CoelhoPortfolio

Chris Coelho Dr. Sherry Foundations of College Writing

At the beginning of this semester, in Foundations of College Writing, we were given a list of 5 goals that we were supposed to have met by the end of the semester. When I was first given the list I thought that there was no way that I was going to be able to honestly say that I had met all 5 of the goals because English was always my worst subject and I had never done well in it. However, Dr. Sherry took a different approach to this writing class, instead of having students write countless amounts of papers throughout the semester, he created 3 main projects that we had to complete during the semester. Since he had done it this way, I believe that it helped me as a student because I got to spend more time on each individual project and get the insight from my colleagues on each of the projects before the date they were due. The 5 goals of my writing were:

This goal taught me that the ability to compose for particular audiences and purposes is extremely important in the real world depending on your job. If you're a teacher you'll need to compose letters to parents, while if you're a business man you'll need to compose a letter or display information in a professional manner. It is important because people need to be able to connect with your work in some way or they will never be truly interested in what point you're trying to get across.
 * Goal A: Students will be able to compose for particular audiences and purposes.**





In my project about portraying a message to different audiences I created 3 different pieces, and each of them were aimed at a different audience. The letter I had wrote was a letter from a college to students, informing them about the risks of drinking. I chose a letter for this because it is a good way to get important information across to people. I also included a chart in the middle of the letter to grab the readers attention and make them read due to the curiosity of what the chart actually means. The next audience I targeted was potential students for Bloomsburg University. I decided a poster would be best fit for this task because most kids that age will not read a long article about a school especially if they've never heard of it. I did not want to create a wall of text with a lot of information about the school, therefore I created a poster with many pictures and colors, that had important topics but not very detailed. This goal has taught me how to write to different audiences and how to chose an appropriate genre for each specific audience.

This goal was about being able to change your writing depending on who you're writing for. I learned how to do this through the research project we had done in class. I learned method of organizing our works in a way that was easy to read and it flowed smoothly throughout the paper. It was an easy to use 5 step process that not only made the paper flow better, but also created a new way to present my data that I had collected and to actually give the reader a picture of how I went through and gathered it.
 * Goal B: Students will be able to compose using language and conventions appropriate to genre.**

In my research project I used this method we learned and divided my paper into 5 parts, Problem, Background, Method, Findings, and Conclusion. This helped me use my research in a way that was much easier to present than simply just writing an essay. In the problem part of the paper I stated what the problem was that I would be addressing in the paper and how I plan to research about it. In the background I gave a detailed description of what the problem actually was and ended it with a question that would be answered by the end of the paper. In the method I described how I collected the data to support the problem that I had addressed in the first part of the paper. In the findings I revealed the information that I had gathered through my methods. In the conclusion I explained what my findings actually meant to my original problem that I had stated. This organization method helped my paper flow smoothly and it taught me another way to present a research paper.

This goal had helped me with the ability to gather sources, and take information from those sources to support my own idea. I believe that this goal helped me the most because I was never very good at, however, this goal is necessary in any class that requires a research paper to write. I had used this goal for another class because it required a research paper about the minimum wage to be written. In order to complete the paper I had to first research about minimum wage and give myself background information about the topic before I started writing about it.
 * Goal C: Students will be able to read, select, and use evidence critically to formulate and support arguments.**

In my research project for Foundation of College writing I had also used this goal. For this paper I gathered information about drinking in college from 3 different sources. I then familiarized myself with the information from the sources to conduct a list of questions that I was going to ask current college students about drinking and how they spent their free time. After I collected the results from my questioning I then examined them to draw conclusions based on what I had found. From the findings I found that drinking does have a negative affect on grades, however, there were some rare cases in which it did not.

This goal had taught me how to create things other than papers to display information to different audiences. I learned about certain principles in class that gave me a list of things to watch out for while creating these different genres. They were called the CRAP principles, which stood for; Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity. Contrast means the color and size of things on the genre type. Repetition means repeating the same color choice or certain words to get your point across. Alignment means making sure everything follows a strong alignment line and does not go over it. Proximity means everything is grouped closely together that relates to one another. I used the CRAP principles in my project about portraying a message to different audiences. In my letter and poster I used alignment everywhere to make sure everything was very organized and to be pleasing to the eye for anybody that looked at it. In the poster I also used contrast often because I used color to make it stand out rather than a plain white piece of paper. In the satire I used repetition by repeatedly putting pictures of people drinking alcohol or alcoholic beverages to get my point across. I used proximity in the post and the satire to group the pictures closer together and group the information closer together so it was easier to read/look at, rather than having everything scattered all over the poster.
 * Goal D: Students will be able to interpret and compose in a variety of media and print/non-print genres.**

This goal taught me about applying the things we've learned in class to our writing, and being able to discuss it with others. This goal was extremely prominent while we did peer revision in class. My professor had also used this to help us modify our work for the better. This is an example of a draft of the project we did that was telling a story about my past, present, and future education. In this example it shows how my professor used the goals to help us better our work. He makes numerous comments about the paper on the side in Microsoft Word. The comments not only tell us what's wrong with the paper, but also give suggestions on how to improve what's wrong with it. He not only makes bad comments, but also positively reinforces us with comments about what we did good in the paper. I found the good comments more helpful because they not only ensured that I was doing the paper correctly, but it also boosted my self-confidence in writing because I never thought I was good at it. Since he showed us the way he had revised our papers it gave me a very good idea of what to look for in writing as well.
 * Goal E: Students will be able to discuss and apply appropriate writing processes both individually and in collaborative contexts.**

In Foundations of College Writing this semester I had learned a lot which could be summarized by these 5 goals. In the beginning of the semester I would have never thought I could have done well in this class, I thought I would have just got a D and barely slid past the necessary English course for my major. However, I surprised myself when I had got a C back on my first paper, and even improved after that into a B- on the next project we were handed. It not only gave me hope for getting a decent grade but also made myself proud. These 5 goals will stick with me the rest of my college career, and even my life whenever needed. For that I thank my professor, Dr. Sherry.