Blakeley Fogleman

Midterm

A. Look back at your first blog post from this class. What questions did you
pose in August that you can now answer? Are there any that you cant
answer?
I have been constantly worried since the first day of school that my writing
isnt on college level. One question I asked in my blog post was How can I
improve my writing from a high school to college level? I have been able to
answer that question just from having experience writing the Literacy
Narrative in class. I have found that by expressing my true feeling and
describing deep into the writing, I can get the reader to engage in my
writing so much more. In high school I was there to write the paper and
make sure to have enough pages of writing to make a good grade. In college
I have found that the main purpose of being an author is to dig as deep as
possible into my writing to sound intelligent and detailed. Another question I
can answer is How do I improve my writing over the semester to become a
successful student? By being in class every day and doing the work I am
assigned, I have been able to answer this question. To improve as a writer
and an author, I must continue to write papers, get them edited by peers,
rewrite, and continue to get them edited until the paper is complete. Being
an active writer is important so that I can keep continue to learn from
mistakes. The only way I will ever become a successful writer is to get out of
my comfort zone and try something new when writing.

B. Look at the 9 key concepts on the first page of the course syllabus. These
concepts are practices or "habits of mind" that you should engage with
during this course. Which ones do you feel you're doing the best with and
how? Which ones seem the most challenging and why? What questions do
you have about them?

Coming from high school writing courses to college has been a big change
for me and has challenged me more than ever. I am having a hard time
starting to practice the key concepts in this class because I have never had
to practice them before now. Four of the habits of mind that I know I am
doing best at are curiosity, the writing process and revision, providing and
receiving feedback, and making connections. Curiosity is something I have
always had when writing. I want to know why I am writing the topic I am
writing about. I easily find myself asking my group what they plan to write
about and ask how they feel about the prompt. Gaining ideas helps cure my
curiosity when starting to write my paper. Through the writing process and
revising, I have found that I really enjoy advice from other people. If I read
my own work, I cant find mistakes as easily. I enjoy providing feedback to
others because I want to help them improve just as much as I want them to
Blakeley Fogleman
help me. I feel that feedback is a very important part when writing a paper. I
have also been successful when making connections to what we have been
learning while writing my paper. I have used good examples in my first
paper to connect and represent a Literacy sponsor in my life. I have had a
lot of trouble when managing to get out of my comfort zone. I am not the
type of writer to engage in more than what I already know. I hate being
wrong and giving out false information. It is a challenge for me to escape
from who I am to engage in more learning attributes. I also find inquiry to
be quite challenging to me. Even though there is so much information I dont
know about writing, I find myself being too shy to ask those questions. I
need to encourage myself to ask more questions and stop hiding what I
dont know. How can I challenge myself to get out of this habit so I can grow
and mature in my learning?

C. In your Final Portfolio Essay (FPE), youll be asked to analyze the work
youve done in the course. Youll want to quote from your own writing to
support your analyses. Lets practice by looking at your Literacy Narrative:
what are your favorite revisions that you made to that essay (any draft) and
why? QUOTE from your Literacy Narrative to illustrate what youre
discussing. You may quote from various drafts to show the changes you
made.

Making revisions are so much easier to do when having a peer edit my
paper. I have had such good peers that give me great advice. Even though I
am not pressured to make changes according to their notes, I have done so
anyways. They have great ideas in mind and that is what I need in order to
be successful in my writing. Even though I enjoyed my first draft, my second
draft was much more in depth. I was able to dig deep into what I was trying
to describe in my Literacy Novel because I had a great experience to explain.
Since I had not missed any days in the class, I was exempt from the
teacher-made exam at the end of the semester. Even though there was no
need in me taking the exam, Mrs. Clark encouraged me to take the exam
anyways. She wanted me to take the exam, see how I did, and try to make
a good grade on it so I could pull my final grade up to an A. As I continued
to write the second draft about my literacy sponsor, I was starting to get lazy
on my choice of words. When I got my writing peer edited, my group wanted
me to go deeper into the thought process of my paper so I could describe
my experience in more descriptive word choices. For example, one of my
sentences read, Half way done with the test, I looked up to the window to
take a break from the test. As my peer editors read over this, they decided
I needed to add more dialogue to this sentence so the reader could become
more engaged. I added a sentence after it which said, As I looked out the
cracked window, I was able to see the wind blowing the leaves on the trees.
Blakeley Fogleman
The animals were walking around their fenced in area outside of the big read
barn. Making changes when editing my paper has influence and improved
my writing. I have been able to see that just simple edits can change a
writing completely.

D. Choose one of the 8 sample e-Portfolios from our Moodle2 page to
rhetorically analyze. You have notes from class and Moodle2 to pull from. In
your analysis, remember to address the following:
--The rhetorical triad: How do all the pieces (author, reader, purpose,
context/situation) work" in this sample e-Portfolio?
--The modes of communication the author uses. Remember, no text
communicates via one single mode.
--What is the genre of this e-Portfolio? Is the genre simply "e-Portfolio," or
does it fit into a more specific sub-genre? Based on the way you categorize
this, can you figure out some rules for writing in this genre? What are those
rules/conventions?
--The ultimate goal of rhetorical analysis is to explore the success of the text
at hand. So, based on your analysis, do you think this sample e-Portfolio is
successful? Why or why not?

I decided to choose sample e-Portfolio number seven. The author, Lindsey
Woodruff, seems to give lots of information about herself through her
writings. The purpose of this e-Portfolio is to get the reader to obviously
recognize who she is as a person and a writer all in one. Lindsey does a very
well job sharing pictures in each of her blog post and her essays to help me
as a reader visually understand what she is talking about. As I can see, she
loves photography and has written about it in her work. The point this
author is trying to get across is to let her readers understand her hobby and
what is most important to her. Just from the colors she chooses and her
word choices, she seems like a very peaceful minded girl who has a
successful road ahead of her. I must say, Lindsey does a very good job
grabbing my attention with her choice of linguistics, visuals, and spatial
modes to communicate with her e-Portfoilio. I would say that this e-Portfolio
is definitely a successful one because I can visualize what the author is
trying to tell me as a reader. I enjoy the layout especially and it has given
me ideas for the future of my own e-Portfolio.

E. As of midterm, what grade have you earned in this course? Look back
over your answers on this midterm as well as page 3 of the syllabus (the e-
Portfolio Grade Scale). Are you setting yourself up to compose an exemplary
e-Portfolio? After youve explained your grade, you may also ask questions
about the Grade Scale if any you have any.

Blakeley Fogleman
After looking back over my work for this midterm, I feel that I would give
myself a B in the class. I have went back into my e-Portfolio and reorganized
my Weebly to make it easy to navigate and find information about me as an
author. The reason I feel that I deserve a B is because I have not completely
answered all my blog posts the way they should have been answered. One
of the blog posts I answered wrong and had to go back and answer the
question again. If someone were to read my blogs they may be confused
with the two types of answer I have. Even though I have tried to correct my
answer, I am still not sure that I am on the right path to the correct answer.
It is difficult to grade myself with a limited amount of work on my page. I
cant wait to import my Narrative paper into my Weebly to share more
information about myself with others that are viewing my page. How can
you determine that I have a good e-Portfolio when I barely have enough
information to give a rhetorical analysis to my readers? Also, will my
midterm e-Portfolio affect my final grade in my portfolio considering I will be
adding more details and information throughout the next few weeks?