While compiling this exit portfolio I have learned a lot about myself as a writer and a student. Since I am a transfer student I have a couple of writing samples from different disciplines, and the different types of assignments has allowed me to find my strengths and weaknesses. I have mainly found my niche as a rhetorical writer through my experiences at Georgia State University. For my seven works I will order them in chronological order from my time at Young Harris College to Georgia State University to show how I have changed as a writer.
My first work, and my oldest artifact, is Expressions of American Modernists. I wrote this essay while at Young Harris in the spring of 2010 in my American Literature class when I was an English major. In being my first work it is clearly my worst and through my rereading I have found so many things that should be changed. For one thing it doesn’t have a thesis. It does have an interesting theme, but there can’t be an argument or any sense within the essay without a thesis. After the first sentence the audience, who at the time were my classmates and professor, would be left confused as to my meaning behind the work. The assignment was to show my understanding of American poetry of the Modernist Movement; a section of the course that we were reviewing at the time. From this assignment I did learn about the techniques employed by the authors to show the modernist aesthetic. From rereading this work I have learned that I should not try to pack too many ideas into a small paper, for each of these ideas haven’t had enough explanation to be fully flushed out.
My next artifact that I have named How Much Is Too Much, was written while I was studying Communication at Kennesaw State University in the spring of 2012. This work is very different from my other works because this was a journalism assignment where I was to obverse my subject and portray them through the writing. It was meant to help me understand that the people within journalist stories were as much a characters as those within fiction, and I must pay attention to the details of what is fully happening in order write a good story for readers. From this exercise I gained the knowledge that the story is within the details. My audience was the students of KSU campus, because I was aiming to shed light onto the topic of depression on the campus. One thing I would change is the transition from storytelling to being informative within this work. It sounds like a transition used on Dateline between the story and a commercial.
From shedding-light-on-to, and the fact that this is chronological, leads me to my next artifact called, Between Us and the Night Sky. This paper was a compilation of research on the topic of light pollution for my spring 2012 environmental writing class. This was a really fun paper because I was able to compile my own research and interview both professors and leaders within the field itself; finally a step away from my journalistic writings and more active research. I wrote this essay for the general audience because my aim was to make this information, that isn’t really thought about, better understood. Granted now I understand that aiming for a wider audience would result in changing how I wrote this information. I would rewrite this for a blog or a forum on a public website in shorter, scan-able ways, and not as a research paper. This compilation of information could be used for a presentation on the topic to create change because it has additional information about exchanges in behaviors that can be easily accomplished. However, this paper would never reach its intended audience in this state.
After taking a year off from my education I transferred to Georgia State University in the spring (note my running theme of spring time) of 2014 where I took a Medieval Literature class and my final paper was, Evolution of the Folk-tale Plot: Analysis of Beowulf and Piers Plowman. This essay was another research paper that I felt was written in a much better format than my previous research paper. There are a few changes I would make within the word choices I made which is namely this statement, “The name “folk-tale” when broken down really [literally] mean[s] a tale for the folk.” Even in the most basic of sentences I have to pay attention to the structure of the sentence in order to convey my meaning without confusing the readers. One critic that I most likely will receive from this paper this the breaking up of the comparisons between these two folk-tales, but I much rather the format I used stylistically because it makes the paper easier to read in an eight and a half by eleven format.
My most favorite paper to write was, “Bass” to “Buns”: How Music Videos Affect the Feminist Movement which I wrote when I was in Intro to Rhetoric and Advanced Composition in spring 2014. I believe that I took to this paper more because of the subject matter of feminism and pop culture. I took ahold of this topic and expanded upon the assignment requirements so that I could also use this paper as my writing sample for graduate applications. Since I have been working so hard on this topic personally I plan to make revisions. I plan on the audience to be other researchers of this topic and hope to have it published in a pop culture journal after it has had a lot of polishing. One thing I would like to reevaluate is the terminology used by Trainor within the context of the “Skinny Bitch” and compare it to Minaj’s use of the same term. Then I want to reestablish the connection between the false feminine body empowerment as a passing fad to the demeaning of women as shown in the “Literally I Can’t” video.
Next up, I have my Soundscape Response from my Senior Seminar from which I have been learning how to perform rhetorical responses through the use of soundscapes. This writing is, again, from a spring semester 2015. This has been a great recurring instruction of paying attention to more than what is going on in front of you. From this assignment I was able to realize that something as simple as sounds can create both a story and responses within the listeners. It also reminded me that my reaction isn’t the reaction of those around me when they are hearing the same soundscape. This assignment gave me a healthy dose of the differences between people and the importance of the audience within the writing process.
My most recent work is my final artifact named: A Letter through Poetry: A Close Reading of “To Wordsworth.” This was also written in the spring semester and it was written for a literary audience. Though it was a literary class and audience, I feel that the use of language is still within the context of rhetorical understanding of the work. I am still waiting on getting this paper back from the professor to tell me if there are any contextual problems within my work. I really do rely on professors to be critical of my writing in order for me to produce better work. I really appreciate that GSU professors are so critical in reviewing their student’s work because it offers me an opportunity to improve my work currently and to have something to pay attention to later on.
My writing has changed over the years to take more information into account than just writing down what I expect the teacher wants to hear. Over the years, I have come to understand that I must write for my peers for it is us who are going to make the changes if there is one to be made. For this reason I have to also take into account how to write for these audiences and how to best reach them on both an accessible and a personal level. My ideas on what constitutes “good writing” has also changed because I have been made aware through my rhetorical classes that everyone is trying to use rhetoric in some shape or form. From this I have learned to be more critical observer of what is being communicated to me and for what purpose.
Overall what I have learned as a writer and researcher is to take my time and to allow the message I want to convey to create the framework to work off. To structure my arguments per the evidence if you will. By determining my audience I will better be able to focus my work in order to establish a thesis and argument. Through my work within Practical Grammar I have also learned, most importantly, to take my time with my words and understand how they are used in order to convey my meaning. Rhetoric can be twisted with the simple change of a letter within the English language and words themselves should be regarded with respect before typing them onto a page.
