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Summey 1
Kelsey Summey
April 28, 2015
Ms. Ingram
UWRT 1102
FINAL PORTFOLIO ESSAY
Introduction
As you click the wix.com link to enter my e-Portfolio, you
arrive to a black page with a
huge picture as the background. The picture consists of the
National Security Agencys (NSA)
logo with the name of the agency written around it. The logo is
a Bald Eagle with a shield in front
of it. This logo is my immediate way to appeal to my audiences
visual mode of communication.
As you scroll down, youll see a small paragraph that is centered
within the page. Within the
paragraph, I gave a brief description of what my e-Portfolio is
about and encouraged the viewer to
enter it. This small paragraph appeals to my audience through
the linguistic and spatial mode of
communication. The last item on the page appeals to my audience
gesturally. I placed a small
icon that shows a hand clicking on a bullseye. This icon opens
the doors to the remainder of my
e-Portfolio. It leads directly to my Table of Contents page,
which is another way that I appeal to
my audience visually and spatially. Within my Table of Contents
page, I have constructed six
different colored boxes that line the page symmetrically. These
boxes all have different names on
them. For example, I have a Final Portfolio Essay box and a
About Me box. This Table of
Contents page is a great and easy way for my audience to
navigate through my e-Portfolio in an
organized, neat manner.
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Summey 2
Final Portfolio Essay
Starting the writing process for this essay was a lot harder
than it was in UWRT 1101. I
was extremely confused, and I felt that I had no idea where to
start. To get a breath of fresh air, I
decided to create an outline of everything that was to be
included in this essay. This outline can
be referred to as my Process Work Artifact One. This outline was
very simple and
straightforward. I listed out all the headings that will be a
part of the essay, and they mirrored the
tabs in my e-Portfolio. Underneath all of these tabs, placed all
ten of my artifacts so I will
remember when to talk about them. Lastly, under some of my
headings, I listed the main points
that I wanted to hit. This artifact was simply here to give me
some guidance.
Multi Genre Project
The first artifact listed on this page is Process Artifact Two,
which is the start of my
traditional research essay. Before actually starting my multi
genre project, I believed that the most
logical way to present my information would be in the form of a
research paper. Because of this,
I immediately started typing this paper. Thirty minutes into the
paper, I noticed a huge disconnect
between me and the audience. There is no way that Congressmen
and Congresswomen are going
to find and read this research paper; I am only be realistic.
Because I could not take the risk of
having this disconnect, I figured that this paper was not the
best way to present my research to my
audience.
The next artifact on this page is the Writers Notebook Artifact
One, and it is the warm
up that we did on March 19th. During this warm up, I explained
who my audience is and how I
was going to connect to them. I stated, "My audience is the
Supreme Court justices and the
lawmakers of Congress. I plan to connect with them by sending
them both a personal letter,
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Summey 3
which will show that there is an actual concern with this topic.
I will also share a mash up
video with them so they can acknowledge the different
opinions/points of views of the topic.
The next activity that we did on March 19th was Speed Dating. In
this activity, we were to talk to
every member of the class about our audience and how we were to
connect. In the first round of
Speed Dating, I talked to Tim. Tim showed a lot of interest in
my topic and thought my ideas were
good. The one thing that caught my attention was when he said,
The mash up video may be too
time consuming. He was absolutely correct! I could not figure
out how to do it on my computer
and finding all the YouTube videos to go inside of it was a bit
stressful. After being graded and
receiving feedback, Ms. Ingram left me a comment that made me
one hundred percent sure that I
was not going to be doing the mash up video. She said, I wonder
if this genre would appeal to
your much older audience. This is something that I had never
thought about, and Ms. Ingram
was right, my older audience would not get on YouTube and look
at this video. It would not make
sense for them too. I immediately threw this genre out and
looked for other options.
The last artifact on this page is my Process Work Artifact
Three, which is my Multi
Genre Project Outline. In this outline, I laid out what my
project was to consist of: Personal Letter,
Flyer, and the Reflection. I then went through and put some of
the key things that I wanted to
discuss in each of the subcategories. For example, in the
personal letter, I wanted it to be a bit
more formal, and I wanted to introduce myself. The flyer was to
be a bit more casual yet
informative. I was sure to remind myself to mention things such
as the date, time, and place of the
event. Throughout my writing process, I referred back to this
outline on multiple occasions, mainly
to keep myself in check.
Personal Letter
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Summey 4
The layout of my letter page is pretty simple. When opened, the
background of the page
is the same flag that states, Restore the Fourth. This
background appeals consistently throughout
my Multi Genre Project tabs. When the reader scrolls down, they
will see the embedded final draft
of the letter. At first glance, the reader could see highlighted
parts of my final. These highlighted
regions are the result of the feedback Ive received.
The first section of my Multi Genre Project was the letter that
I wrote to the United States
Congress in Washington, DC. I chose this genre over others such
as a newspaper article or a blog
because it allowed me to make a closer connection to my
audience. Congressmen and
Congresswomen would not pay attention to no-name bloggers, and
what if my article never got
published? Theyd never get a chance to hear what I had to say or
notice me whatsoever. The
only option left on my list was the letter. Since theres no way
to connect with and chat with the
government physically, I thought that the letter would be the
best way to reach Congressmen and
Congresswomen. Throughout the letter, I tried to make it as
personal as possible. An example of
this is the very first sentence of my letter, which states, I am
an eighteen year old college student
at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and I am
writing to express my concern with
the NSAs Metadata Program. It allowed them to know exactly who I
am and the sole purpose
behind the letter. Another way I connected to my audience
personally was in the last two sentences
of my letter, which stated, There is no reason we should be
going through this right now. Do
the right thing and make it illegal. My last two sentences lets
Congress know that I am serious
about my concerns and that I am serious about having changes
made.
Under my final draft of my letter, I have created a short
slideshow of the feedback Ive
received from Ms. Ingram and Mackenzie Belton. This represents
my Feedback Artifact One.
The feedback that Ive received consisted of much editing and a
little criticism. There wasnt a lot
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Summey 5
for me to do, mainly because I was sure to be extremely detailed
throughout draft one and draft
two. The biggest flaw that I had to fix was the wording of one
sentence, which explained what
information is gathered from the Metadata Program.
Flyer
The next section of my Multi Genre Project tab is my flyer. When
the reader comes to this
page, theyll see a familiar background, consisting of the,
Restore the Fourth, flag. After
scrolling down, the reader will be able to see the final draft
of my flyer and the feedback that Ive
received.
The reasoning behind creating this flyer was to reach my
audience indirectly. This means
that I wanted to get Congressmen/women to notice this cause
through other people, specifically
other Americans. I also wanted to appeal to my audience in a
very creative way that will catch
eyes while providing reliable information. Shelby agreed with
this purpose, as she said, Great
job! Creative and shows legit issues with great evidence. This
flyer is advertising a march,
entitled M3, and that stands for Metadata Madness March.
Participants would be marching
because they are mad about the metadata program. In this flyer,
I demonstrate visual, spatial, and
linguistic modes. The words I used and the placement of these
words showed that I invested time
into the spatial and linguistic modes of communication. I bolded
some words, colored others, and
changed the font size often. This was to draw the viewers eyes
to certain parts of the flyer,
specifically the most important ones. To demonstrate the visual
mode, I added in multiple pictures.
The picture on the top left is a group of protestors, which
would try to get participants motivated
for this march. The top right picture is of a man holding up a
sign that says, Hands Off My Meta-
Data. The last picture on this flyer is the American Flag, which
shows patriotism. My goal is to
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Summey 6
appeal to viewers pathos by making it seem like this march is
the patriotic thing to do. I also
appealed to the viewers pathos by mentioning things such as,
Protect our 4th Amendment
Before its too late. I also stated, Its Our Duty! Appealing to
the audience ethically was
harder than I thought it was going to be. Because I had to put
information on a flyer, there was
not room for long, in-depth sentences. There was only room for
brief statements, so it was my job
to figure out how to win my audience over with few words. I
believe that I accomplished this
through The Why section of my flyer. In bulleted form, I have
listed reasons why this march is
logically and ethically correct.
The last section of this flyer tab of my Multi Genre Project is
a continuation of my
Feedback Artifact One. Throughout this feedback, I received
great advice from Mackenzie
Belton. She made me think deeper into the purpose of my flyer,
and she made me reconsider the
layout. For example, she stated, Why choice of colors? Explain
in your FPE. She made me
ask myself, why were these colors important? Did they have any
meaning to me before? Do they
interpret something? I contemplated for a long time, but I
eventually found my answer. Another
example of the help she provided was when she gave me advice on
my layout. Mackenzie stated,
Maybe think about bullet points. This was a great idea! Instead
of having long, drawn out
sentences explaining the purpose of the march, I could just use
bullet points. Her feedback was
extremely constructive!
Reflection
Upon arriving to my reflection page, you see the same background
and layout that is
featured in the letter, flyer, and multi genre project pages.
After scrolling down, the viewer will
see the embedded reflection final. At a first glance, some may
think that it looks boring and plain,
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Summey 7
but this is only because of my APA format cover page that was
required. Below the final draft, I
have listed three artifacts that have helped me develop my
reflection.
The purpose of my reflection was to reflect on my whole writing
and thought process of
my multi genre project. It was also my job to conduct a
rhetorical analysis on the entire project. I
had to explain why I chose my two genres, expand on my thesis,
explain how I used the modes of
communication, and explain how these genres appealed to my
audiences logos, ethos, and pathos.
The easiest part of my reflection paper was explaining how I
used the modes of communication.
In the letter, I only used the linguistic mode of communication.
This was a very formal letter, so
there was no room to add in any images or any relatable items.
As for the flyer, I used the spatial
mode, linguistic mode, and visual mode of communication. The
flyer consisted of multiple
pictures and text that are located in separate, differently
colored boxes. The flyer is very appealing
to the eye, and it catches many eyes, mainly because of the
bright colored boxes. The hardest part
of the reflection was trying to figure out how I appealed to my
audiences ethos, pathos, and logos.
For the longest time, I believed that I only appealed to my
audiences pathos and logos. After
receiving feedback, I found that I appealed to my audiences
ethos by being a United States citizen.
As for pathos, I made my audience envision what life would be if
these freedoms were taken away.
Logos was appealed to in my letter, as I explained my concerns
and argued them accordingly. The
reflection of my multi genre project is a great way for my
audience to better understand the
development and thought behind my project in its entirety and
the genres involved.
The first artifact that helped me develop my reflection was my
Process Work Artifact
Four, which was the rough outline for my overall reflection. For
draft one, I created this outline
in hopes of gaining a jump start on my actual writing process.
Its very simple, as I just went
through the multi genre project assignment and answered all of
the rhetorical analysis questions
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Summey 8
one by one. Though it was brief and very broad, it allowed me to
put my ideas down on paper,
and I referred to this outline very often.
My Feedback Artifact One is the next artifact listed on my page.
This is the draft three
of my multi genre project, and I received a lot of great
feedback from Ms. Ingram and Mackenzie
Belton. While reading this draft, I noticed that I had a lot of
grammatical errors that needed to be
fixed, so they were sure to make me aware of them. When talking
about how I used all three of
Aristotles appeals, Ms. Ingram wanted me to think further,
especially on how I appealed to my
audiences ethos. She wrote, Ethos you are also an American
citizen. How else have you
established ethos? After reading this question, I pondered for a
long time on how else I have
established this. Being a citizen led me to connect to my
audience in another way; since we are
both citizens, we share the same rights, freedoms, and
liberties. If I am concerned about having
my liberties taken, then you should too. The last major change I
had to make dealt with my use of
the APA format, and this leads to my last artifact on the
page.
Wild Card Artifact One is pictures of an APA help website that I
consistently referred to
while writing this paper. In the reflection, Ms. Ingram and
Mackenzie pointed out a lot of mistakes
I was making in regards to my APA format. I didnt have a cover
page, my in-text citations were
bad, and my reference page was totally incorrect. I believe that
Mackenzie thought I was writing
in MLA format because she stated, APA? Or MLA? I was really
embarrassed, and I needed
to fix this quickly. With the help of this wild card, I was able
to make all these changes quick and
effectively.
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Summey 9
Visual Bibliography
I have experienced a lot of technical issues with my visual
bibliography page, and its
mainly because of the embed feature on Wix. I embedded my Prezi,
but now it show up, so I had
to make a link directly to the URL site. It may not be a big
deal to most people, but it makes me
pretty mad. Anyway, when the link is clicked, it takes the
reader to my final draft of my visual
bibliography. The reader will see a very colorful Prezi that
includes a lot of information inside of
it. On the right side of my Prezi, I decided to list the title
and the research topic of my project. On
the left side, there is a lot of different colored sticky notes
that are evenly spaced out. This allows
me to appeal to my readers visual and special linguistics.
McKenna agreed with this, as she said,
I liked your layout and colors makes it appealing to read. When
starting this bibliography,
I had a lot of trouble noting and making connections between all
of my articles. Olivia noted this
as well because she asked me, Arent you supposed to include your
thoughts/connections into
this part of the project for each source? To fix this, I created
a Key Terms list under all of
my references so that I would be able to recognize familiar
terms and names. This worked quite
well; there were a lot of names that came up time after time, so
I was also sure to make a large
note of them. The sole purpose of this visual bibliography is
let my reader know where exactly I
got all my facts from in a way that is not boring and bland. I
think that Ive achieved this.
The first artifact that helped me develop my visual bibliography
was my Writers
Notebook Artifact Two. This artifact is a reader response letter
that explains my concerns with
the process of my visual bibliography. At this time, I was very
uneasy about my whole
bibliography. I felt that it was way too broad and that it was
not going to be useful to me in the
long run. I stated in the letter, Ill have to keep looking up
more sources just to support my
project, and thats the last thing I want to do. Ms. Ingram
humbled me and brought me to reality
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Summey 10
by saying, But, often, thats realistic. Youre striving for an
inquiry project, not for a
research report. All your frustration tells me that youre doing
this right. Though I did not
enjoying feeling frustrated with my work, her statement brought
me to ease. Another concern I
posed was that I had no way to connect all of my references
together. This brought me to the idea
of the Key Terms list, and in the long run, it worked quite well
for me. I also mentioned that
because I am going to be a business major, I will be having to
use APA for all of my research;
therefore, I decided that I will start the learning process
through this visual bibliography.
The last artifact that is on my page is my Wild Card Artifact
Two, which happens to be
two YouTube videos. In my visual bibliography, I used these
videos as two separate sources.
After viewing them, I couldnt help but to! The first one is
entitled, I Spy With My Little Eye:
NSA Part 1 by Billy Johnson. In this video, he gave a lot of
informational background of how the
government led up to this metadata program. He also explained
how and why the information was
leaked by Edward Snowden. The second YouTube video is the second
part of the first video, and
it is entitled Meta My Data: NSA Part 2. This video had an
entirely different purpose than the first
one. In this, he explained what all this metadata is and what
the government could find out from
all this information. These videos were very interesting, and I
enjoyed watching them. The sole
reason I decided to use these two video are sources is because
they give my visual bibliography a
slight edge. Most people cite long, boring articles that no one
really wants to read. These videos
were extremely entertaining while they provided a lot of
information. Another pro is that having
multiple peoples opinions of one subject leads to a great,
constructive debate, which is good for
any cause. Throughout this project, I was sure to keep his ideas
and opinions in mind.
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Summey 11
Blog
The blog that I have taken the time to complete is the one
activity that I had to do
consistently throughout the whole class. This blog coincided
with all the other assignments that
Ms. Ingram gave the class. For example, we used blog one as our
way to share a couple of things
that we thought were interesting to us. During this blog, we
dived in to this whole inquiry project,
and we did take a breath of fresh air until we reached blog
nine. In blog one, I talked about the
topics that I thought would be very interesting to research. My
three topics were, What are the
10 most controversial political topics of 2014 2015? Why is
there such a large wage gap in
most careers? Is social media negatively influencing lives and
persuading individuals to give
into illegal/addictive behaviors, such as drugs, alcohol, and
tobacco? I thought these were very
great topics to research, but little did I know that my final
topic had nothing to do with either of
these. Olivia commented on the blog and said, I like that your
inquiry questions are all
different and vary from one another. Id have to agree with you
when you say that your best
idea is to go with your first inquiry question. You will be able
to touch on many different
topics with this question but I would also be sure not to get
too broad in doing your research.
Try to stick to one thing and not become too invested in things
that arent related to your
inquiry question. I totally agreed with her, so I decided to
begin my research on the social media
topic.
After working my way through blog two, I immediately noticed
that this social media topic
was not for me. Ms. Ingram repeatedly told us to choose a topic
that we did not already have an
answer for, and I could answer this question in fifty different
ways. I believed that social media
was negatively affecting our society because of the very
explicit graphics of the sites. For example,
twitter timelines sometimes show videos and photos that show
explicit language, racism, sexism,
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Summey 12
and nudity. Children now have access to these sites, and it is
not a good thing for them to. None
of the research that I discovered challenged my thinking, so I
was extremely bored. I immediately
switched directions and started researching the NSA.
In blogs three through nine, I expressed my passion for the
topic on the NSAs metadata
program. Every single day I conducted research, I was always
sure to find more information about
it that would challenge my side of the argument. The one thing
that I loved about these blogs was
how they helped the writer develop. We wrote blogs on how to
figure out who are audience was,
the purpose of our research project, and the ways we were to
present all this information to our
readers. Our blogs were basically the outline to our whole
project, and they served a great purpose.
They were essential to my learning and development as a
researcher and a writer.
Midterm
In UWRT 1101, I made a table to show my key concepts, and it
appealed to my audiences
visual mode of communication, so I thought that I would do it
again.
Key Concepts Im Engaging With Key Concepts that Challenge Me
1. Critical Thinking 2. Independent Inquiry and Curiosity 3.
Responsibility for Learning
1. Making Connections 2. Providing and Receiving Feedback
In my midterm I stated that the three key concepts that I was
most engaged with are critical
thinking, independent inquiry and curiosity, and responsibility
for learning. As listed in the
midterm, I was great with critical thinking because of the way I
went about choosing my audience.
During class on February 12, 2015, we had to create a
conversation between the people that would
be at a roundtable, talking about my project. I created a very
detailed script that included all the
people in my blog. This required a lot of thinking because I had
to get into the persons shoes,
whether or not I agreed with what they were saying. The next key
concept that I talked about was
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Summey 13
independent inquiry and curiosity. I established this by
changing my research topic due to
boredom. My previous question about social media was already
answered and I had nowhere else
to go with it, so I decided that I wanted to change. This change
demonstrates curiosity because, at
the beginning of this project, I was extremely interested and
ignorant to the facts that were related
to the NSAs metadata program. Overall, I am very happy that I
decided to change my topic. The
last key concept that I mentioned was that I responsible for my
own learning. Just like in UWRT
1101, I felt that I was left alone to figure out how to work
through all these assignments, and in
fact, I was left alone. Ms. Ingram guided the class by give
subtle hints, but she was sure not to do
the work and thinking for us. For example, I had the hardest
time trying to find research that was
actually useful to my project. This was mainly because of the
wording of my topics. Through
trial-and-error, I found a topic question that allowed to me get
the required research.
Now at the end of this semester, I feel that I can create a new
table. This table would look
similar to the table up above but without any challenging
concepts. I thoroughly believe that Ive
mastered all of the key concepts, but because of time, I cannot
go in-depth with all of them.
Therefore, I will only talk about making connections, providing
and receiving feedback, the
writing process and revision, and getting out my comfort
zone.
Key Concepts Im Engaging With Key Concepts that Challenge Me
1. Making Connections 2. Providing and Receiving Feedback 3. The
Writing Process & Revision 4. Getting Out my Comfort Zone 5.
Intellectual Growth & Maturity 6. Multi Modality of
Print/Digital Texts 7. Rhetorical awareness
NONE
With much work, I engaged in the two key concepts that
originally challenged me. As for making
connections, I engaged in this key concept through my visual
bibliography. I decided to create a
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Summey 14
Key Terms list, which allowed me to see how all of my sources
linked together. This was
extremely useful, especially when I began trying to figure out
what sources to use in my reflection.
The next key concept that originally challenged me was providing
and receiving feedback. I can
now say that I have mastered this key concept! At the time of
the midterm, the only feedback we
were providing and receiving was of the visual bibliography.
This did not help me at all, and I
was not sure how to actually give and receive feedback. Now that
we have starting giving and
receiving feedback on actual drafts, I feel that I am engaging a
lot better. After receiving and
providing feedback, I was able to work on my writing process and
revise a lot of my work. I got
a chance to practice this concept by finishing all of my major
assignments. We had to submit
multiple drafts of each, and by the final draft, I felt that I
perfected it, to a certain extent. The last
key concept I would like to talk about is getting out of my
comfort zone. The multi-genre project
allowed me to get out of my comfort zone because my usual
comfort level is the traditional
research paper. I know that Im pretty good at writing papers, so
that would be easy. I wanted to
try something different that would challenge me, and after doing
it, I figured out that I thoroughly
enjoyed it.
An artifact that helped me develop after my midterm was my
Feedback Artifact Two, and
this was feedback that I received from Ms. Ingram after I turned
in my midterm. Through this
feedback, Ms. Ingram told me what my grade was to be if the
class ended at the moment. She
stated that I would have received an A, but I had to go back and
revise my midterm. I did not read
the assignment thoroughly, and I missed the fact that she wanted
me to talk about five different
key concepts. Her other feedback was sure to mention all the
ways that I could engage myself and
help me become better with my key concepts.
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Summey 15
Grade Reflection
Last semester, I completed this course with you, Ms. Ingram, and
I received an A for all of
my work. This semester, I mirrored my efforts to those of last
semester, and I believe that I should
get an A again. During this semester, I was always sure to do
all of my assignments completely
and turn them in on time, with no exceptions. I also applied
myself in all ways possible and used
all of my resources to the full extent. If I had a question, I
made sure that Id ask you so that my
performance in class was better. As for myself, personally, I
engaged in my research, and when I
hit dead ends, I tweaked a few things to get me back on the
right track.
While looking at the grade scale, I also believe that I deserve
an A. The grading scale was
sitting beside me while completing this essay, and I was sure to
mark things off as I went through.
For each artifact, I explained how it helped me develop my major
assignment. As for quoting, I
made sure to quote from at least five other writes and from
myself multiple times. I talked about
the key concepts in my essay, mainly in my midterm section
because I explained how Ive grown
over the past semester. Lastly, I believe that I did not leave
any questions unanswered. I was
beyond sure to provide dubious amounts of information for the
reader to receive.