Alex Ayala

Professor Erin McLaughlin

WR-13300-SS-14
11 December 2015
Portfolio Reflection
I will be completely honest. I came into this class with a pretty negative expectation. I
never liked writing. I always thought I was terrible at it because I often struggle with the process
of actually writing papers. However, this class, more than any other writing or English class I
have ever taken, taught me the importance of the writing process. In the past, I never really
thought much of the writing process and I always ended up cramming and writing entire essays
or papers the night before they were due. One of the big differences I have found with projects or
papers in this class compared to classes I have had in the past is that for the projects in this class,
we had several deadlines so that we could continue progressing overtime. While I found this to
be stressful short term because I still had other work to do, I realize that if I had tried to save the
work for these projects until the last minute, I would become far too overwhelmed. This portfolio
demonstrates my understanding of writing as a process because it includes multiple components
of projects that were used to ultimately help with the final product. My writing process has
evolved such that I have started doing work well before the due date to assist me with my work
on the final product. My evolution and my process-oriented composition skills are evident in my
projects like my research paper and my audio narrative. For the research paper, I did work in
finding sources and gathering information early on as is evident by my annotated bibliography,
and this helped guide my research later on and helped me focus the information in my paper. For

the audio narrative, I wrote the script earlier on so that I had time to clean it up before I actually
ended up recording it.
We have learned many things about rhetoric throughout this course. Honestly, I did not
even know what rhetoric meant before this class. We learned about how the phrasing of ideas is
important and how framing in film has a specific purpose. This contributes to the rhetoric. Other
things we learned about rhetoric include ideas such as how rhetoric responds to a situation. Also,
when it comes to argumentation, we learned about how an effective argument presents
counterarguments and has a target audience. This portfolio demonstrates my understanding of
rhetoric and argumentation through the various projects I have completed. Notably, the video
satire that we created about Moreau is particularly indicative of my understanding of rhetoric and
argumentation. Our satire was a response to the fact that all freshmen are now required to take
Moreau First Year Experience, a class about which we almost unanimously have negative
feelings. Also, we included counterarguments like how people say that they want to take physical
education. It also has a target audience of freshmen at Notre Dame.
My research paper and rhetorical analysis demonstrate my critical research, reading, and
thinking skills. In completing my research paper, I learned how to effectively find sources related
to my topic and identify which ones were important. I also learned how to piece my research
together in an effective way. The rhetorical analysis was particularly helpful with developing my
critical thinking skills as I had to form a cohesive argument on my own about the movie Dear
White People. I honestly do not think that critical reading was as important to my development
as a writer as research and critical thinking were this semester. The role of research in my
development as a writer this semester was helping me to better understand library databases and
to help with my ability to write an organized and informative analysis.

Multimedia played a part in my development in many ways this semester. When it came
to rhetoric, I learned about the rhetoric of film such as the importance of framing and how
movies as well as other rhetoric are created in response to something. Reading texts gave me
insight into the importance of wording and the how and why behind peoples response to humor.
It actually had been a while since I had written a narrative when it came time to do the audio
narrative. In doing the project, I had to develop a different style of writing, one that was more
casual or personal than a formal essay was like. The multimedia projects such as the audio
narrative and video satire connected to the course material about why people laugh and to the
material about choosing your audience.
The purpose of the audio narrative was firstly to introduce us to how we can use other
useful media to do projects aside from just writing papers. It also was intended to get us to
understand humor and why some things are funny. This was a pretty hard project for me because
usually when I am funny, it is out of spontaneity and once I start thinking about humor too much,
it loses its effect. I now have a greater appreciation for other forms of doing projects aside from
writing, and I feel like my audio narrative was funny at parts, showing how I did indeed
successfully learn about why certain things are funny. The purpose of the rhetorical analysis was
to get us to start thinking more critically about movies beyond just the entertainment value. My
project was successful in showing that I am able to think about the deeper meanings and hidden
messages in movies because I was able to form a cohesive argument about Dear White People.
The purpose of the video satire, like the audio narrative, was to help us get a better understanding
of humor. It also had us learn about how humor can be used to address other important (or some
not so important) issues. The video reflects my development in these areas because some of the
parts of the video would be funny to students who take the Moreau course and because we,

through sarcasm and exaggeration, successfully address the problem that Moreau has mostly
seemed unnecessary and that most students dislike it. The purpose of the research paper was to
get us to learn how to navigate through the library databases and how to identify and connect
sources that can actually help with our arguments. This can be seen in my research paper as I was
able to successfully analyze video game censorship in Japan and America and what they revealed
about Japanese and American attitudes towards violence and sexuality in media. I also provided
an annotated bibliography which illustrated how some of my sources were going to be useful for
my finished product. The purpose of the TED talk was to give us experience publicly speaking
and to allow us to share our research with the rest of the class. Now, I am a generally introverted
person who does not like public speaking, but doing this project gave me some more confidence
in my public speaking abilities. I also found that sharing something I am genuinely interested in
is very fulfilling.
I think the project that I am most proud of is my TED Talk. Now, while I did musical
theater in high school, I found acting to be my weakest ability, or at least the one I was the least
confident about. This directly relates to the fact that I am introverted and do not like talking in
front of big groups of people very much. However, doing this project and speaking about
something that I was passionate about gave me a boost in confidence about my public speaking
abilities. While my presentation skills were by no means perfect, it was one of the few times I
can remember feeling confident while presenting. I think this project highlighted the fact that I
tend to be too hard on myself and that I often do better than I give myself credit for.
All in all, I am really glad I took this course. It was a lot of work at times, but I found that
the skills I learned and my overall development as a writer in this class were very much worth
that workload. I come out of this class feeling like a completely different writer from the one

who walked in on the first day. I used to be very self-conscious about my writing abilities, but
since the beginning, I have developed into a much more confident writer.