Final Reflection

This final reflection is based on the five student learning outcomes we incorporated in

our writing throughout the year in UWRT 1104. The first one is Rhetorical knowledge.

Rhetorical knowledge is the ability to identify and apply strategies across a range of texts and

writing situations. There are two good examples of this I chose to talks about in my reflection.

Example 1 comes from my Inquiry thesis. It is, In the Judeo-Christian tradition part of the first

chapter of the Bible establishes the origin of life when talking about the creation of Adam and

Eve. In the story of creation God created Adam then Eve. This shows rhetorical knowledge

because I clearly describe the story of Adam and Eve and in what religion it comes from. Not

everyone knows this story so the breakdown of it allows the reader to get the context of my

argument. The second one I chose was from my literary narrative. The literary narrative was

written to give a detailed description of the important parts of my life that encouraged my

literacy. The quote is, I still remember the large open cafeteria and narrow hallways. The way

my class was just beyond the cafeteria and near the bathroom so I never got lost in the school.

Walking together with all my classmates close enough to stay together but not too close to catch

the heels of the person in front of you. Catching a bubbles in our mouths the second we stepped

out of the bounds of the classroom.. The quote sets the scene for the classroom where my 1st

grade teacher influenced my literacy. It is very descriptive and sets the scene of the elementary

school I attended. Between these two quotes there are some differences. The first quote gives

background on a topic not everyone is familiar with. Meanwhile the second quote describes a

scene for the reader. Personally I think both quotes are a really good example of rhetorical
knowledge. When pertaining to the reader's understanding of the text they do a very good job.

Though those texts dont really relate to one another they incorporate similar things.

The second student learning outcome is critical reading. This is the ability to analyze,

synthesize, interpret, and evaluate ideas, information and texts.

The first example was from an essay called ALEXIE by Alexie that was found in our coursepack.

I used critical reading techniques to analyze this essay. Finding what rules were broken in the

text required me to really read through it. I took a lot of quotes from the story to back up my
thoughts as I broke down the story like that. I analyzed each line and chose the ones that

seemed as though they would back up my points well. It wasnt a tough assignment I just used

what I knew and could infer. After doing this I could only come to the conclusion that Alexie did

in fact break the rules of his ethnicity. The second one was taken from my annotated

bibliography.

This was one of my annotated bibs I chose not to include in my essay.Although it was in an

education journal about social behaviors and personalities it was focused on Israelites and
wasnt very broad. Along with that the data was only collected from about 200 people all

israelites. To me that seemed to be a lot of the same types of people in the same situation so

the data would be a little skewed.Also in my paper it wouldnt have fit because theyre testing

was about gender roles in the job market.

The third SLO is knowledge of conventions. This is the formal rules and informal

guidelines that define genres, and in so doing, shape readers and writers expectations of

correctness or appropriateness. One of my examples is , The house was not only warm

because of all the cooking done that day but it was warm with the love each of us had for

one another and I had missed that.. It is from an assignment we did in our daybook

describing an important occasion to me and I chose Thanksgiving. This example was

chosen for the punctuation at the end. It is a simple period but it encloses the sentence.

My second example is Then there is intensified proscriptions. These are, qualities that are

undesirable in general, but viewed as especially undesirable in one gender or another (p 25

Lips). This example is from my Inquiry Thesis and shows how I used an internal citation where

I cited the exact page the quote was from. My last example is A study from a journal ,titled

Child Development, was given to 160 children and about 32 adults asking them a series of

questions with photo about gender roles.. This example was also from my Inquiry Thesis and it

was to show my use of commas to further explain the title of the journal. To write any good

piece, formal or informal, knowledge of conventions is necessary. I think I have to work on

comma rules because I dont always use them when needed. Other punctuation comes easier to

me though.
SLO number four is composing processes which is when writers use multiple strategies, or

composing processes, to conceptualize, develop, and finalize projects.

This is the revised version of a piece of my Inquiry Thesis. The original version went into detail

about Native American civilizations not allowing women to be in power roles. After my

conference when we went over my draft I was further informed that this was not the case and

that a lot of the time in Native American civilizations women were more respected and held

some high roles in the community. I then looked into it and realised this was in fact true so I had

to change my thesis to only display factual information.

This example was taken from my Inquiry Proposal. I talked about how I changed my initial

inquiry question because I began to actually inquiry more about gender roles and the affect they
have. Of course I looked into it and when I started the annotated bibliographies I came across a

book fully about gender roles and its effects and I decided it was my new question.

This was my last example of composing processes which was taken from my Inquiry thesis. The

first version of this section didnt describe the Biblical story in depth. After meeting with my

teacher and the group of people in my conference I realised the Bible to me is different for others

so I had to describe the specific religion it comes from. Also I described the specific story in the

bible more in depth so everything was clear for the reader.

The last SLO is critical reflection which is a writers ability to articulate what s/he is thinking

and why. My first example is a reflection I did for my literacy analysis.

Reflection 1: Writing this paper was not that difficult. The ideas for it and what shaped my

literacy came quite easy because there was a main two teachers that really helped me become

me. This paper actually made me realize how much of an impact they had on my life. Obviously
it was not only those two teachers that influenced my journey but I had to narrow it down to stay

with a main theme. I like my paper and hope the reader of it enjoys it as well.

Reflecting on past work allows you to really analyze your paper. In this case I realised the paper

was easier to write because of my clear understanding of the guidance of my literacy. I realised

after doing this paper that there was a lot of different things that guided my literacy. I really

wanted to incorporate all those things in my paper but that wouldve been too long of a paper.

My second example of this is a reflection from a studio we did in class.

Reflection: My experience with this studio was good. I didnt really know where I was

going when I chose the picture. The emotions and things I ended up saying about the

picture surprised me because I didnt even know thats how I felt. The dominant

impression was confusing at first but once I read an example from a friend I got the gist

of it. In the future the dominant impression could be a good way to join all the

information I gathered together. It could also be a good beginning to a thesis or opening

statement. It helps you have a deliberate focus before writing your specific piece and

thats a good tool to have.

I realised this studio brought something out of me when talking about the picture of

my thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is important to me and my family so when talking about

that picture a lot came out of me. This reflection really showed me that i really had a lot

to talk about when it came to that topic.