English 1301 Portfolio

Over the years I have been involved in many discourse communities including FFA, working as a certified nursing assistant, and playing sports. After beginning my first semester of college, I realized that the discourse communities I was involved in all shared the same characteristics. As a nursing assistant I quickly learned a level of responsibility unknown to a sophomore in high school. On top of the new level of responsibility, I also had to write detailed notes to report to the nurse. However; the thing that I loved the most about my job as a certified nursing assistant is that I was able to make a difference in their lives and help patients get back to their maximum state of health. Nursing majors need to adapt to a different style of writing by adding more detail and description and document anything that occurs for liability reasons.

To me the Pekins summary was very eye opening. I learned a lot about how to construct a well written academic essay to meet college expectations. The first topic that I learned was about metacommentary, which is the connecting tissues in the structure of an essay, mostly transitions. In addition to learning about metacommentary, I also learned about the framework of an essay. During my rhetorical analysis with Pekins article on first year english composition, I found that a good introductory paragraph gave enough information so the audience would understand what is going to be discussed, but also keeps the audience wanting more. I also found that in order to make a strong argument I needed multiple sources of data and not just one type of data. In other words, use a mix of qualitative and quantitative data to propose a claim on a certain topic.

I really enjoyed how Pekins organized his article on first year english composition. The fact that he started by saying his credibility, to his three main claims with evidence to back up each, to taking it one step further by proposing possible solutions to regain the level of comprehension needed for first year english composition. Another item that I noticed was pretty good is that his use of word choice was kept to a minimal. Using too advanced of words can really throw off the readers understanding of the article and lose the focus of the reader; however, I feel that Pekins kept his word choice simple for his audience to understand. Finally, the one item that bothered me the most is that Pekins conclusion was not trying to inform the public about the decline in first year english composition; instead, Pekins was trying to persuade his audience to support his new assessment that would help increase test scores on the english composition test. I just feel that in the end all Pekins really cared about was getting audience support for his new assessment.

We did a few rhetorical analysis papers this semester in my first year english composition course. One of the papers was on John Pekins article on the decline in first year english composition. Throughout the learning unit I broken down his article into introductory, body and conclusion. In the introduction I evaluated Pekins effectiveness on whether or not he did a good job in explaining to his audience what his article was about and stating the main purpose for his article. I decided that Pekins was effective in explaining the main purpose to the audience and grabbing the readers attention. Next, I looked at the conclusion and decided whether or not pekins did a good job summarizing the main points of his article and what he wanted his audience to do after reading his article. I really enjoyed Pekins article until it came to the conclusion. I felt that during Pekins article that his primary focus was to inform the audience of the decline in the first year english composition. However, when I got to the conclusion I found that the only thing Pekins wanted was for his audience to support his new assessment that would help increase first year english test scores and comprehension. I also found that Pekins never restated his main purpose of the article or restated the main points. Finally, I focused on the body paragraphs of John Pekins article about the declining test scores in first year english composition. Within the body paragraphs I focused on multiple factors that strengthen his argument including word choice, evidence and organizational structure. I believe that Pekins did an amazing job with all of the information presented in his body paragraphs. I think that Pekins used a vocabulary of words that wasn’t too difficult for the reader to understand and comprehend. I also think that Pekins used a wide variety of data and evidence that not only back up his argument, but also made him more credible as the author of the article. Finally, I believe that Pekins designed his article with incredible structure. Pekins began his article by teaching with the class and wondered his way into identifying a problem in first year english composition by testing his students. He then goes into depth on why he believes that the system is failing and takes it one step further and proposes solutions to fix what has been damaged.

In the beginning of this course, I didn’t have any idea how the course was connected together; however, by the end of the course I understood the connections between the units and lectures. I realized that the building blocks were the connecting materials and a rough draft for the learning units. Each learning unit was designed to start broad and become more specific. The first learning unit was based on John Pekin’s article on first year english composition and how there has been a decline in the course due to the available options for incoming freshmen. The decline in first year english composition is due to the amount of technology that the new generation uses, the design of the high school literature classes being focused solely on state standards not college preparation, and how incoming freshmen can chose vocational schooling instead of a traditional university. The second learning unit is based on the structure and evidence of a well written academic paper. Within this learning unit I focused on how to provide a well written introduction that will attract my readers attention, to construct an effective conclusion that provides a summary of what was discussed in the essay, and how to provide credible evidence and reasoning to back up an argument. The third and final learning unit ties correlation between the discourse communities that I have and how they connect to my specific major, nursing, and my professional career. Throughout this learning unit I realized that a lot of the discourse communities I was involved in during high school were correlated with the discourse communities I am in now as a nursing major and in my professional development. In conclusion I have found that the first learning unit focused primarily on first year english composition and laid the foundation for college academics as a whole and finished with how college academics leads to future success in my professional career. In other words, learning unit one focused on the class itself, learning unit two focused on college academic writing and learning unit three focused on how all of the information taught in college academics provides a framework for later life and professional development.