Welcome to my portfolio, My name is Joseph Lazo Guapisaca and I am an undergraduate student at the City College of New York. This fall semester I took and completed the course of English 11000 taught by professor Crystal Rodwell. The course’s main theme was focused on Media and Identity where the different assignments were based on. The different assignments that I have completed throughout the semester in this course have helped me improve my writing, reading, revising and editing skills and develop new strategies that made these skills grow and improve. The different assignments have also made me spot the different course learning outcomes that address the writing growth.
The first main assignment of the course was a Creative Nonfiction essay where I had to focus on three aspects that made up my identity which for me were personality, hobbies and my ethnic culture and determine media’s impact on these aspects. The feedback from my professor on my first draft I found insightful because it made me see the issues that I would look past in my high school writing. An example of this would be scratching the surface on ideas and lack of analysis instead of digging deep and being clear. In the final version of my CNF essay I made sure that I improved my analysis by going deep into and being clear like with the certain impact media had on my personality, hobbies and ethnic culture and reflect on how they make me who I am today. The part of CLOs that address this growth is practicing key rhetorical terms when engaged in writing situations, more in practicing and improving the analysis and interpretation part of my writing. One artifact that is connected with this assignment is the black board post Encounter with media and this post helped me practice more on elaborating more on my thoughts and analysis like with a media post and analyzing the reaction it makes me have. This growth is addressed by practicing key rhetorical terms when engaged in writing situations by helping me practice my analysis and interpretation skills to which I can apply to my future writing.
The second main assignment of the course was a Exploratory Essay where I had to choose a subject that is part of the course’s main theme of Media and Identity and do some research on the subject. I chose to do research on media’s impact on the personality development of an individual since personality development is part of one’s identity. When writing the best draft of this essay I was mainly focusing on the positive and negative effects media had on the personality of youth people and not really having background information of personality development. My professor’s feedback and peer review on my best draft of my exploratory essay made me realize my mistakes and helped me realize a better way to organize my essay, like basing it on a theory of personality development and the different aspects of personality development and media’s impact then writing it from there. This growth of organizing an essay is addressed by engaging in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes mainly by professor review and peer review since the suggestions helped format my essay better. In the final version of my Exploratory Essay I applied what I learned from my best draft and changed my focus from youth to just individuals and based my essay on a theory. Also had to apply for my first time MLA format to my writing work which includes doing proper MLA citations which I can apply the skill to future essays and classes. This growth is addressed by the practice of systematic application of citation conventions more specifically MLA citations and having me practice on how to properly do them. One artifact that is connected and helped with this assignment is the idea of rhetorical situation and the aspects in it of author, purpose, genre, design, audience, and stance. It helped me practice to spot credible sources to use and make sure my argument was supported by authorities on the subject. This growth of using more rhetorical situation is addressed by the development of reading and revising strategies for sources to see if they are useful and credible to make my writing be supported by authorities.
The third main assignment of the course was a Researched Critical Analysis Essay where I had to narrow down my research focus from that of my Exploratory Essay. I narrowed down my research focus to find media’s impact on the personality development of males and females and worked on my best draft from there. However, my best draft made me realize that the research on this subject was too vague and not many are out there and made me decide it was better to switch my research focus to find media’s impact on the personality development of adolescents which includes boys and girls. This led me to create an outline for my final of the RCA essay which helped me draft out how I was gonna structure my essay with the claims and evidence. This growth of using outlines is addressed by developing draft strategies for writing assignments since its beneficial to see how you are going to format your ideas and arguments and evidence for your essay and see if it makes sense. I also had to do an annotated bibliography where I had to cite my sources, summarize them, and mention which part I’m going to use for support. It helped me analyze texts and eliminate the sources that don’t really support my thesis and claims. This growth is addressed by composing texts that integrate my stance with appropriate sources by writing the certain parts of evidence I’m going to use and eliminating the ones that are not useful. In the final version of my RCA essay I changed my research focus media’s impact on the personality development of adolescents which includes boys and girls and do better revising of sources to make sure they aren’t too vague and checking if there are enough sources out there to use. This essay also made me improve my skill of using rhetorical situation to find proper sources online for my research focus to make it more credible and strong. This growth is addressed by locating research sources on the internet and evaluating them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias by using rhetorical situation to make my research focus and argument more credible and strong. One artifact that is connected with this assignment is the reading assigned by my professor called They Say/I Say Chapter 8 which also contributed to helping me find ways to format my ideas in my body paragraphs better like with “this” statements and transitioning. This growth using readings to my benefit is addressed by recognizing and practicing strategies when engaged in writing situations because it’s made me develop on how to organize and transition my ideas in the body paragraphs properly so my argument makes sense.
The fourth main assignment of the course was a Multimodal Transition where I had to use different genres and formats to show my research focus and findings from my RCA essay. One was already assigned to from my professor where I had to do presentation slides but for my actual MMT I got to freely choose which I decided to do a video where I talked about the positive and negative effects media had on the aspects of the personality development of adolescents. Sadly, I wasn’t able to upload my video to my portfolio since the size of it was too big to show. Due to me not really having the skill to speak whatever comes to mind I felt it was better for me to write a script for my video. This development of mine for drafting and revising is shown by me making a script for my video and looking over if my video is going to be clear and make sense. My MMT video helped me practice to present my research findings in a more of a free way since I got to include myself and personal examples where in essay form you are not supposed to. This growth from my MMT is addressed by the use of digital technologies to address a range of audiences because I was able to do a video where I included myself and add personal examples to have a better connection to my audience of adolescents. For my Presentation slides I had to show the same information from my RCA essay to be presented to my classmates and it improved my skill to keep my research findings clear and simple and not to add too much but keep the presentation intriguing for my classmates. This growth is also addressed by the use of digital technologies to address a range of audiences because I had to switch on how I present my research findings to keep my classmates and keep them intrigued to my presentation slides.
Throughout this course I also completed some Reflections in which I had to reflect on my writing progress throughout the semester and also some of the reflections related to the major assignments. In my Midterm Self-Reflection Essay I had to reflect on my progress in the middle of the semester and it made me spot areas where I made improvements like reversing my work better for lack of analysis but also see I need to work more on organizing my ideas and statements better. This growth is addressed by me developing strategies for revising since it made me see where I made improvements in my writing skills but also see in areas where I still need to work on. There were also the number of Semi-weekly reflections which were normally connected ith the major assignments like week 3 is associated with the Creative Nonfiction essay and week 7 being associated with the Exploratory essay. These weekly prompts helped me stay on track with my different assignments like letting me reflect and edit on my work if I’m missing anything and asking relevant questions. This growth of keeping on track of assignments and also reflecting and editing is addressed by developing strategies for revising and editing by me using the prompts and questions to look over my assignments and see if I am on track and not missing anything.
