FrazierPortfolioFinal

Foundations of College Writing Dr. Sherry Portfolio Synthesis Letter Caitlin Frazier In my Foundations of College Writing course this semester, I have included the five goals for my writing. I have listed each goal with examples from the projects I’ve done in this course. In my first project, I interviewed students with and without jobs while in college and also read studies about this topic. In my second project, I took my results from this research and formed three different styles of genres to be persuaded to different audiences. And lastly, for each project we used peer review sheets to help us get feedback on our work and figure out ways to better our writing skills. In my research project, I examined how people while in college are affected academically by having a job throughout their school year. I wrote an informative letter with my audience being the parents of students that have just gotten accepted to college. My purpose was to persuade their children to work while in college and used the statistics found in articles to support my opinion. I did this in my informative letter by first congratulating their child on their acceptance and also including statistics found in articles that support the fact that students tend to do better academically if they have a job while in school.  I used this approach because when talking to parents, I thought my writing should be formal and I wanted to be persuasive while also including research to support my information.  In my second project, I chose to do a flyer for students looking for a job on campus with the information on where to go and what the job description is included throughout. Because the audience of students versus parents is very different, I chose a completely different genre to relate to these specific audiences.  In this example I chose to persuade students in a different way because I knew that students are informed better and tend to be more interested when there is the least amount of words to get the information across. I think a flyer is a good way to draw attention and would be the easiest way to get students thinking about getting a job while attending school.  In this way, I transformed the results from my first project into a flyer to persuade students to work rather than give specific statistics on why it’s a good idea to do so. For my research project, I chose to make a research paper that is formal and persuasive. I first stated the problem I was focusing on, and then gave background from articles I had read and found past research in. I explained how my methods portrayed from this past research, then lastly analyzed my data and drew conclusions from them. For example, I wrote: I included the review of previous research because it is a good reassurance for readers to get true statistics to support an opinion. I also included the author’s name and date of the article to show how recent the research had been done. This example shows that I can take information I have found and put it into my own research to support my opinions and present it in an appropriate way for a specific audience.  In my research paper, I chose to find articles based on the research of whether or not having a job while being a college student is beneficial. I made sure to find articles that were more recent so that they would be more consistent with today’s circumstances. I read through them to find supporting details and information to support the idea I was researching. I needed to make sure to get accurate data and have it apply to my question.  <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">In researching data in articles and online, I found it to be very helpful in giving a specific side for whether or not it is better to have a job while in school. Without collecting this data, I wouldn’t have as exact evidence to back up the idea. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;"> Part two of this project I decided to take another route for research. I chose to interview students that were working and nonworking. I took students that were all freshman. I asked them several questions about their social life, grades, and time management. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">I chose to interview the students at my school so that I could find out if the information I found in the articles was the same as I’d find with students at my own school. I think doing two types of research with both articles and interviews will make my project more accurate. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;"> I used a flyer for students looking for a job on campus. I included contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity to draw attention and make it organized. These principles are important when using visuals to keep the piece controlled and structured. This genre needs to be easily readable from a distance. Some examples of how I used these principles are: <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;"> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;"> As another example, I used a satire for students working while in school because they can relate to what the student in my comic is going through. I used the same principles of contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity to draw viewers’ attention to the story. This genre goes against what statistics show and is a humorous way of getting the information across.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">Goal A. Students will be able to compose for particular audiences and purposes. **
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">B. Students will be able to compose using language and conventions appropriate to genre. **
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">In Lang’s article(2012), he included a wide variety of information on working students. Though they have less time, students with jobs had better grades than those who didn’t. Also, Lang found that working students that were motivated and organized managed their time well and were efficient.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">I learned that most students that had a job benefitted from it. Though they needed good time management, they often had higher GPAs and were more successful and prepared in the long run for future careers.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">C. Students will be able to read, select, and use evidence critically to formulate and support arguments. **
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">D. Students will be able to interpret and compose in a variety of media and print/non-print genres. **
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">CONTRAST: **<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">I used red and blue colors to make a distinction on the flyer to draw attention and make it look more interesting. Different colors makes it more varied and organized.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">REPETITION: **<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">I made boxes to separate different sections of the flyer to organize it as well. I also used the same fonts and underlined headings which made it repetitive and organized.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">ALIGNMENT: **<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">I centered my information and kept it in alignment to make it organized and appear more structured. It gives it a professional look and keeps information arranged neatly.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">PROXIMITY: **<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">I put information relating to specific headings grouped together to keep it organized. It makes it easier to find the information you are looking for and easily trace the section you want to read from.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">CONTRAST: **<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">I used different scenes for each part of my comic to make it more varied and look more interesting. I have different scenarios as well to make the comic draw attention and make the viewer want to keep reading.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">REPETITION: **<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">I used repetition by using the same boxes for each comic section and used speech bubbles in each part with the same font to keep it organized and make it look like it all fits together. I also used the same main character to make the comic easy to understand as well.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">ALIGNMENT: **<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">I made the comic boxes aligned so that they looked organized and appeared in a distinct order that was easy to follow.
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">PROXIMITY: **<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">I put specific information with a specific scene to show what is happening in each part.

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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">Using these principles was a good way to persuade an audience and learn how to organize information in different genres. It gave more of a step by step way to form my project and include all parts of these principles to make it look best and most structured. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;"> For all of our projects throughout this class we did peer reviews, which is taking everyone’s drafts and reading them over to correct any mistakes made or give any tips on bettering the project. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;"> <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">The peer reviews are important for learning how to better a project and take others criticism positively. I think it’s important to help you learn how to proof read your own writing as well and also others work. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;"> In addition to doing peer review, after getting feedback from fellow classmates and Dr. Sherry, I made the corrections to my paper and filled out a revision sheet. The revision sheet included three columns. Originally wrote, revised work, and an explanation for why I made the changes. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 0px; overflow: hidden;">
 * <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 16px;">E. Students will be able to discuss and apply appropriate writing processes both individually and in collaborative contexts. **

The revision sheet is a way to keep track of what I changed and write an explanation/ rule to help myself remember these corrections for future papers. It can be a reminder of mistakes I made in the past to avoid in the future. I think these are important for realizing problems and comparing the draft to the final to see how it betters your writing.