John Tirella, Section 029, Ms.

Ingram

A) From my first blog post to today many of the questions I made that first day have been
answered through hours of class time. The biggest question I had was why the class was
portfolio based, and through my first month and a half in this class, I can clearly see an
improvement in my abilities as a writer not simply through one aspect, I have seen a vast
improvement in my ability to analyze the text, a vast improvement of my vocabulary and
grammar, and an improvement to my rhetorical skills. Every class that I have attended
has proven immensely valuable to my ability as a writer. The main thing that has helped
me answer this question has been through tedious note taking on the rhetorical triangle
along with the ideologies explained through book readings from various professors and
literary minds. Through their insight I have gained the capacity to analyze texts in such a
way that allows me to determine the intentions of the author, who they intended to write
to, why they wrote it, and how it fits into the grand scheme of literacy genres. Without
the textbook I would have to take far more time out of my day to attempt to understand
even a fraction of what I have learned until now. This has been the main point of any and
all success I have had in this class.
B) After taking a glance at the nine key concepts provided by the syllabus, I feel that I have
excelled in independent learning, critical thinking, and intellectual growth and maturity.
Though it may not seem entirely present during my class time engagements, I feel like
my writing has shown a great deal of growth and development within the past month and
a half. This, ironically being through many of the class exercises we have participated in
such as the many readings we have done in the class textbook, looking through the
variety of dialects across this country and in our own campus as well. The major part I
have difficulty with is stepping out of my own comfort zone, I feel as if many of the

John Tirella, Section 029, Ms. Ingram

assignments given to us to do over our time away from class are rudimentary to a point.
We seem to be doing the same style of writing merely answering different questions, how
our college experience is so far, or writing a reflection on readings we look at in class or
at home. I do not feel very confident in saying that I have gone anywhere out of my
comfort zone as a writer, sure writing different styles which are on a more narrow or
broader approach to our topic was one instance, but it is only one. So I am truly confused
on whether or not we have been able to define our own comfort zones and make an effort
to expand our horizons as writing students.
C) I never thought of myself as the editing type, still dont, but I have a few revisions that I
have made on my literacy narrative that would be able to provide an adequate response to
this question. My literacy narrative encompassed my life in the seventh grade, and the
main problem I, along with my peer reviewers had was that my first draft was very much
unorganized and not as well structured as I would have liked it to be. My first paragraph
didnt get into the core struggles that went on in my seventh grade life, the loss of my
mother the impending doom of the dreaded IDE and the loss of my grandfather. The
main problem was that the paragraphs didnt flow quite right so I had to try to get to the
core right off the bat so the reader could feel what I was feeling that fateful year. By
moving up the mentions of my struggles I allowed room to develop my troubles and my
literary advancements into the middle portion of the narrative instead of the beginning,
which not only expressed my emotions better, but allowed the narrative to develop a
proper structure. Without the proper structure my entire literacy narrative would have
been complete and utter garbage, nothing but a manifestation of mediocrity that would
have resulted in a far worse read for my audience.

John Tirella, Section 029, Ms. Ingram

D) The Rhetorical triad is clearly present in the first of the sample e-portfolios by Jala
Robinson. The Author and Audience are easily identifiable along with the Authors
purpose in the first paragraph alone. The Author writes her portfolio in the form of a
narrative which I believe is through her use of First Person Narrative which picks her out
as the narrator of her own life since birth until now. I think this portfolio was very
successful in being able to express the authors raw emotion through her portfolio. I was
able to connect with the author through her struggles in high school and getting into
college, I myself thought of going to school early in the summer to knock out some credit
hours before I get to school so I could stay ahead of the game. Through my connection
with the Author in her struggles I have a personal connection to the piece, though the
most interesting part to me is when she began to mention the various artifacts from class.
E) I believe I have set myself up to get around a 93-90 on my e-portfolio because I have
completed all assignments given to me, my writing has already improved immensely
through this month and a half alone, and I am beginning to use more quotes in my work
which falls into the criteria for A work not worth a 100 or even a 95 for that matter
which is why I think I deserve an A-. My main questions on the grading scale is why
there are simply an A instead of an A+, an A, and an A-? What is more important when
discerning my midterm grade my personal input or a few of my assignments?