Lauren Plog

Prof. Marshall
Retrospective-Prospective Essay
11/19/14

Dear Future English 101 Student,

At this point in time, you are most likely nervous as to what will be expected of you this
quarter when you take English 101. To help you, I will explain some things that I have
experienced this quarter in the hopes of calming your nerves and providing you with some
insight to prepare you. In this letter, I will reflect back as well as look forward at my course
participation, steps in learning, and my relationship with reading and writing.
Just like most other students, I rarely wanted to participate in classroom discussions in
high school. For the most part, I stayed quiet. Mostly due to the fact that I could easily maintain a
good grade in the class with very minimal effort. When I did participate, it would be because it
was required for a grade. In high school, classroom discussions were very rarely helpful in aiding
my learning. Participation in this English 101 course is crucial to your learning in this class.
Without engaging with the material and with your classmates, a full understanding of the course
will be impossible - as will receiving a passing grade. This is a stark contrast from high school,
where active discussion and participation is not always necessary or encouraged.
English 101 as well as other college courses in general are much different than high
school because it is close to impossible to survive in this class without participating. The class
room discussions are extremely useful in our learning. When I share my own ideas and listen to
my peers own ideas I am able to gain new perspectives or to understand certain material that I
was unable to understand before. By taking this class, I have learned that I get the most out of a

lesson when I am able to discuss the topics with other students and listen to how they analyzed
the lesson and why they have a certain perspective on a topic.
In the beginning of the quarter we read an essay by Stuart Greene titled Argument as
Conversation: The Role of Inquiry in Writing a Researched Argument. In Greenes essay he
writes about joining a conversation- something that English 101 students do. We take in
multiple different ways that our peers have understood the course material and use it to our own
personal benefit by adding to how we understand the material. In this class, I have joined the
conversation by showing up to class, participating in the online discussions, and by
participating in the discussions that we have in class. In the Artifact and Commentary section of
my Final Portfolio Project I include a snapshot of other students comments on my post. These
comments are a clear representation of how participation is a major aspect of English 101. The
feedback that I recieve on my ideas allows me to see the subject in a different light and brings up
points that I previously overlooked. With the ability to share our ideas, I gained a new
perspective and started to understand the material on a deeper level.
Another artifact that I included in the Artifact and Commentary section of my Final
Portfolio Project was a picture of comments that my sister had made on my first essay when she
edited it. The comments that she had left me were focused on the same concepts as the ones we
learned in class but they were in different words. This helped me fully understand the concepts in
class and see how I could apply them to my own writing. When I would have my sister edit my
papers and discuss them, I was participating in English 101 even though I was not in the class.
Without this form of participation outside of the classroom, I would not have been able to
understand the material to the level that I need in order to succeed in this course.

Being able to recognize and analyze my steps in learning is just as important in English
101 as participation. For example, when I first started this course I had no idea how to write
anything other than the typical 5-paragraph essay that I learned to write in high school. It started
with an introductory paragraph that included a thesis. In that thesis, I would list three different
ways (those were my three body paragraphs) that I was arguing my thesis. I would then restate
those three points in my final conclusion paragraph. That structure was kicked to the curb on the
first day of English 101.
Horizontal development, the typical high school formatting, is much less effective than
vertical development in an essay. With vertical development, you expand and add depth to a
specific idea. I struggled with learning how to vertically develop my writing in the beginning of
this class and it is very evident in first essay. I understood horizontal vs. vertical development but
I had no idea how often I did it in my own writing. I would pile up facts to support my thesis
rather than taking the time to vertically develop one or two ways to support my thesis. For
example, in my first essay I included the sentence Most of these actresses or models only have
10-15% of body fat whereas a healthy female has roughly 22-26% body fat. This statistic did
not strengthen my argument nor have any significance in my thought process. I omitted this
sentence for my final essay. When you emphasize and analyze one or two specific points in your
paper, you actually create a stronger argument than if you add an array of facts.
After learning how important vertical development is, and how often I horizontally
develop, I made many revisions to my essay for my second and final essay. I have narrowed
down my CIQ every time I have submitted an essay for this class which then allows me to
vertically develop my essay rather than stating facts. As I wrote my final essay, I tried very hard
to make sure that I vertically developed every idea as well as every fact. For example, when I

mention cyber bullying in my essay, I share a time where I experienced cyber bullying in order
to increase my credibility in my claims.
When it came to designing my Final Portfolio, I decided to do it in the form of blog
because my topic has to do with social media and ideas from blogging are applied to my topic.
By using a blog for my project I hope that the reader can realize how easy it is to leave a
comment on the blog. I also chose to create a blog for my portfolio because it was a risk for me.
English 101 students are encouraged to take risks in their writing and to try something new. This
blog represents my entire experience this quarter- straying from the 5-paragraph essay structure
that I am very comfortable with.
I designed my blog in a specific order: Artifacts and Commentaries, RetrospectiveProspective Essay, then Presentation Essay. The Artifacts and Commentaries will show the
reader the effort that I have put into my writing this quarter. I put the Retrospective-Prospective
Essay second to give my reader an idea of how far I have come and what my essay topic is.
Hopefully, by the time my reader gets to my Presentation Essay, they will be able to see how far
I have come and see where I tried to apply the concepts from English 101 to my essay.
In the future, I will definitely strive to be able to vertically develop my writing even
more. I will also take what I learned about rhetorical awareness and apply it to many different
aspects in my education-not just writing. When reading my essays and editing them using a
Rhetorical outline, I can alter how my reader takes in the information. This course has
significantly changed my relationship with reading and writing. It has forced me to think about
why and how I will get my reader to read my writing. It has also allowed me to be an active
participant in my own writing and to find out how I learn best.
Sincerely,

Lauren Plog