Peer Feedback QuestionsWhose draft are you responding to? Audience Awareness: Your audience for the memo are WRIT professors who have not taken this section of WRIT 1122. Given that the audience know

To: DU Writing Program Faculty
From: Grace Henderson
Date: May 29th, 2020
RE: Portfolio Cover Memo
Writing skills are an important thing to have in life and especially in college. Before I took this writing class I had only a few experiences with writing papers. In highschool I wrote minimal worded essays on my thoughts and feelings about what we read in class. I never learned how to correctly develop a strong argument until I took this class. Taking this class has helped me become a stronger and passionate writer.
I have learned about writing styles that I have never heard of, but I am looking forward to using in future writing arguments. In this class we focused on arguing for things we care about which made the writing process that much more enjoyable as well as easier to speak my true thoughts. Writing is a skill that is necessary throughout college and life and I am so glad I now have the tools to create such powerful writing.
During the first week of classes we were assigned to choose some goals for our writing this quarter. Before I took this course I was not a very confident writer and I was scared to express my opinions. In my goals inventory I said that I wouldn’t call myself a great writer. My weaknesses came from my lack of knowledge of the writing styles of logos, ethos, and pathos. I was used to using information from my readings and evaluating what they said, rather than forming my own opinions. Learning this new style of writing has really opened my eyes and I believe I have become a more confident writer. Looking back at the learning goals inventory I was very nervous to take this class because I did not believe I could do any of those things on that list. Coming out of this class in just a week I feel as if I have accomplished all of these learning goals.
Discussion posts and peer reviews were a strong foundation of the class. With the class being online it made it difficult to know exactly what kind of writing pieces we were supposed to deliver. I found the peer reviews to be extremely helpful. I was able to read some of my peers' pieces and get a better idea of how to fix my own from learning from them. I also received a lot of constructive criticism on every one of my writing projects so that before I turned them in I could have a classmate give me a quick rundown on how my essay was looking. It was nice to see my peers write about what they were passionate about as well. It made the online distancing feel more like a class, it made it more of an inclusive learning environment.

In our first writing project we were assigned to write about school violence in the United States. This assignment was a challenge for me because it is the longest paper I have ever written so it really put my very few writing skills to the test. I also had to go about using the writing styles of logos, ethos, and pathos which was my main focus. In this paper we utilized the Aristotelian argument to address an academic audience. I chose to construct my writing around the idea that early prevention strategies can help protect students in the future. In my argument I used works such as the Eric Harris Journal and the Karl Pierson Journal and police report to support my evidence. These journals helped support my argument because they proved that if these kids were helped earlier in life then these terrible attacks could have been prevented.

In our third and final writing argument we used the Rogerian argument to write about an exigency we experience in our personal lives. In my essay I wrote to the CEO of the US Ski Team about equal funding amongst athletes throughout the team. I found this essay to be my favorite because it was a more casual style of writing and I felt very passionate about my topic.