Mariana Vasquez

SLO Essay

English 120, a Success!

English 120 has been a course that has significantly helped me acquire experience and
knowledge as a writer and collaborator. I have improved greatly in the aspects of
rhetorical situation and genre, grammar and usage, writing as a process, and reflection.
I have learned how to create writings in different mediums through the use of different
tools. I have also learned how to give and receive constructive feedback from peers and
how to incorporate it into the final drafts of my writing. Throughout this course, I wrote a
rhetorical analysis, a position paper, and a proposal. Each required great amount of
planning, research and organization. After completing the writings, I analyzed how I used
technology to help me reach my goals and how I had improved as a writer.
SLO A
SLO A can be translated as how we comprehend writings written in different forms and
how we are able to expand on the information, claims, and beliefs stated within each
communication tool. As well, how we are able to transform one communication tool into
another in order to establish a new purpose and rhetorical situation.
I improved toward this SLO during the process of writing a proposal. I first began by
writing a memo that served to briefly inform about a problem occurring in Albuquerque,
New Mexico. I wrote to the director of the health department discussing the problem of
poverty, how it was significantly affecting many, and how it could be fixed with the
implementation of a benefiting solution. Due to the audience being the health department

my writing was formal and I reached to be highly professional about the situation. After
mentioning the problem I transitioned into the outcomes the problem was producing in
order to emphasize it and promote the feeling of compassion. I then changed the medium
of writing from memo to proposal because I wanted to communicate different
information for different purposes. This was important because I not only wanted to
achieve informing what the problem was but also emphasizing the importance of it. I
transformed the memo into a more in depth description proposal. My purpose was
changed to persuade the director of the health department to give $10,000 to my group in
order to diminish the poverty issue rather than just informing about it. In the proposal, my
duty was to thoroughly state what the problem was in order for the director to
acknowledge the severity of the problem. So, what I did was use multiple statistics from
reliable resources. For example, I said In 2014, the U.S Census Bureau released
information that declared New Mexico as the nations #1 state with the highest
percentage of people living in poverty. and Of the 47.3% of Hispanic population,
21.7% alone suffer of poverty in the city of Albuquerque. I did this to emphasize the
problem and to support the claim of it affecting many and being an important problem
that needed to be addressed. I stated whom it was affecting in specific, and what the
short-run and long-term effects were. By this you can see that I have progressed toward
SLO A by being able to understand the expectations of each medium of writing and for
each targeting the rhetorical situation in a different form. I used different techniques to
accomplish each purpose.
SLO F

SLO F is defined as understanding how each medium of writing uses specific tools and
techniques to carry out its purpose effectively.
As I mentioned before, this course has provided me with learning experiences that have
contributed to my improvement. I have created different types of writings, all with
different rhetorical situations and have understood the differences from one medium to
another. For example, in my rhetorical analysis I had to analyze an ad and describe how
the use of the canons of rhetoric played a role communicating the message of the institute
being beneficial to students in multiple aspects. Where as in my position paper I had to
complete a large amount of research to support my stance on an issue. In the rhetorical
analysis I simply had to interpret the meaning of the ads message through the analysis of
logos, ethos, pathos, in the form of an essay, and for the position paper I had to take a
stance on the issue and argue why it was the right stance although the issue might be
proved otherwise. Throughout the analysis I gave examples of how the ad showed logos,
ethos, and pathos in order to show how they recruited students. Now, throughout the
position paper I gave examples of negative outcomes of the media in order to show how
badly it affects children. Lastly, in my proposal I also improved toward this studentlearning outcome. For my proposal, I didnt use transitional sentences like I did in my
rhetorical analysis and position paper. Rather I decided to use headers and sub-headers to
help me transition from one point to another. My header and sub-headers all consisted of
rhetorical questions due to me believing it was a technique in which I would be able to
target all of the aspects of the problem, and easily guide the reader. I used the rhetorical
question What is the problem? as my main header, and then, used rhetorical questions
like What does this mean and why is it important?, and What is poverty the product

of? as my sub-headers. I did this because the main purpose was to state the problem so I
wanted the main header to easily catch attention and give the impression that the subheaders were items that fell under the problem. Therefor, it is why I made the main
header and sub-headers distinguishable by the font size and color. Due to this, it can be
noticed that by my use of different tools I have mastered the understanding of creating
distinguishable writings, and can therefore prove my improvement toward SLO F.
SLO C
Student learning outcome C is defined as all of the stages a writer undergoes throughout
the process of creating a strong writing.
All of my pieces of writing during this course example my improvement toward studentlearning outcome C. For my rhetorical analysis I first had to choose an ad that I wanted to
analyze and plan how I would approach my analysis for each of the canons of rhetoric.
Then I had to carefully analyze the use of logos, ethos, and pathos in the ad and explain
how they effectively contributed to the message in the ad. Throughout the process of
writing the analysis I began with a rough draft that lacked organization. The fluency was
bad and it was hard to understand. So, I tried a personal technique in which I printed out
a draft and cut out each paragraph. I then placed them all in an order that I believed
flowed better into another and it seemed to help be establish a sense of organization.
Another example of me improving towards SLO A is the position paper. I began by
writing about a stance I took on the issue of the media affecting children and teenagers.
Throughout this I focused a lot about the three stages of the brain and talked about them
in much depth. After receiving constructive feedback on the position paper it was made to
notice how I took away from my argument due to explaining too much about the stages

rather than stating why and how it affects them. So, for my revision I decided to
consolidate on those points and emphasize the side effects more. I explained how
children are deceived by the media [being] unable to differentiate real life and fantasy
aspects portrayed and how is it causing them to become passive learners. After that
bullet pointed outcomes of each. For example due to them being deceived they develop
abnormal behaviors such as aggression, anxiety, and depression. Due to them becoming
passive learners they develop learning disabilities, and deficit in school subjects.
SLO D
Student learning outcome D is defined as the ability to use the appropriate language for
each register of writing.
An example of me improving toward SLO D is the rhetorical analysis. My purpose was
to analyze the use of the canons of rhetoric and tell my findings to a student committee.
For this, my tone was very much casual and not formal due to my audience having the
similarity of being a student just like me and placing us on the same level. I would use
phrases like Our future, Our careers, and PMI provides us with many opportunities
in order to keep the tone fluent throughout the analysis and show our relationship. I did
notice though that in the original draft of the analysis I had the tendency to use words that
didnt correctly fit in. For example, I would use words like Become or small class
settings. So, for the revision I replaced those words with turn into and small class
sizes as well as replacing other incorrect words. Now, in respect of the position paper
my tone was very formal. I was to write about an issue in which demonstrated my
strengths as a writer due to being an applicant for a job position as a writer. I showed my
professionalism by writing in third person and using words like Children rather than

kids and or Adolescents instead of teens. I was very careful with the tone
throughout the position paper because I wanted to make it all fluent. For the revision,
although I changed the medium of the position paper into a brochure I kept my language
the same. I did this because brochures are another form of formal communication. My
audience was not anyone I shared a similarity with so I was unable to talk to them as if
we held the same position. But, these examples show how I adjust my language for each
register and prove how I have succeeded toward SLO D.

Ready for future English courses!

I am a writer who once considered to have very weak writing skills but, I am a writer
who is eager to learn new skills and throughout this course I have not only learned new
ones, I have mastered them. I came into the course lacking the ability to transform one
piece of writing into another due to also lacking the knowledge of tools a writer can use
to achieve different outcomes. I have outstandingly improved toward the student learning
outcomes of rhetorical situation and genre, reflection, writing as a process, and grammar
and usage. These skills will help me in future English courses by enhancing the
organization, and language of my writing. This semester I was able to improve from my
weaknesses by learning the most important skill a writer should learn: acknowledging
own mistakes and working on them.