Core Value I. My work demonstrates that I used a variety of social and interactive practices that involve recursive stages of exploration, discovery, conceptualization, and development.

In the beginning of the semester I was told that we needed to write many rough drafts before submitting our final paper in. This taught me that if we think our paper is done, it’s most likely not. There’s much more improving that can be done. It helps me become a better writer and be able to submit the best work I have. It also helps me develop my writing skills. An example would be my visual rhetoric. I originally wrote my visual rhetoric on a commercial about texting and driving and I also didn’t do very well. I didn’t follow the instructions completely. Then, we wrote the visual rewrite where I also had many mistakes that i wouldn’t have caught without professor Hodges comments/feedback. After receiving the feedback, I fixed my errors and resubmitted it. And finally when I was about to put it into my portfolio, I made more changes to it because I reread my work and noticed a few things I needed to fix. This allowed me to submit in my best work possible because I have made revisions to my rough drafts and improved from my original copy. I’m sure if I had more time, I could catch more mistakes and fix them but, usually I need time to catch mistakes. If I submitted in just my original copy with all the mistakes and errors, I would fail that assignment. If i write a paper and then wait a day, I will have more revisions to make then I would while writing it. I need to give my brain a break first.

Core Value II. My work demonstrates that I placed texts into conversation with one another to create meaning by synthesizing ideas from various discourse communities. 

I am the type of person who has to have the last say. I usually try and throw myself into conversations even if I know very little about the topic. I try to be the last word and I always try to be right and if I’m not right, I pretend I am. Usually in class, we have discussions in which we can talk about specific topics. Most of the times we discuss something we are about to read for homework and we are able to turn that into a conversation with the class. Sometimes we have debates and we might not agree with  what someone else has to say or their ideas. Usually we work it out though because the professor tells us what’s right and wrong. But he allows us to express our ideas first. One example that really sticks out for me was the one class when we had 4 cards and we were given a  fact, “Each card has a number on one side and a letter on the other.” A thesis, “Every card that has a vowel on one side has an even number on its opposite side.” And a rebuttal, “Which card or cards must you turn over in order to test whether or not the Thesis is true?” This really got  the class thinking and I personally felt it truly engaged the class with it’s mystery. We all had different arguments on which cards to flip over and then we would explain our reasoning but in the end, Professor Hodges explained the answer and why it was right. I felt this was a very interesting class that day.

Core Value III. My work demonstrates that I rhetorically analyzed the purpose, audience, and contexts of my own writing and other texts and visual arguments.

When we have debates in class, I put into consideration what others have to say. Occasionally I will use what someone else has to say to back up what I want to say. Most of the times there is a reason professor Hodges has us debate about certain things in class, it’s so it gets us thinking in a different way. I also took into consideration things that the professor had to say. For example when he told us to write more than one rough draft. That is only going to benefit ourselves and our writing and make us better at it. There was reason behind what he had to say, we just had to understand the purpose of it.

Core Value IV: My work demonstrates that I have met the expectations of academic writing by locating, evaluating, and incorporating illustrations and evidence to support my own ideas and interpretations.

By constantly rewriting our papers, I am always looking it over for mistakes and adding something new to it. Something to better my work and be able to have a paper worth submitting in. This allows me to meet the expectations of the professor and it allows me to evaluate myself and my work. By writing some of these papers throughout the class, it allowed me to express how I felt about a certain topic while also providing evidence from other articles about the topic. Some articles I read helped support my ideas on something specific. For example, the visual rhetoric allowed me to express what I felt was going on in the commercial. I was able to make my own predictions in what I was watching. It was based around my interpretation of the commercial and my ideas.

Core Value V. My work demonstrates that I respect my ethical responsibility to represent complex ideas fairly and to the sources of my information with appropriate citation. 

As a continuation of everything else I’ve been writing about, by rewriting my papers this allows me to also fix any errors I had along with improve my ideas and make sure that they are complex enough. But on top of that, be able to still express myself freely. As far as my citation goes, easybib allows me to correctly cite my work and give credit to the authors of the articles i read. Along with hyper linking the title of the article to my work cited which I just discovered how to do. That not only makes it easier for Professor Hodges to find my article, but it helps me as well find my articles if I ever needed to go back to them.  I feel as though up until this point I have most of everything complete with some things that need improving. Not all my work is a masterpiece but i’m trying to make it as close to one as possible.