Portfolio
Course learning objectives:
This class had to help me:
-Explore and analyze, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations.
-Develop strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing.
-Recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations.
-Engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes.
-Understand and use print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences.
-Locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazine and newspaper articles) in the library’s databases or archives and on the Internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias.
-Compose texts that integrate your stance with appropriate sources using strategies such as summary, critical analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and argumentation.
-Practice systematic application of citation conventions.
Personally, I feel I had most of this Personally, I feel I had most of these objectives, but I can say for sure I have broadened them, and from the empty words that professors in high school say, I actually understood something of them. The most important thing in my essays that I developed in this class was the ability to locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazine articles, and newspaper articles) in the library’s databases or archives and on the Internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias. I started researching more information for essay topics and got to know a lot of things, increasing my knowledge, but I feel everyone was important for me.
Paper 1 Reflection
That was the first and hardest thing to get done in this semester for me. I had no idea what to write about. I’ve been thinking about this topic for a couple weeks, time was getting shorter, and I had nothing, many drafts that I threw out to the bin. Two days before the final draft deadline, I realized that the topic had been near me for the whole time. Because I live with my brother and his husband, who are a homosexual couple, I started to write about my tolerance. I realized that I’d been born into a family full of love and tolerance. Until some time, I didn’t know about homophobia. When I realized such a behavior that I saw to my friend, “who looked like a gay,” and been offended. That behavior couldn’t fit in my mind, why do other people do it? Why people are aggressive to each other, especially offending everyone “different” who has different sexual preferences? Hate other people because of what they love or are interested in. Of course, it wasn’t the only topic I mentioned in my assignment, also every races are being discriminated by others. Asian people are also under critic, especially after Covid pandemic. There was a huge hate because, some people thought pandemic is caused by them. Also sexism is such as thing I’ve mentioned, it happens in many countries that’s normal thing that women’s are compared to worthless things that should be under control, they don’t have right to vote in some countries or are earning less money then men do, also they ain’t employed so eagerly. When I was a kid that behavior was unimaginable for me. Now when I’m an adult white, straight man I can see it and even feel it every day. It’s really sad how people can hate other people and how destroying it is.
Paper 2 Reflection
In this assignment, I haven’t met all the requirements, and I am not happy at all with this assignment. That is why I wrote it again in the next part of this assignment.
I wrote it about the Women’s Suffrage Movement- for the beginning, we have to go back in history to October 28th, 1886, when President Grover Cleveland took the stage on Liberty Island, New York. He dedicated the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France representing freedom and democracy. But suddenly, women’s rights leader Lillie Devereux Blake and 200 other women sail by on a boat. They/re golding a sign that reads “American women have no liberty.”. At this time, women in the USA didn’t have many rights, and they haven’t had it since the first settlers arrived. That time: women were not encouraged to attend college (there were few women’s colleges to begin with). Women were expected to marry and care for their children, husbands, and households. Once women married, they were entirely dependent on their husbands. Women couldn’t own property, and they had to give any money they made over to their husbands to manage them. Women weren’t allowed to vote. By the mid -1800s women started to fight back, demanding suffrage, or the right to vote. Today, women around the world continue to be inspiration for other women in other countries to fight for their rights. It’s sad that in 21 century not all of people have liberty. In my opinion that movements are necessary and should be promulgated.
Paper 3 Reflection
That’s an assignment that I spent the most time with. I’ve been working on it for almost a week, every day for a couple of hours, and I’m most proud of that one. In this assignment, I chose the topic “Do advertisements, movies, and television shows have an impact on people, and if so, how much?”. I mentioned that in my opinion, TV shows, movies, and commercials have a huge influence on our lives. Many people don’t even realize how powerful those devices are and how they’re changing our lives every day. Every series that we watch has an influence on our personality. Every commercial makes us buy something. We want to be bigger, better, and completely different from who we are. As a first example, I used a video that I watched in one of the first classes “Happiness”- Steve Cutts. Personally, after watching this video in my English class, I realized how this rush is killing many people with its toxicity. We are enjoying monotony, and it can lead us to a boring, unhappy life when we’re triggered to eat, work, and sleep, ignoring other factors of enjoying our lives. This video opened my eyes and changed my life. I also brought up example with Jeffrey Dahmer and the impact of a movie about him on people. Many of them had been afraid to date for a long time because of psychotic people like Dahmer. Other examples included comedy and its positive impact on our behavior because, as the saying goes, “laughter is healthy.” One example is cartoons; I don’t watch them much anymore, but I used to watch them all the time when I was a kid, and I discussed my thoughts on the impact of cartoons on young minds in this article. To be honest, I’ve enjoyed that assessment the most because I’m most proud of it, and I also enjoyed that topic the most. I incorporated a lot of things from my personal observations, as well as internet research and things I learned in class, into my assessment.
Social Movement Rhetorical Analysis
In my assignment I would like to raise the topic of one of the biggest social movements that happened in New York, bearing in mind Silent Protest Parade. This social move happened on July 28, 1917. In this protest demonstrators marched along Fifth Avenue starting at 57th Street in New York City in silence to protest violence against African-Americans following race riots in East St. Louis, Missouri. The East St. Louis Riots were a series of outbreaks of labor and race-related violence by White Americans who murdered between 39 and 150 African Americans in late May and early July 1917. Another 6,000 black people were left homeless. This incident was a major catalyst for the silent parade. This horrific event drove close to six thousand Blacks from their own burning homes and left lots of people dead. It’s said estimated attendance in this protest is around 10,000 people. That’s a really impressive amount for those years; this amount was possible because of the event organizers: the NAACP,church, magazine “The Crisis” and community leaders to protest violence directed towards African Americans have been popularizing it. But the main person who has been a rhetor of this social movement was James Weldon Johnson, American writer and civil rights activist. Really huge impact had his poem named “Fifty Years” published on January 31, 1913; but I got its second life after the previously mentioned riots. This poem combined with his speeches, had influence on people to go out on the streets and show their discontent in the form of a strike. The main and only audience were African Americans who fought for their rights, because all the organizations agreed that this parade needed to be composed of Black citizens, rather than a racially-mixed gathering. They argued that as the principal victims of the violence, African Americans had a special responsibility to participate in this, the first major public protest of racial violence in U.S. history. This is an example of Burke’s ideas about identification. Relationship between rhetor and audience when one one part identifies with the other; in this example between African mericans. Media coverage of the march helped to counter the dehumanization of black people in the United States. The parade and its coverage helped depict the NAACP as a “well-organized and mannerly group” and also helped increase its visibility both among white and black people alike. Marchers hoped to influence Democratic President Wilson to carry through on his election promises to African American voters to implement anti-lynching legislation and promote Black causes. Four days after the silent parade, black leaders involved in the protest, including Madame C.J. Walker, went to Washington D.C. for a planned appointment with the president. The appointment was not kept, as the group of leaders were told that Wilson had “another appointment. They left their petition for Wilson, which reminded him of African Americans serving in World War I and urged him to prevent riots and lynchings in the future. Wilson did not do so and repudiated his promises. Federal discrimination against African Americans significantly increased under the Wilson administration. After this problem starts to grow, which also means an increase in the popularity of protests and the frequency of their execution.
This protest was the first one of the biggest social movements like that and helped in the emergence of the next, more and more, such as: Harlem Race Riot in 1964 with African Americans in New York, but also for other groups people e.g. LGBTQ+, who also protested for their right as a customers in 1969, named Stonewall Riots.
Why this one?
I decided to write it again because of the grade that didn’t’t satisfied me. At the beginning, I was in shock because of the grade, and then I realized that I hadn’t met many of the requirements of this assignment. So I had to revise it. Unfortunately, the first draft wasn’t as good as it should have been. Anyway, in my opinion, this subject of women’s suffrage is really important. That was really important for me to choose another topic as important as the previous one, and I didn’t have to look far. In my opinion, the most important topics are about people’s behaviors toward each other (and also about environmental issues, which I will consider in my future essays if possible). As I often say, “Hate breeds hate,” which means that when we hate someone, whether it is offensive hatred without a reason rather than constructive criticism, it influences other people to have the same behavior toward this person that hates and also other people. That’s how hate and toxicity are born. This has been evident for a very long time, even in my essay, in which I talk about racism and mention the 1917 protests. In my assignments, I try to choose and describe those that are important and interesting to me.
My work this semester.
As the semester comes to a close, I reflect on my journey as a reader and writer. Taking this English course has allowed me to develop and strengthen my skills in both areas, and I am grateful for the opportunity to learn and grow.
One major takeaway from this class was the importance of pre-writing and planning. Prior to this course, I often found myself struggling to organize my thoughts and ideas when writing an essay. However, through the use of brainstorming and outlining techniques, I learned to effectively plan and structure my writing. This not only made the writing process smoother, but it also resulted in clearer and more cohesive essays.
In addition to improving my pre-writing skills, I also gained a deeper understanding of the writing process as a whole. Through various writing assignments, I learned the importance of revising and editing my work. I became more aware of my own writing habits and identified areas where I needed to improve, such as using more varied and specific language or expanding on my supporting evidence. Through the peer review process, I was able to receive valuable feedback and make necessary changes to my writing.
As a reader, I found that this course expanded my analytical skills. Prior to this class, I often struggled with fully understanding and analyzing texts. However, through close reading and discussion, I learned to break down texts and identify their themes, symbols, and overall message. I also gained a greater appreciation for the power of language and how writers craft their words to convey meaning and emotion.
One aspect of this class that I particularly enjoyed was the opportunity to read and discuss a diverse range of texts. From classic literature to contemporary non-fiction, I was exposed to a variety of genres and authors. This not only broadened my literary knowledge, but it also allowed me to see the world from different perspectives.
As I look back on my work this semester, I am proud of the progress I have made and the skills I have developed. However, there is always room for growth and improvement. In the future, I would like to further develop my skills in research writing. While I have completed research assignments in the past, I feel that I could benefit from additional practice and guidance in this area. I also want to continue to improve my ability to analyze texts and engage in critical thinking.
Overall, this English course has been a valuable learning experience for me. I am grateful for the opportunity to develop and strengthen my skills as a reader and writer, and I am excited to continue growing and learning in future classes.
