea of
how to enhance my paper, compared to how I might edit my essay on my own.
My exploratory essay is a piece of work I am extremely proud of. In the beginning I had
small amounts of my voice woven into it, this is an area my peers told me to work on. In my
final draft I really wanted to bring out my true passion for the rights of wild animals. It is a
worldwide issue I have followed as I have grown up, and now that I have the skills to voice my
thoughts there is no stopping me.
As long as I am breathing, I will use my passion for animals as fuel to help, to the best of my
ability, to remove wild animals from these torturous industries. There is no validation as to why
they should continue to be exposed to maltreatment and theatrical performances that satisfy the
longings of the public.

Through the stages of drafting, reviewing, collaborating, rewriting, rereading, and editing, I was
able to convey my passion for animals in a well-written manner.

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Midterm
In most classes, a midterm would consist of some kind of written test. With this classs
sole focus on writing, I wasnt surprised to learn our midterm would be reflection-based work.
Ms. Ingram asked us to look back on the ten key concepts and analyze those we engaged with
the most and those we struggled to connect with. At first I had to actually go find the ten key
concepts on Ms. Ingrams syllabus, not having paid attention to them through the beginning of
the class. As I wrote my midterm I had to learn each one and really ask myself how well I had
been using them within my writing, as well as discovering which concepts I lacked skill in.
Ms. Ingram did ask me to revise my midterm, wanting to see me quote more from my
own work and elaborate deeper on some of the key concepts. Going back and rereading the first
midterm I submitted I understood what she wanted. Through revising this work and pulling more
quotes from the pieces I had completed and then relating them to key concepts I was able to see
my growth since the beginning of the semester. This style of writing (quoting from your own
work) would also be practice for writing this paper.
Inquiry Project
Some of my favorite works I have written in my past have been traditional research
papers. I have always enjoyed selecting an interesting topic and discovering information I never
knew. For my topic I chose to research health effects of genetically modified organisms, only
having some prior knowledge I had to take responsibility for my own learning. I had to learn
more about genetically modified organisms in order to persuasively make an argument and take
ownership of my understanding of this topic. Never creating a three-column note bibliography
before, the sound of one made me squirm. At first I found it tedious and way too time
consuming, but as I gained more knowledge on my topic it became clear how useful this

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bibliography would be. It helped me organize the information better and showed me how all of
my sources compared and contrasted, something I would never really think to do. In one of the
connection columns I stated, This source connects with other articles Ive read emphasizing
how once we find out the actual long term health effect of GMOs it might be too late for those
effected. While other sources discussed different information surround the topic of GMOs,
such as, This article is different from other others because it helped me gain insight to
countries outside the U.S. and their outlook on genetically modified organisms. Connecting my
sources allowed me to determine the important information from the information I could leave
out as I continued with my inquiry project.
For a wildcard artifact I selected the response Ms. Ingram gave to me regarding my
bibliography, this was helpful to be because it let me know that I was on the right track. There
were many exercises and warm-ups we did that helped me gain a better grasp on the direction I
wanted to go with this project. To show these off, I included my fifth blog post as a process work
artifact on this page, as well as a writers notebook artifact, finding both very important to my
writing process for the Inquiry project. These artifacts helped me focus on groups that are
involved with my inquiry question, my thesis statement, and who my target audience could
potentially be.
Instead of writing a traditional research paper, I chose the path of a multi-genre project. I
saw that creating a PowerPoint and a brochure could be extremely effective when attempting to
reach my target audience. The PowerPoint I constructed contains images of rats that were fed
genetically modified corn, and the large tumors they developed weeks later; along with cows
affected by a similar chemical (rBGH). By showing the disturbing results of GMO consumption
as well as the inhumane treatment of animals, I will be able to target my audiences emotions,

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and appeal to their pathos. In order to adhere my viewer logos, I included information regarding
the potential health risks of GMOs, which provided reason and evidence to support my
argument. Accompanying my PowerPoint is a brochure. In this pamphlet I give tips for living a
GMO free lifestyle. With these two genres, people can both absorb information pertaining to
genetically modified organisms and have ways to decrease them in their everyday diet.
What Grade?
I believe I have earned an A in UWRT 1103. At the beginning of the class, I told myself I
would be satisfied with getting a B, but reflecting back on all of the hard work I have put into
each piece of writing, getting less than an A would feel upsetting. Through out this class I have
learned so much about who I am as a writer and finding my voice. Writing has never come
naturally to me, but since in this class all I was forced to do was write, I had no where to go but
improve (hopefully). Whether it was engaging in small group peer workshopping, editing my eportfolio, or just working on my own time, the amount of effort I put into this class has actually
surprised me. The feedback I gained from Ms. Ingram and my peers was so useful that it allowed
me to compose my writing to the best of ability. I also learned a lot of new material such as the
modes of communication and the key concepts. Using what I have learned over the course of the
semester I was able to organize, design, and polish a website full of my personal work. This
website is something I am very proud of, as I continue to annoyingly show it off to my friends
and family. Based on all the time I have spent working on blog posts, essays, and my e-portfolio
I thoroughly believe I deserve an A in UWRT 1103.