Running head: WPA OUTCOMES AND HABITS OF MIND WPA Outcomes and Habits of Mind Name: Institutional Affiliation: 1 WPA OUTCOMES AND HABITS OF MIND 2...

WPA Outcomes and Habits of Mind

Name:

Institutional Affiliation:

WPA Outcomes and Habits of Mind

Rhetorical Knowledge

Week one

The key rhetorical concepts that I learned in this semester is the use of ethos, logos, and pathos. Ethos is associated with the credibility of the author; logos are connected with logic and pathos is tied with emotions of the audience. In my first assignment, I was able to appeal the emotions of the public since my topic was on a more personal level.

Week Two

I feel that I have gained the experience reading and composing several genres through the use of the three forms of the persuasive writing throughout the semester. Through the readings that we were allocated as a class, I was able to come across several styles of the genre that I was not familiar. For example, when we had to look for five credible sources on the ASU database, I was able to learn that there are many journals written by scholars that assist learners on how to write scholarly papers. The scenario made me understand that there are genres for any determination of writing.

Week three

My tone, voice and the level of formality were able to show my level of professionalism and how thoughtful I think of the matter. The manuscript was written for a small group of the organizations for every letter that was utilized.

Week four

The multimodal kind of the projects for the both papers required me to use a variety of the technologies. Through the collection of the photos, it needed me to combine them so that I can make a collage. Through the use of photo application that I created on my phone, I was able to arrange and make the college of the images for the equally multimodal rations.

Week five

The two projects were dissimilar following on how I would be able to express the information of the multimodal image. In the first project, I didn’t fully convey the message towards the audience, but I was capable of grasping their attention through the use of that image. In the second project, I was in a position of showing a short narration with the pictures on it, therefore, making people ill and provided a picture of the swimming pool, which clearly indicated that it was an option for cooling off.

Knowledge of Conventions

Week one

I was able to develop the knowledge of linguistics structures that includes grammar, spelling, and punctuation by writing several drafts. Writing a proposal, a rough draft first and then the final one assisted me to fine tune my writing through giving me a chance to do editing on my papers.

Week two

I came to comprehend why genre conventions differ for structure, paraphrasing, mechanics, and tone while writing two different types of documents. First, I wrote an essay which is academic and then a journal article. The tones for the two pieces of work were different from one another. I was able to learn that some genres are no suitable for certain topics. The tone of a journal article differs significantly from that of the academic essay (Allen & Miller, 2015). Whereas the tone for the formal work can be very professional and legal, a journal article can be a little more casual and informative compared to the academic essay.

Week three

I gained experience in negotiating variations in genre conventions by first understanding that it was crucial to choose the right type of my writing so that it can reach the intended audience appropriately. During the process of writing, I was able to structure the essay in a manner that will make the audience understand my reasoning and my opinion. Selecting the correct genre for a piece is necessary when writing an argumentative kind of work.

Week four

I learned about the standard formats and the design features for different types of texts through reading the textbook while doing research on various kinds of genres. I heard about on how to correctly format my essay using APA, MLA, Chicago and Harvard referencing. Before this study, I had no idea about the formatting. I learned the referencing through Purdue OWL website and also from my peer evaluations for the first project.

Week five

I explored the concepts of intellectual property that motivate documentation conventions through following various steps. Any writing that utilizes the quotes, it was crucial to cite the sources correctly and make available the appropriate citations for all of them. Lack of citations could be plagiarizing the works of other people. Through providing the utilized sources in the piece of work, it means that the information I am giving is credible.

Process

Week one

The two main projects that were assigned for this course was a little overwhelming for me at the beginning.  After freewriting and clustering ideas, I realized it was easier than I thought.  When I wrote ideas down, and asked myself questions, I was able to write several drafts for both projects.  After several drafts were made I was able to put together a final draft to turn in.  Writing these different drafts is crucial to getting a well written paper.  When I wrote the rough drafts for these projects, and reading them the next day with fresh eyes, I knew how important it was to write multiple drafts in order to get the best draft.

Week two

After I completed both of my rough drafts for these two essays I asked a number of different people to read them and give me their opinion.  Seeing the corrections some of them made, really opened my eyes to getting critiques.  A good example of this would be during my first project when I structured my profile.  I completely changed the arrangement of the paragraphs several times so it flowed smoother. I think I read over my paper dozens of times to make sure the content was smooth and the information was delivered in a concise way.  The process of rereading, revising and editing has made me a better writer without a doubt.

Week three

When I wrote the papers for projects 1 and 2 I used word processing software.  I would go in and start typing and brainstorming and I would kind of edit as I go.  One thing that I learned is that I should save my work as I go just in case my computer shuts off and I lose work that took me hours to achieve.  Another thing that helped me was using a thesaurus to help my work to be more fluid and sound less repetitious.  One of the instances that helps prove that I learned these processes was when I went back and read my paper and it was underlined green which, in a Word document, means a grammatical error.  After checking what the correction was, it didn't sound right for my paper, so I ignored it.  Sometimes the program will suggest things that won't quite work for the information you are trying to get across (Harrington, Malencyzk, Peckham, Rhodes & Yancey, 2001). 

Week four

During this time in English we were assigned to work in groups for our projects.  It was a little difficult in getting our team together to collaborate being that we live in different parts of the country.  When we did, it was a complete eye-opener.  The things that we discussed helped me think of things that would have never entered my mind if I composed alone. When we were discussing our profile project I was drawing a blank about how to approach my topic.  My group member suggested that I take another route so I would get the audience’s attention.  I'm glad I did because it helped my paper out in the long run.  Getting ideas from others helped me tremendously in getting my creative juices flowing.  This is a very important part of the writing process in my opinion.

Week five

I guess you can say that when I write I like to edit as I go.  I have a problem with just writing things down and not worry about punctuation and spelling.  I mean even as I write this free-write I'm looking up and making sure that things sound good and the sentences make sense.  Would that make me a writing perfectionist?  Because this is the way that I write, I didn't think I would be able to handle peer feedback well.  Why is this person telling me that my paper is bad?  Who are they?  They are in this class learning the same things as me, what gives them the authority?  After I sat down and facetimed with one of my teammates, he gave me feedback that really opened my eyes.  I would have never thought about some of the other ideas he came up with.  It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be when he gave his opinion.  It helps the process of writing when you get an outsiders point of view (Harrington, Malencyzk, Peckham, Rhodes & Yancey, 2001).  You get a clear sense of what another person sees and thinks.  I remember taking a photography class and there was an assignment to capture shadows on an object.  After I was done, a classmate pointed out that she thought my image would look better from another angle. I tried it and it worked!  Even though I felt a little bothered at first, her advice helped me.  On the other hand during that same class a few weeks later someone thought one of my projects was not well thought out and lacked depth.  I didn't take his advice or thought it was constructive because he was failing the class and didn't even turn in or finish his assignments.  I guess when it comes to peer review you have to choose whether to take the advice of your peers or to let it fall by the waist-side.  At the end of the day you are responsible for your own work.  When I finished my profile piece for project 1, I was given feedback from my instructor on how to better my paper.  Some of my critiques were, to make a more fluid paper.  I had to work on my transitions to help my paper flow more smoothly.  Another thing was the amount of paragraphs and how I should break them apart so that one paragraph didn't have a large amount of info.  I went back and revised my essay once more to get a better grade on it.  Going back and editing more things helped me to look for these mistakes and work on them for my next paper.

Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing

Week one

During this class I had to learn how to be an effective writer.  Taking a writing project and breaking it down into stages made the project seem less overwhelming.  Because I did this, I had a firm grasp of what I wanted to discuss and how I was going to convey this message.  What also helped was sharing my ideas with my peers and hearing their voice.  I also shared my opinions about other groups' assignments.  Knowing that what I had to say made an impact on someone's project, gave me the confidence that my voice was heard and pride my advice was taken; also, reading through other group's work helped me to focus and learn what to write about. From the interview questions to our audience profile, we shared our work with other groups to help us think critically about our own projects.  This was also true for the 2nd project.  Researching a different country and using several different sources helped me to learn more about the picture and family that I was analyzing.

Week two

During this course, I learned that different audiences and situations call for different texts and medium.  If the audience were young kids, we would write to fit their needs (Kelly-Riley & Elliot, 2014). If we were writing for an instructional manual on how to clean an oven, we would maybe target a stay at home parent or housekeeper.  Various situations call for different ways of writing and delivering a speech or paper.  If we wanted to use persuasion we would use a more coaxing approach or if we were demanding something we would want to take a more direct and stern direction.  I was writing to inform a certain audience for my profile piece so I wrote that paper to appeal to them accordingly. I also created a video for my trailer because in my opinion the audience my profile was intended for would be more likely to appeal to a video trailer rather than something that was written.  For the analytical paper, I was writing to the "educated adult" so I changed the form of writing a bit and switched it to more of an educational, informative piece.

Week three

Locating different sources at the beginning of the semester was something that was completely foreign to me.  When I started writing my first project I knew nothing about citing different sources.  Another thing that was new was citing and writing a paper in APA format.  After doing the library assignment, I was amazed at how easy locating a source for research was.  I also learned the difference between a reliable and unreliable source.  If I wanted credible sources from the internet I would be careful of biases and objectivity.  It was easier for me to locate primary sources because of how vague that term is.  Secondary sources on the other hand proved a little more difficult to acquire.  I was able to incorporate 2 different sources for my first assignment.  For the analysis project I was a little better at researching and locating several sources to put into my piece.  I added more sources and a bit more information with this project because after the first essay, I was a little more keen on how to do APA format properly.  Examples of how I incorporated quotes would be when I made a reference to a certain grain in my second essay.  I needed information about this specific type of grain so I researched it and found an article that was written specifically about this plant.  Adding this little amount of information, and seeing that it came from a credible source, helped polish my piece and make the information more believable.

Week four

During this course, I learned how to incorporate different quotes from various sources. I had to make sure what I was writing about matched the quote I was about to use.  It made the paper flow smoother when quotes were used appropriately.  After getting critiques back from my writing fellow I used more information from other sources to back up my information and give my projects more credibility.  It is important to choose your own ideas as well as the ideas from a viable source and integrate them well to help the reader believe what you're writing about (Kelly-Riley & Elliot, 2014).

Week five

I gained deeper knowledge and understanding on the need to cite my work. I integrated the knowledge I received back from peers and instructors to help revise both of my papers.  One of the things that I got back from my writing fellow was that I needed to cite something in my second paper to help structure it better.  Other examples of integrating a writers ideas with my own was during my research for the second project.  I used the actual book by Peter Menzel and Faith D'aluisio, Hungry Planet: What the world Eats, and used some of the information there to tie into what I thought after analyzing the photo.  

References

Allen, J., & Miller, B. W. (2015). The rhetorical knowledge representation system: A user's manual (for Rhet version 14.45). Rochester, NY: University of Rochester, Dept. of Computer Science.

Carson, J., & Leki, I. (1993). Reading in the composition classroom: Second language perspectives. Heinle & Heinle Publishers.

Harrington, S., Malencyzk, R., Peckham, I., Rhodes, K., & Yancey, K. B. (2001). WPA outcomes statement for first-year composition. College English, 63(3), 321-325.

Kelly-Riley, D., & Elliot, N. (2014). The WPA Outcomes Statement, validation, and the pursuit of localism. Assessing Writing, 21, 89-103.