Summey 1

Kelsey Summey

April 28, 2015

Ms. Ingram

UWRT 1102

FINAL PORTFOLIO ESSAY

Introduction

As you click the wix.com link to enter my e-Portfolio, you arrive to a black page with a

huge picture as the background. The picture consists of the National Security Agencys (NSA)

logo with the name of the agency written around it. The logo is a Bald Eagle with a shield in front

of it. This logo is my immediate way to appeal to my audiences visual mode of communication.

As you scroll down, youll see a small paragraph that is centered within the page. Within the

paragraph, I gave a brief description of what my e-Portfolio is about and encouraged the viewer to

enter it. This small paragraph appeals to my audience through the linguistic and spatial mode of

communication. The last item on the page appeals to my audience gesturally. I placed a small

icon that shows a hand clicking on a bullseye. This icon opens the doors to the remainder of my

e-Portfolio. It leads directly to my Table of Contents page, which is another way that I appeal to

my audience visually and spatially. Within my Table of Contents page, I have constructed six

different colored boxes that line the page symmetrically. These boxes all have different names on

them. For example, I have a Final Portfolio Essay box and a About Me box. This Table of

Contents page is a great and easy way for my audience to navigate through my e-Portfolio in an

organized, neat manner.

Summey 2

Final Portfolio Essay

Starting the writing process for this essay was a lot harder than it was in UWRT 1101. I

was extremely confused, and I felt that I had no idea where to start. To get a breath of fresh air, I

decided to create an outline of everything that was to be included in this essay. This outline can

be referred to as my Process Work Artifact One. This outline was very simple and

straightforward. I listed out all the headings that will be a part of the essay, and they mirrored the

tabs in my e-Portfolio. Underneath all of these tabs, placed all ten of my artifacts so I will

remember when to talk about them. Lastly, under some of my headings, I listed the main points

that I wanted to hit. This artifact was simply here to give me some guidance.

Multi Genre Project

The first artifact listed on this page is Process Artifact Two, which is the start of my

traditional research essay. Before actually starting my multi genre project, I believed that the most

logical way to present my information would be in the form of a research paper. Because of this,

I immediately started typing this paper. Thirty minutes into the paper, I noticed a huge disconnect

between me and the audience. There is no way that Congressmen and Congresswomen are going

to find and read this research paper; I am only be realistic. Because I could not take the risk of

having this disconnect, I figured that this paper was not the best way to present my research to my

audience.

The next artifact on this page is the Writers Notebook Artifact One, and it is the warm

up that we did on March 19th. During this warm up, I explained who my audience is and how I

was going to connect to them. I stated, "My audience is the Supreme Court justices and the

lawmakers of Congress. I plan to connect with them by sending them both a personal letter,

Summey 3

which will show that there is an actual concern with this topic. I will also share a mash up

video with them so they can acknowledge the different opinions/points of views of the topic.

The next activity that we did on March 19th was Speed Dating. In this activity, we were to talk to

every member of the class about our audience and how we were to connect. In the first round of

Speed Dating, I talked to Tim. Tim showed a lot of interest in my topic and thought my ideas were

good. The one thing that caught my attention was when he said, The mash up video may be too

time consuming. He was absolutely correct! I could not figure out how to do it on my computer

and finding all the YouTube videos to go inside of it was a bit stressful. After being graded and

receiving feedback, Ms. Ingram left me a comment that made me one hundred percent sure that I

was not going to be doing the mash up video. She said, I wonder if this genre would appeal to

your much older audience. This is something that I had never thought about, and Ms. Ingram

was right, my older audience would not get on YouTube and look at this video. It would not make

sense for them too. I immediately threw this genre out and looked for other options.

The last artifact on this page is my Process Work Artifact Three, which is my Multi

Genre Project Outline. In this outline, I laid out what my project was to consist of: Personal Letter,

Flyer, and the Reflection. I then went through and put some of the key things that I wanted to

discuss in each of the subcategories. For example, in the personal letter, I wanted it to be a bit

more formal, and I wanted to introduce myself. The flyer was to be a bit more casual yet

informative. I was sure to remind myself to mention things such as the date, time, and place of the

event. Throughout my writing process, I referred back to this outline on multiple occasions, mainly

to keep myself in check.

Personal Letter

Summey 4

The layout of my letter page is pretty simple. When opened, the background of the page

is the same flag that states, Restore the Fourth. This background appeals consistently throughout

my Multi Genre Project tabs. When the reader scrolls down, they will see the embedded final draft

of the letter. At first glance, the reader could see highlighted parts of my final. These highlighted

regions are the result of the feedback Ive received.

The first section of my Multi Genre Project was the letter that I wrote to the United States

Congress in Washington, DC. I chose this genre over others such as a newspaper article or a blog

because it allowed me to make a closer connection to my audience. Congressmen and

Congresswomen would not pay attention to no-name bloggers, and what if my article never got

published? Theyd never get a chance to hear what I had to say or notice me whatsoever. The

only option left on my list was the letter. Since theres no way to connect with and chat with the

government physically, I thought that the letter would be the best way to reach Congressmen and

Congresswomen. Throughout the letter, I tried to make it as personal as possible. An example of

this is the very first sentence of my letter, which states, I am an eighteen year old college student

at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and I am writing to express my concern with

the NSAs Metadata Program. It allowed them to know exactly who I am and the sole purpose

behind the letter. Another way I connected to my audience personally was in the last two sentences

of my letter, which stated, There is no reason we should be going through this right now. Do

the right thing and make it illegal. My last two sentences lets Congress know that I am serious

about my concerns and that I am serious about having changes made.

Under my final draft of my letter, I have created a short slideshow of the feedback Ive

received from Ms. Ingram and Mackenzie Belton. This represents my Feedback Artifact One.

The feedback that Ive received consisted of much editing and a little criticism. There wasnt a lot

Summey 5

for me to do, mainly because I was sure to be extremely detailed throughout draft one and draft

two. The biggest flaw that I had to fix was the wording of one sentence, which explained what

information is gathered from the Metadata Program.

Flyer

The next section of my Multi Genre Project tab is my flyer. When the reader comes to this

page, theyll see a familiar background, consisting of the, Restore the Fourth, flag. After

scrolling down, the reader will be able to see the final draft of my flyer and the feedback that Ive

received.

The reasoning behind creating this flyer was to reach my audience indirectly. This means

that I wanted to get Congressmen/women to notice this cause through other people, specifically

other Americans. I also wanted to appeal to my audience in a very creative way that will catch

eyes while providing reliable information. Shelby agreed with this purpose, as she said, Great

job! Creative and shows legit issues with great evidence. This flyer is advertising a march,

entitled M3, and that stands for Metadata Madness March. Participants would be marching

because they are mad about the metadata program. In this flyer, I demonstrate visual, spatial, and

linguistic modes. The words I used and the placement of these words showed that I invested time

into the spatial and linguistic modes of communication. I bolded some words, colored others, and

changed the font size often. This was to draw the viewers eyes to certain parts of the flyer,

specifically the most important ones. To demonstrate the visual mode, I added in multiple pictures.

The picture on the top left is a group of protestors, which would try to get participants motivated

for this march. The top right picture is of a man holding up a sign that says, Hands Off My Meta-

Data. The last picture on this flyer is the American Flag, which shows patriotism. My goal is to

Summey 6

appeal to viewers pathos by making it seem like this march is the patriotic thing to do. I also

appealed to the viewers pathos by mentioning things such as, Protect our 4th Amendment

Before its too late. I also stated, Its Our Duty! Appealing to the audience ethically was

harder than I thought it was going to be. Because I had to put information on a flyer, there was

not room for long, in-depth sentences. There was only room for brief statements, so it was my job

to figure out how to win my audience over with few words. I believe that I accomplished this

through The Why section of my flyer. In bulleted form, I have listed reasons why this march is

logically and ethically correct.

The last section of this flyer tab of my Multi Genre Project is a continuation of my

Feedback Artifact One. Throughout this feedback, I received great advice from Mackenzie

Belton. She made me think deeper into the purpose of my flyer, and she made me reconsider the

layout. For example, she stated, Why choice of colors? Explain in your FPE. She made me

ask myself, why were these colors important? Did they have any meaning to me before? Do they

interpret something? I contemplated for a long time, but I eventually found my answer. Another

example of the help she provided was when she gave me advice on my layout. Mackenzie stated,

Maybe think about bullet points. This was a great idea! Instead of having long, drawn out

sentences explaining the purpose of the march, I could just use bullet points. Her feedback was

extremely constructive!

Reflection

Upon arriving to my reflection page, you see the same background and layout that is

featured in the letter, flyer, and multi genre project pages. After scrolling down, the viewer will

see the embedded reflection final. At a first glance, some may think that it looks boring and plain,

Summey 7

but this is only because of my APA format cover page that was required. Below the final draft, I

have listed three artifacts that have helped me develop my reflection.

The purpose of my reflection was to reflect on my whole writing and thought process of

my multi genre project. It was also my job to conduct a rhetorical analysis on the entire project. I

had to explain why I chose my two genres, expand on my thesis, explain how I used the modes of

communication, and explain how these genres appealed to my audiences logos, ethos, and pathos.

The easiest part of my reflection paper was explaining how I used the modes of communication.

In the letter, I only used the linguistic mode of communication. This was a very formal letter, so

there was no room to add in any images or any relatable items. As for the flyer, I used the spatial

mode, linguistic mode, and visual mode of communication. The flyer consisted of multiple

pictures and text that are located in separate, differently colored boxes. The flyer is very appealing

to the eye, and it catches many eyes, mainly because of the bright colored boxes. The hardest part

of the reflection was trying to figure out how I appealed to my audiences ethos, pathos, and logos.

For the longest time, I believed that I only appealed to my audiences pathos and logos. After

receiving feedback, I found that I appealed to my audiences ethos by being a United States citizen.

As for pathos, I made my audience envision what life would be if these freedoms were taken away.

Logos was appealed to in my letter, as I explained my concerns and argued them accordingly. The

reflection of my multi genre project is a great way for my audience to better understand the

development and thought behind my project in its entirety and the genres involved.

The first artifact that helped me develop my reflection was my Process Work Artifact

Four, which was the rough outline for my overall reflection. For draft one, I created this outline

in hopes of gaining a jump start on my actual writing process. Its very simple, as I just went

through the multi genre project assignment and answered all of the rhetorical analysis questions

Summey 8

one by one. Though it was brief and very broad, it allowed me to put my ideas down on paper,

and I referred to this outline very often.

My Feedback Artifact One is the next artifact listed on my page. This is the draft three

of my multi genre project, and I received a lot of great feedback from Ms. Ingram and Mackenzie

Belton. While reading this draft, I noticed that I had a lot of grammatical errors that needed to be

fixed, so they were sure to make me aware of them. When talking about how I used all three of

Aristotles appeals, Ms. Ingram wanted me to think further, especially on how I appealed to my

audiences ethos. She wrote, Ethos you are also an American citizen. How else have you

established ethos? After reading this question, I pondered for a long time on how else I have

established this. Being a citizen led me to connect to my audience in another way; since we are

both citizens, we share the same rights, freedoms, and liberties. If I am concerned about having

my liberties taken, then you should too. The last major change I had to make dealt with my use of

the APA format, and this leads to my last artifact on the page.

Wild Card Artifact One is pictures of an APA help website that I consistently referred to

while writing this paper. In the reflection, Ms. Ingram and Mackenzie pointed out a lot of mistakes

I was making in regards to my APA format. I didnt have a cover page, my in-text citations were

bad, and my reference page was totally incorrect. I believe that Mackenzie thought I was writing

in MLA format because she stated, APA? Or MLA? I was really embarrassed, and I needed

to fix this quickly. With the help of this wild card, I was able to make all these changes quick and

effectively.

Summey 9

Visual Bibliography

I have experienced a lot of technical issues with my visual bibliography page, and its

mainly because of the embed feature on Wix. I embedded my Prezi, but now it show up, so I had

to make a link directly to the URL site. It may not be a big deal to most people, but it makes me

pretty mad. Anyway, when the link is clicked, it takes the reader to my final draft of my visual

bibliography. The reader will see a very colorful Prezi that includes a lot of information inside of

it. On the right side of my Prezi, I decided to list the title and the research topic of my project. On

the left side, there is a lot of different colored sticky notes that are evenly spaced out. This allows

me to appeal to my readers visual and special linguistics. McKenna agreed with this, as she said,

I liked your layout and colors makes it appealing to read. When starting this bibliography,

I had a lot of trouble noting and making connections between all of my articles. Olivia noted this

as well because she asked me, Arent you supposed to include your thoughts/connections into

this part of the project for each source? To fix this, I created a Key Terms list under all of

my references so that I would be able to recognize familiar terms and names. This worked quite

well; there were a lot of names that came up time after time, so I was also sure to make a large

note of them. The sole purpose of this visual bibliography is let my reader know where exactly I

got all my facts from in a way that is not boring and bland. I think that Ive achieved this.

The first artifact that helped me develop my visual bibliography was my Writers

Notebook Artifact Two. This artifact is a reader response letter that explains my concerns with

the process of my visual bibliography. At this time, I was very uneasy about my whole

bibliography. I felt that it was way too broad and that it was not going to be useful to me in the

long run. I stated in the letter, Ill have to keep looking up more sources just to support my

project, and thats the last thing I want to do. Ms. Ingram humbled me and brought me to reality

Summey 10

by saying, But, often, thats realistic. Youre striving for an inquiry project, not for a

research report. All your frustration tells me that youre doing this right. Though I did not

enjoying feeling frustrated with my work, her statement brought me to ease. Another concern I

posed was that I had no way to connect all of my references together. This brought me to the idea

of the Key Terms list, and in the long run, it worked quite well for me. I also mentioned that

because I am going to be a business major, I will be having to use APA for all of my research;

therefore, I decided that I will start the learning process through this visual bibliography.

The last artifact that is on my page is my Wild Card Artifact Two, which happens to be

two YouTube videos. In my visual bibliography, I used these videos as two separate sources.

After viewing them, I couldnt help but to! The first one is entitled, I Spy With My Little Eye:

NSA Part 1 by Billy Johnson. In this video, he gave a lot of informational background of how the

government led up to this metadata program. He also explained how and why the information was

leaked by Edward Snowden. The second YouTube video is the second part of the first video, and

it is entitled Meta My Data: NSA Part 2. This video had an entirely different purpose than the first

one. In this, he explained what all this metadata is and what the government could find out from

all this information. These videos were very interesting, and I enjoyed watching them. The sole

reason I decided to use these two video are sources is because they give my visual bibliography a

slight edge. Most people cite long, boring articles that no one really wants to read. These videos

were extremely entertaining while they provided a lot of information. Another pro is that having

multiple peoples opinions of one subject leads to a great, constructive debate, which is good for

any cause. Throughout this project, I was sure to keep his ideas and opinions in mind.

Summey 11

Blog

The blog that I have taken the time to complete is the one activity that I had to do

consistently throughout the whole class. This blog coincided with all the other assignments that

Ms. Ingram gave the class. For example, we used blog one as our way to share a couple of things

that we thought were interesting to us. During this blog, we dived in to this whole inquiry project,

and we did take a breath of fresh air until we reached blog nine. In blog one, I talked about the

topics that I thought would be very interesting to research. My three topics were, What are the

10 most controversial political topics of 2014 2015? Why is there such a large wage gap in

most careers? Is social media negatively influencing lives and persuading individuals to give

into illegal/addictive behaviors, such as drugs, alcohol, and tobacco? I thought these were very

great topics to research, but little did I know that my final topic had nothing to do with either of

these. Olivia commented on the blog and said, I like that your inquiry questions are all

different and vary from one another. Id have to agree with you when you say that your best

idea is to go with your first inquiry question. You will be able to touch on many different

topics with this question but I would also be sure not to get too broad in doing your research.

Try to stick to one thing and not become too invested in things that arent related to your

inquiry question. I totally agreed with her, so I decided to begin my research on the social media

topic.

After working my way through blog two, I immediately noticed that this social media topic

was not for me. Ms. Ingram repeatedly told us to choose a topic that we did not already have an

answer for, and I could answer this question in fifty different ways. I believed that social media

was negatively affecting our society because of the very explicit graphics of the sites. For example,

twitter timelines sometimes show videos and photos that show explicit language, racism, sexism,

Summey 12

and nudity. Children now have access to these sites, and it is not a good thing for them to. None

of the research that I discovered challenged my thinking, so I was extremely bored. I immediately

switched directions and started researching the NSA.

In blogs three through nine, I expressed my passion for the topic on the NSAs metadata

program. Every single day I conducted research, I was always sure to find more information about

it that would challenge my side of the argument. The one thing that I loved about these blogs was

how they helped the writer develop. We wrote blogs on how to figure out who are audience was,

the purpose of our research project, and the ways we were to present all this information to our

readers. Our blogs were basically the outline to our whole project, and they served a great purpose.

They were essential to my learning and development as a researcher and a writer.

Midterm

In UWRT 1101, I made a table to show my key concepts, and it appealed to my audiences

visual mode of communication, so I thought that I would do it again.

Key Concepts Im Engaging With Key Concepts that Challenge Me

1. Critical Thinking 2. Independent Inquiry and Curiosity 3. Responsibility for Learning

1. Making Connections 2. Providing and Receiving Feedback

In my midterm I stated that the three key concepts that I was most engaged with are critical

thinking, independent inquiry and curiosity, and responsibility for learning. As listed in the

midterm, I was great with critical thinking because of the way I went about choosing my audience.

During class on February 12, 2015, we had to create a conversation between the people that would

be at a roundtable, talking about my project. I created a very detailed script that included all the

people in my blog. This required a lot of thinking because I had to get into the persons shoes,

whether or not I agreed with what they were saying. The next key concept that I talked about was

Summey 13

independent inquiry and curiosity. I established this by changing my research topic due to

boredom. My previous question about social media was already answered and I had nowhere else

to go with it, so I decided that I wanted to change. This change demonstrates curiosity because, at

the beginning of this project, I was extremely interested and ignorant to the facts that were related

to the NSAs metadata program. Overall, I am very happy that I decided to change my topic. The

last key concept that I mentioned was that I responsible for my own learning. Just like in UWRT

1101, I felt that I was left alone to figure out how to work through all these assignments, and in

fact, I was left alone. Ms. Ingram guided the class by give subtle hints, but she was sure not to do

the work and thinking for us. For example, I had the hardest time trying to find research that was

actually useful to my project. This was mainly because of the wording of my topics. Through

trial-and-error, I found a topic question that allowed to me get the required research.

Now at the end of this semester, I feel that I can create a new table. This table would look

similar to the table up above but without any challenging concepts. I thoroughly believe that Ive

mastered all of the key concepts, but because of time, I cannot go in-depth with all of them.

Therefore, I will only talk about making connections, providing and receiving feedback, the

writing process and revision, and getting out my comfort zone.

Key Concepts Im Engaging With Key Concepts that Challenge Me

1. Making Connections 2. Providing and Receiving Feedback 3. The Writing Process & Revision 4. Getting Out my Comfort Zone 5. Intellectual Growth & Maturity 6. Multi Modality of Print/Digital Texts 7. Rhetorical awareness

NONE

With much work, I engaged in the two key concepts that originally challenged me. As for making

connections, I engaged in this key concept through my visual bibliography. I decided to create a

Summey 14

Key Terms list, which allowed me to see how all of my sources linked together. This was

extremely useful, especially when I began trying to figure out what sources to use in my reflection.

The next key concept that originally challenged me was providing and receiving feedback. I can

now say that I have mastered this key concept! At the time of the midterm, the only feedback we

were providing and receiving was of the visual bibliography. This did not help me at all, and I

was not sure how to actually give and receive feedback. Now that we have starting giving and

receiving feedback on actual drafts, I feel that I am engaging a lot better. After receiving and

providing feedback, I was able to work on my writing process and revise a lot of my work. I got

a chance to practice this concept by finishing all of my major assignments. We had to submit

multiple drafts of each, and by the final draft, I felt that I perfected it, to a certain extent. The last

key concept I would like to talk about is getting out of my comfort zone. The multi-genre project

allowed me to get out of my comfort zone because my usual comfort level is the traditional

research paper. I know that Im pretty good at writing papers, so that would be easy. I wanted to

try something different that would challenge me, and after doing it, I figured out that I thoroughly

enjoyed it.

An artifact that helped me develop after my midterm was my Feedback Artifact Two, and

this was feedback that I received from Ms. Ingram after I turned in my midterm. Through this

feedback, Ms. Ingram told me what my grade was to be if the class ended at the moment. She

stated that I would have received an A, but I had to go back and revise my midterm. I did not read

the assignment thoroughly, and I missed the fact that she wanted me to talk about five different

key concepts. Her other feedback was sure to mention all the ways that I could engage myself and

help me become better with my key concepts.

Summey 15

Grade Reflection

Last semester, I completed this course with you, Ms. Ingram, and I received an A for all of

my work. This semester, I mirrored my efforts to those of last semester, and I believe that I should

get an A again. During this semester, I was always sure to do all of my assignments completely

and turn them in on time, with no exceptions. I also applied myself in all ways possible and used

all of my resources to the full extent. If I had a question, I made sure that Id ask you so that my

performance in class was better. As for myself, personally, I engaged in my research, and when I

hit dead ends, I tweaked a few things to get me back on the right track.

While looking at the grade scale, I also believe that I deserve an A. The grading scale was

sitting beside me while completing this essay, and I was sure to mark things off as I went through.

For each artifact, I explained how it helped me develop my major assignment. As for quoting, I

made sure to quote from at least five other writes and from myself multiple times. I talked about

the key concepts in my essay, mainly in my midterm section because I explained how Ive grown

over the past semester. Lastly, I believe that I did not leave any questions unanswered. I was

beyond sure to provide dubious amounts of information for the reader to receive.