RooneyPortfolioFinal

In this course, Foundations of College Writing, we worked primarily on five main objectives provided by the instructor. These goals were ones designed to improve our writing skills and make clearer and well established work. We also had an essential question that was brought into every discussion and piece of work that we did; what does it mean to be educated? To accomplish all of this we worked on three main projects. The first one required us to pick a topic that related to education or the college life and research about it. We then transformed all of our findings into a paper or PowerPoint. For mine I created a PowerPoint about smaller class sizes versus larger lecture halls and how they affect the classroom. I used many findings of my research as well as interviews to complete the project. Our second project connected back to the first one a lot. For this we took most of our findings and created them into different genres. The purpose of this was to focus on specific audiences and how to properly approach them. Lastly, our third project was one that had to do with our personal lives. We reflected on three main events or objects in our life and wrote a paper on how they related and how they all had to do with what it means to be educated.

**Goal A. Students will be able to compose for particular audiences and purposes.**

From the research and findings in our first project, we then were asked to portray that information in specific ways for the second project. These ways were based on certain audiences that were given to us. We had many class discussions on how to properly grab the attention of people such as children, parents, professionals, teenagers, etc. This helped to understand which genres we should choose and what information should be put into that material.

When asked to create something for students I thought a flyer would be the best choice. Because my project focused on college courses, I thought about how in my dorm building there are many flyers throughout the halls informing us on important information or upcoming activities. I grabbed the student’s attention by using a focus of grading on my flyer. By putting an A on the top of the paper like a grade it related to all college students who are trying to pass all of their classes and become successful. After allowing them to notice my flyer, I chose specific details to write in order to not have too many words but still to inform them of the main purpose.

For my professional audience member I chose to write to the president of the university. This worked best with my topic and because he has such a high position I felt that writing a well-informed letter would best get my point across. It comes across as more polite and reasonable rather than another flyer or something like a brochure. Also my purpose in contacting him was to ask him to make a change in the classes he provides at his university. Because of that I had a lot of information to get across to him.




 * Goal B. Students will be able to compose using language and conventions appropriate to genre. **

Going back to my first project, we learned how to properly style our work based on the form of writing. To help us with this we were given an order of formatting steps that we could follow. I accomplished addressing all of these points by making PowerPoint slides for each subtopic. These included the problem, background, method, findings, and conclusion. Using these to break up our work made it clearer to determine where out research and findings fit in. Having the method section allowed us to describe the way we came to our conclusion of our topics. Because I didn’t want too much information on my PowerPoint slides, I brought out the most important ideas and then explained what I meant in the notes section. This allowed for an easy to follow PowerPoint and also made it easier to stay on track while working on the assignment.




 * Goal C. Students will be able to read, select, and use evidence critically to formulate and support arguments. **

This goal focuses mainly on being able to use other work to help support and influence my work. We used this goal in many different scenarios throughout the semester. Specifically for me, when working on our first projects I used many different databases and research findings to support the claim of my topic. Many of the articles that I found and used discussed the main idea of my topic. For that project I also used many different interviews that I did around campus to multiple students that fit under the category and their responses helped me with my position. As seen above in my PowerPoint I asked questions to those students who take both lecture halls and smaller sized classes. Their responses related to my research findings in that smaller sized classes are more beneficial. All of this was then noted in my findings and conclusion sections.

Later on in the semester we also read a novel and were places into Literature Circle groups. In them we discussed what we read. Not only did we talk about what was written in the book but also what we thought of it or how it related to today’s society. We even drew from many different personal experiences and compared our similarities and differences. For example, the story that my group read was The Short Bus, by Jonathon Mooney, and in this he talks about his disability as well as others around the country who he visited. In our discussion we realized that all of our high schools treated children with disabilities differently. Some included them in regular classrooms with everyone else while others created special classrooms just for them. Throughout these discussions we used what other group members said to bounce off ideas from. This made us contemplate what we thought was the best scenario for those students. We also had assigned questioners for specific chapters and they guided the discussion in certain directions. Other members of the group had different roles, which focused to keep us on track, keep everyone involved, and record the variety of discussions we had. It was a great learning experience and we worked well together.




 * Goal D. Students will be able to interpret and compose in a variety or media and print/non-print genres. **

When composing the pieces for the second project, we discussed and learned about many different principals to follow when creating our work. These principals made a clearer view of the flyer/brochure/letter and taught how to properly design them. They included contrast, which deals with color and perception of the information on the paper, repetition, which allows to focus more on the main point, alignment, which makes the information easy to follow, and proximity, which creates a piece more appealing to eye based on placement. Before creating my own, I looked at some examples of the genres that I was going to make. I wrote about what I liked and disliked of each of them in order to keep those notes in mind when writing mine. For example, some flyers that I looked at were too colorful and distracting, or had too many words in them, while others used good contrast. For my flyer, directed to students, I used color to create contrast on the paper. I left that background white and made important parts stick out in red. I also kept the same bullet theme throughout the paper and aligned everything equally to the left to make it easy to follow. In my letter to the president I created many paragraphs to seem more professional and also used the proper alignment for each of them. In the paragraphs I also repeated my main purpose throughout to make sure the importance of it was understood.

**Goal E. Students will be able to discuss and apply appropriate writing processes both individually and collaborative contexts.**

With all of the projects that we did throughout the semester we had a peer review day in class after finishing our first drafts. When attending class these days we were split up into groups and given the peer review sheets that you can see attached below. Not only did we have to reflect on our work ourselves, but also we had two other students read through and critique us. There is also a space where we can include the instructor’s comments and corrections as well. While peer reviewing, most of my groups decided it would be best to read aloud our own work as the other group members followed along. This allowed us to explain any necessary parts, as well as catch some of our own mistakes while reading. As we were completing our final drafts we were asked to make a revision sheet that showed some of the changes we made and why we made those corrections. For example, in my first draft of my letter to the president I originally wrote, “Thank you for your cooperation and time.” When editing my final draft I changed this to, “Thank you for considering the proposal.” This seemed more appropriate for the scenario because it was just a letter of my recommendation, not something he has taken action of yet. This created a better learning experience from our mistakes.



Overall, these five goals were set in the beginning of the semester and various class objectives led us to accomplishing them. Every class there was something different to look forward too. All of the class discussions and work that we had to finish in the end all related to each other and the main focus for the course, what does it mean to be educated.