The ISUcomm ePortfolio is a comprehensive look at the growth of a student throughout their works during an English course. The ePortfolio has many parts that can be found above using the menu, the parts being; an ‘About Me’ page that lets you learn a little about me before diving deep into my work. This home page that debriefs you on the contents of this site. A revision I did of my Summary on Monsters and the Moral Imagination, along with a reflection on the revisions I made. An example of my work that demonstrates my effort in oral, visual, and electronic communication also with a reflection. And lastly a reflection on my creation of this site.
Growth as a Communicator
Throughout this semester, I have developed and enhanced many of the skills that I began forming throughout the entirety of my education. I have learned many new skills in this course and have become more efficient at getting my point across in papers I write for my classes. Throughout this write up I will discuss and provide examples of how my writing process has changed due to the work I have completed in this class.
As far as habits go, I have noticed that the way I compose has stayed static after taking this course, I believe the main reason for this is because the way I have always done it has proved effective and has yet to wrong me. When I generate ideas for pieces I have to compose I begin by analyzing some of the different ways I can approach a prompt, mainly the ones that first pop into my head, and then I pick from those which one I not only agree the most with but I also feel that I can write a paper sufficient enough to complete the requirements of the assignment but as well as keep me interested throughout the drafting and writing process. When I write now I found myself more susceptible to pay attention to my target audience, before I paid little mind to it but I now realize the importance, especially in the professional world. I also began to trade papers with my friends to read and leave comments on using Google Docs so I have a second opinion on my writing and can find the sentences and phrases that I think sound alright but in reality sound awful. I think my editing process hasn’t changed a whole lot, I still possess some of the poor habits I’ve had before. I find that some of my sentences are too long,
In this class my skills in writing have ascended quite well, I find it a lot easier to craft thesis’ that are complete and make sense, a good example is from my Rhetorical Analysis; “Andrew Cooper and Brandy Ball Blake, in their article “George Romero’s Zombie Films: A Plague of Meaning”, aim to inform students that the zombie movies possess a deeper meaning than that at the surface through the use of substance and delivery”. I also found that I now remember to relate my points back to my thesis and my audience rather than just going on endless tangents. Giving speeches and presentations have come a little easier with the Visual Analysis and Documented Essay Panel presentations. I am still a little eager to give my points and speak extremely fast while presenting which is a pretty big issue however I found myself staring down at my note cards not as often, and giving more of my eye contact to my audience. With visual presentations I learned how to keep my slides from distracting my audience and how to use them as an aid with my speech, I also worked a bit on finding relevant images for my slideshows. Electronically, I find it pretty easy to work on things and present what I need to in an appropriate manner. I enjoy working on things electronically a bit more than writing as it is more thought than writing stuff straight down on paper. For me, the most challenging thing this semester is hitting word counts but also deciding what information is needed or not. I usually miss the word counts because I decide that what I put is all that is necessary to get my points across and don’t feel the need to add filler.