The End. Final Portfolio.

I feel I have emerged from this semester’s English class a better writer and a better thinker when it comes to writing. When I walked into the first day of class and learned we would be working with a service-learning agency and what it entailed I was excited to reach out of the box and experience something new. I had signed up for this particular class at the last minute due to some unexpected changes to my requirements for school and was not sure what to expect. After learning we would be doing service learning I felt it was kismet that things worked out the way they did to put me into this class. After reading through the different service learning agencies and what was to be done at each, I knew I wanted to work with the HEP program. I also got my GED after dropping out of high school and not having the best experience in school. I felt I could relate to the students, which could lend to a richer experience. In the end, I think my expectations of the service learning were exceeded.
It took me a while to really come up with a research subject associated with the HEP program, I dabbled in researching different aspects of being an immigrant in the U.S. I was blown away by the information out there, and how I felt our media had most of the facts wrong, or at least twisted them to create sensationalism. When I made the decision to research health care and immigrants, I knew I was on the right path. I am especially proud of the time and effort I put into finding the sources I used and the result from using such great sources. I think the angle I approached my research with is a very different approach than what we are use to hearing through the media. I felt proud to share a new angle that I hope will allow others to become more compassionate and understanding of what is happening in this country in relation to immigration.
My initial website was full of the facts, and not much of my own interpretation of them. After I was done with my site, I found myself sparking conversation with people around me about what I had learned. This helped me to find my own voice on the subject, because at first, I did not want to offend anyone with the information in my website and just wanted to state the facts. I was able to add an entire new page to my website dedicated to my own voice. I included the questions and gave answers to what I found many people were asking or addressing. I really wanted to address what I felt the media’s role is in how we view immigration. Also, the idea that immigrants are here, and regardless of how they got here, we still need to have compassion for them because they are human beings as well. So I suppose that is one of the ways my writing has changed throughout the semester, I am able to do research, extract the necessary bits, and add my own 2 cents on the matter. The blogging we did all semester was especially helpful. It was a place to put down my thoughts on my research in a safe place. I trusted my group members to give me good feedback, and that they were also thoughtful people whom I valued their opinions.
I included an entire page on my website dedicated to the initial research subject I chose. It was compelling to me, but not the direction I chose to go. I included it because I wanted to show how our governments legislation is affecting immigration and health care for immigrants. It goes back to what many believe is the truth. That our government is doing everything in its power to prevent illegal immigration but there are programs in place to allow it. It is an illustration of the misinformation being handed to us. Under the heading “the risks”, I wanted to explore the actual risks to all of us if we do not allow immigrants health care. Give people a selfish reason to want it also. I thought the part I wrote, “There is a direct correlation between poor living conditions created by high poverty levels, and the fact that many illegal immigrants come from countries with higher risks for infectious diseases, that creates a strong potential for a public health crisis. Not only for the immigrant population but also the general community. Illegal immigrants fear deportation and delay accessing care which creates a much higher probability of spreading the infectious disease to others in the community.” Spoke to this quite well.
In the design itself of the website, I wanted it to be easy to follow, and the pictures to evoke an emotional response. I wanted to put faces to the people I was talking about, to give them humanity instead of being a statistic or a number or a problem. The visual element of my website is simple, yet, I feel I chose images that speak well to the subjects on each page. As an example, I chose the image on the questions page to use it as a metaphor for asking questions about a subject with so many aspects. The metaphor is, the question may be simple,(like I stated them with one or two sentences) but the answers can come out like a flood, (like my answers in comparison to the questions were much longer). In unit 2 I used a different template than I did in the final project. The first template I used did not have all the headings along the top, but had a more tab with a drop down. I did not like it and needed to change it. I called on the help of the tech guy at the Co-Op to help me because otherwise I was going to have to find all the images again on google to fill in the pictures. The text transferred to the new template just fine though. My friend was able to show me how to accomplish transferring the pictures in less than 5 minutes. Thank goodness, because the initial website, finding the pictures took me a couple of hours.
This was my first opportunity to do research since my college career began. Initially I was overwhelmed and could not find enough information on my topic. After watching the videos created by the folks at the library on how to better approach research, I used their suggestions and had great results. Using different search titles and especially using the sources of the sources you already found proved to be very helpful. In my last English class we were encouraged to focus on ourselves in our writing for the semester. It was my first experience with writing in 15 years, so it was an easy task to accomplish writing about myself. This English class was a lot different. I had to think outside of my own realm of experience and delve into the unknown. Although it was a new way of writing, I felt I was able to slip into the groove easily. I found myself feeling passionate about the plights of immigrants and enjoyed researching the topics. Working at the HEP program also put faces and personal stories to my research, lending humanity and personal investment to my research.
On a personal note, I will not be returning to BSU for another semester. I was able to find a different path I prefer to take than institutionalized education. So, I did not put forth my full effort into my other classes but felt compelled to do my best in this class. Having a teacher that showed passion for writing was part of the reason, but doing research and exploring an aspect of writing outside of my previous experience was what gave me the most drive. I really enjoy writing and feel I have a better understanding on how to get the most out of the tools afforded to us. Will I use what I have learned outside of my school experience? Most definitely. I know how to design a website and do research. My path of learning has not ended, and I will continue to do research on what I plan to do next. Now I have a better understanding on how to compile the research into a cohesive piece of writing to share with others. I have already helped friends designing websites for their own interests and plan on making one for myself for my next venture. This may have been my favorite class of the 2 years I spent at BSU. It stretched my understanding and thinking larger than any other class.
To view my website visit wealldeservecare.weebly.com

Reflective Letter

Entering into what would have been considered my Sophomore year at Boise State I had very clear expectations of what this English 102 class was going to be like. My initial impression of an English class still stemmed from what I remembered in high school, mostly high level research, drafts of ambiguous papers, bibliographies, busy work, readings, encompassed with pointless and boring lectures that were ultimately unrelated to my life. This is exactly what I remember from working on my senior project in high school. I enjoyed given the freedom to choose a topic I was actually intrigued in, however a general lack of motivation and effort translated into a ten page research paper that regurgitated facts and opinions of a handful of random sources that I agreed with. Up to taking English 102 this was my opinion of all English classes. I had always been frustrated in English classes mostly because I felt Teachers were unjustified to grade my writing based on my ideas or what I had to say. I do understand being graded on the mechanics of a paper and the technical aspects of writing, however I had the opinion that I needed to write my papers to appease the audience of my Teacher or Professor who was handing out the grade. English 102 and Jeremy Branstad presented me with an entirely new angle of writing.

Writing to an audience which was not the teacher of the class, but a defined audience that I was trying to reach, as well as communicating with my sources in a conversation was a very enlightening concept. Never before had I been presented with the idea or opportunity to embrace a voice that I wanted, let alone speak towards an audience that I choose. This helped me to stop focusing on the grade at the end of the class and to start addressing my writing, voice, and research. At the beginning of this course I was at best an amateur writer in the context of this course level. I was able to get my main point across effectively, yet many times ran into road blocks of language as I tried to lengthen my paper and impress my teachers. This was a struggle to over come. I had to worry less about the length of my papers and focus more on concisely delivering my message in a effective manner. Delivering my message effectively to my chosen audience was struggle all itself. While working on my website I lost my audience more than once and complicated my writing with bulky sentences and structure. The habits that I had adopted as a young writer proved to be the hardest part of this class. I am constantly revising and re-revising my sentences to be direct and to the point. Unfortunately this does cut down on the length of my papers substantially. Again I was reminded to not focus on length and simply turning in an assignment. This idea helped me to focus down to what I was trying to present to my audience and redirect my efforts to prepare a stronger argument and stronger paper.

The use of digital rhetoric in this class was an entirely new concept to me. Especially the use of media such as Blogger. Before this course I view blogs simply as another social networking outlet. I had not followed blogs or blogged myself, so I was very naïve to how powerful blogs can be. Once I started using blogger to post my assignments I decided to look at other blogs online and see how people are using them to communicate to their audience. I started out by looking at websites that I frequently visited, most of these sites all used some type of blog to speak to their audience. The majority of the websites I visited were related to bicycling, a major hobby of mine, I instantly noticed that these site were not formal, impersonal pages. The blogs spoke, almost in a conversation, directly to the readers. While reading the blog posts I felt like I was having a one to one talk with the blogger. This concept of a conversation helped me to focus in on writing to an audience. I struggled at first to throw out my old habit of writing to a teacher. I tried to think of my audience as though they were sitting on the other end of my blog reading as I typed, and were actively participating in the conversation. I started to have a more natural flow to my papers as I would have in an almost e-mail like correspondence. I believe this aspect of the writing in a digital rhetoric more than anything helped me find my voice.

As the second unit of the course progressed I was starting to feel comfortable in my writing to my audience, however still struggling. Many of the assigned readings throughout the semester seemed very heavy and abstract to me. I remember reading the first section of Writing Analytically wondering “what the heck does this mean and how will I ever use this in my writing?” however one I started creating my website and directly writing to my audience I realized where everything fell in place. Some of the more helpful readings in the course were those in regards to my research process. Not using a base level approach to finding sources and research really opened up my thought process and complicated my thinking. I used the method of lateral research quit extensively in my research. I relied 90% of my sources from digital media. Again learning how to analyze these sources to determine their reliability was another skill honed this semester. I started by only using sources that appeared from academic, government and educational material. This approach I found to limit my research to exclusively one opinion. Most of these sources shared the same view point, which is fitting as they all related to one another. I then approach other avenues that seems less reputable or traditional, however when I spent my time with each source looking at their intended audience, their sources and their backgrounds, I was able to develop many very powerful sources that were not from the same view point of my other sources.

I spent much time working on the look and feel of my website and became very consumed in making my pages look “pretty” and again lost sight of communicating with my audience. Once I actually started writing the text of my website I had focused so much on the look and feel, I began speaking away from audience, parents, and more towards my sources which were heavily in the academical and professional sector of special education. During the revision process of my website I started out by simply addressing mechanical and technical aspects of my writing. Check first if I had a consistent flow to may work, did my site make the read want to continue to the next section or page. Then I focused closer on how I was delivering my writing to my audience. I had to go back through each section and redraft my ideas and fine tune them to be more concise and straight forward, after all my intention with the site is to inform parents on aspect of minority special education. I found many times I would start my page out simple and straight to the point, but wonder off half way through into a deep and complex issue unrelated to the topic at hand.

Throughout this course the one thing that stands out to me the most of what I learned is consistency. I have made what I believe to be great improvements in my writing and deliverance of my writing to a predetermined audience. Constantly working on addressing the same areas to improve and hone has helped my immensely in my writing. Through the course readings, reflective blogs and in class workshops, peer responses included, has given me insight on where my writing is and where is still needs to go. I am very happy with the outcome of my writing this semester and pleasantly surprised as well. I never expected to make as many changes to my writing as I have during this course, and would like to invite you all to visit my website Challenges in Minority Special Education at http://disproportionaleducation.weebly.com

Reflective Letter

When I signed up for eng 102 I think I had expectations similar to most in regards to what the class would be like. Write paper after paper etc... on topics, learn to refine your writing but ultimately you're just writing to the professor. This class however, turned out to be totally different than I had expected. Instead of doing a bunch of research and regurgitating that information onto a paper in a specific format, we actually used the internet as the "turn in" source for all our assignments in the form of a blog. This media of communication takes writing to an entirely new level, instead of just your Professor reading your paper your entire class and others are able to view your writing. This really causes you to think about what you're writing in a different way. Initially my approach to writing a paper was to find a topic I liked, do some research, and then put it in a standard format. With the introduction of a new media visible to many it adds an element that normally does not exist, the element of peer review and the possibility of potentially offending someone with your writing, or let's face it the potential to look really stupid in front of your peers.

This obviously changes ones approach to writing and causes a person to really put on their thinking cap to produce a product worthy of being read, and potentially judged by their fellow classmates. Our first few blog posts were nothing spectacular or challenging, but as the course went on we had to refine our research and our writing.

The use of Toulmin's model, Wysoki's methods, and our text book Writing Analytically became invaluable resources. I learned a lot through the use of these systems, they helped me to adjust my writing style and skills and to take my thinking to the next level. Learning how to make my sources speak to one another and then interject myself into that conversation was difficult at first, but it became easier as the class moved along.

Developing a website about our research subject was another part that I did not expect from a regular English course. The writing portion for the website was tough, I had to be careful to not accidently offend our service learning partners, but at the same time maintain a focus and dialogue stressing the importance of their program and the people they provide a service for. The technical aspects of the website were annoying; trying to learn how to place this here and that there took hours and quite frankly irritated the hell out of me. But, in the end I got it done and felt really good about the site.

Our next unit was a group assignment and I have to say this is the part I am most proud of. We had to make a video about our service learning partner and what they do. I feel our little group of 3 did a fantastic job working together to produce an outstanding video that portrayed the HEP program well, and its importance. Not only did we have a lot of fun making the video but I feel our working together took us from classmates to becoming friends.

Our final project for the course is our final portfolio. Reflecting on ones writing is not an easy task especially after you have put a lot of work into it already. Going back rereading and rechecking facts is a small part of it, however the hard part is questioning your questions and reevaluating your thoughts. Using feedback from my group mates, I made some modifications to the general layout of the webpage. I changed some of the picture sizes so they had a better impact, and also changed the font size to make it easier to read. Another change I made was to modify the overall theme of the page to one I felt was more appropriate to the topic. Originally I had a cheesy little classroom chalk board like setting with a globe on it, this in the beginning I felt was appropriate seeing as how HEP is about helping migrant workers and their children gain a GED. But now I feel the two hands planting a small tree is more appropriate, it speaks to helping hands and fostering growth for these people, and the true impact the HEP program has on their lives. Lastly, based on feedback from Jeremy, I added another page to the website. He suggested I speak to the rhetoric surrounding immigration and how it has influenced me. I liked that idea so I created the reflections page of the website detailing my life views and experiences with immigrants and the HEP program and how the experience has fostered a change in the way I think, not only about these people but others throughout the world.

In closing, I would like to point out I have tried to keep this reflective letter in an informal format much like a conversation someone might have if asked what they thought about the course and what they gained from it. The tools and lessons I received from this course will be invaluable later on as I pursue my goal of becoming a Veterinarian, from writing letters to prospective Vet. Schools, grant proposals, and many other tasks I am sure to face in my time in college. Below you will find a link to my website please take the time to look it over I hope you gain an understanding of what challenges migrant workers face in there day to day lives.

http://hepsuccess.weebly.com/index.html

 

Reflective blog 3

What a great time it was to experience the HEP program as a service learning tutor. There was such a diverse group of students participating in HEP. It was inspiring to help students who were participating to further their lot in life, to give themselves a chance to experience something new, they had desires and inspirations that I identified with. There were students who were there for... well, not really sure. It seemed they also were there to experience something new and out of their comfort zone.I suppose they wanted to have a normal school experience. Meet new people, party and make a little time for school too. It seemed a chance for them to walk away for a bit from their otherwise tumultuous lives.
Working with a few of the students reminded me of some of the students I had working as a wilderness field instructor with at-risk youth at the SUWS program. Seeing the students struggling, having a hard time focusing and dreaming of other things. Bucking the rules set by the HEP program, allowing themselves to become distracted and unfocused. That was hard for me to witness. I wanted to draw on the in your face almost military style of communicating that I learned at SUWS, but I did not feel it was my place. I wanted to see the teachers stick to the boundaries and have the students follow them. I think it would be a better learning environment if those rules were strictly enforced. There were students there who wanted to be there, to learn, to gain their GED. I found it distracting for myself and the dedicated students when cell phones were constantly going off with text messages and such. Not to go without saying that there were a few instances that I saw the rules being enforced, but in my mind it's all or nothing. Perhaps easier said than done.
The best part of being there was interacting with people I have not otherwise had interactions with. A population that is so often villainized by popular media. It was freeing to be apart of their lives for a brief moment and experience their humanity, no different from you and I.

Final Reflective Blog

When I started this course, I was very skeptical about the course work and also spending 15 hours working with a service learning partner. It was hard for me to open up to the idea of working within a digital rhetoric and also volunteering. Throughout my school career I have always had the ability to sneak by doing just the minimum amount of course work, and very successfully obtain high grades. Sadly enough this method has changed very little within my college course work. There have been very few assignments that I have found to be challenging intellectually.

Working with HEP was one of my more challenging assignments I have had since being at BSU. Not only was working with a service learning partner a challenge time wise, but it also challenged my preconceived ideas of the minority group in which I was working. At first I went to HEP trying to be open-minded but shortly fell back into old opinions, not just of the minority groups but also poor opinions of students in general. It wasn't until I was working closer with individual students at HEP and also with my service learning group to analyse, discuss and interpret each assignment and ultimately our video project, that I started to look at the deeper issues and challenges that these students faced. I grew to have a great appreciation for HEP and I have also grown as a student by being challenged by assignments that I could not simply pump out the night before.

Working within a digital rhetoric was the most challenging aspects of this course. I was constantly challenged to adapt my pervious skills to fit into this new medium and speak to an entirely new audience. My writing "style" more than anything benefited from the use of Blogger and Weebly. I started to drop away from writing to my professor and started to embrace an audience that I wanted to reach. Now I must admit, my audience is obscure and I'm not sure I really have one, other than the random student who stumbles upon this blog. But however obscure this audience maybe, it helped me to develop a deeper thought process about what I was saying and how I want to say it. Creating my website was the most challenging in respects to writing to this audience. I struggled to stay focused on the intended audience, parents of special education student. I began to move away from writing to them an created a tone that was over complicated and hard to relate to.

By revisiting the course readings, I believe that I will be able to come back to these assignments and narrow them into something that is more concise and better directed to my intended audience. Overall this course has provided me with many opportunities that I did not anticipate having from an English class.

Reflective Blog 3

During the course of this class I have been fortunate to participate in what I feel has been a very productive group. I normally avoid working with others when it comes to class assignments because, more often than not, there are scheduling issues, lack of willingness to participate, and several other factors that restrict you from accomplishing the task assigned. Fortunately our group has had very few difficulties in those areas and we have managed to work well together. As we progressed through the semester I noticed as a group we all began to think about our assignments differently than we had in the beginning. Utilizing analytical models such as Toulmins, Wysoki's and the chapters in writing analytically started showing in our approach to our group project. During our meetings we would work together analyzing information and figuring out the best approach to take on our video project and websites.

The critical thinking skills we began developing were growing in strength and I feel it shows in our work. It has been a pleasure not only working with our very cooperative Service Learning partner HEP but also working with each other. I said in another reflective blog that initially I was dreading some of the work load and assignments. Looking back at that statement I feel it necessary to point out that in the future I will be less likely to have similar feelings. The act of applying oneself to a task should not come with a feeling of dread; instead it should promote a positive attitude towards the fulfillment one gets when they accomplish a task no matter how daunting it might seem at first. My own personal growth as a writer and critical thinker will no doubt increase as I continue my academic endeavors.

Reflective Letter GM

I feel I started this unit with a good grasp on rhetorical choice. The research I did prior to this unit and the research I did in this unit gave me a lot to think about and respond to. When it comes to rhetorical choice, we can either choose to take the information to heart and really care about a subject, or we can merely just talk about it. I feel I was at an advantage with this project because I found I really cared about what was being said and done and how it affected people in our world. I found myself feeling very opinionated about health care and how it pertained to immigrants. I practiced my argument by talking to friends and co-workers about what I have learned so far, I say “so far” because there are many sides to the issues related to health care for immigrants, and I focused on one side.
In the beginning I had no qualms about sharing the information on health care with others in a media based format. I did find it difficult to address specifically the audience I intended on addressing. I wanted to reach an audience that was without the knowledge I also started out this project without. I wanted to address an audience that is against health care for immigrants and who felt that immigrants were a drain on our society for various reasons. I feel I researched a topic that many feel passionately about, often against rights for immigrants. The biggest problem I found, however, was creating a web site that people counter to my thoughts and research would be interested in even looking at. The end result of my web site was not what I was hoping for. It was difficult to format it in a way that appealed to that persuasion. How do you appeal to an audience that your information is opposed too? I did not find the magic for that one.
There is a contradiction I feel that happens doing this project, in Petersons “writing for a Web Audience, he says that you cannot have too much text, you need to keep it shorter and simpler as too not bore your audience. My question is, how can 2000 words not bore someone? It is one thing if it’s an article from a journal or a book you find on the internet written by someone who is a scholar on the subject. But making a website that contains 1,750-2000 words and has 4 pages is going to be overwhelming and people are going to skip over it according to Peterson’s ideas. Jeremy was asked in class last week why we are required to do so much work for this class, and why a website? His response was something close to, “To give you experience communicating with others in the community in a more real world situation.” I am paraphrasing there, but you can get the idea. I agree with this idea in a lot of ways, but, I have been endlessly frustrated with the experience of building a website. I also believe I got more “real world” experience talking about the subject to those around me face to face. I was able to have a real conversation, not an imaginary conversation on the internet with a website no one is going to look at except my teacher. I have also had great conversations with my group mates on the separate research we have done. I had a phenomenal discussion with one of the teachers from the HEP Program on Friday that tested my knowledge on what I have been researching. I was able to pull statistics out of my hat and include them in the conversation and ask educated questions. Overall, making a website seemed like a lot of busy work that did not give me an outlet to have a different conversation than I did in any of the experiences mentioned previously.
I had so many technical difficulties with designing my website, I got off track from what my vision was because of the difficulties. I copied and pasted pictures repeatedly to different pages on the website, even though I only wanted to put those specific pictures on that page it would change the pictures on all of the pages! Ugh, I was so frustrated and gave up and was going to just accept a crappy website. That night, I woke up from a dead sleep and realized what the answer was! I turned to look at the clock to decide if it was reasonable to get out of bed to fix the problem. It was 1:49am, I decided to wait until morning. It was the first thing I did when I woke up, able to start my day with a sense of accomplishment. Overall, still not that impressed with the end result, but the research I've done and the people I have talked to regarding the research has made it plenty worth it. www.wealldeservecare.weebly.com