Introduction
This is my portfolio that will showcase the improvements made in my writing throughout the semester. The portfolio is organized by artifact, and each one is located on the top banner of the website. For each artifact there is a reflection talking about what self improvements the artifact demonstrates.
A Letter To Professor Wilkins
Dear Professor Wilkins,
Before this semester, I had not heard of the WOVE modes, but now my understanding and ability to apply this knowledge has improved, and I feel more comfortable communicating effectively through each of the WOVE modes. This improvement has come from the efforts put into completing the various assignments that were given in the class, and after each one I was aware of more tools and strategies to use as a communicator.
In regards to writing, I think the thing that I improved the most on is speed, which is not always a desirable attribute in writing, but over the semester it felt like my brain became faster at figuring out what I wanted to write and it is nice to think that future assignments may take less time because of this. Another thing that improved in my writing is the way I organized writing papers, before this class I went into writing a paper without much of a plan, but now I’ve been making outlines that have helped me put information in the place it will make the most sense in, and make it easier to follow for a reader. I also think my style of writing may have changed for the better, it seems like in the beginning of the semester it was less consistent how I wrote and now it seems more predictable and it is more intuitive to tell what words I should use. Another area of written communication that I have improved has been reading, I’ve figured out what conditions are best to read in for me. This happened because of the weekly readings, and it has been a lot easier to stay focused now that I know what works.
Oral communication is not my strongest area of WOVE, but I think certain things were brought to my attention that may be useful for future presentations. When presenting I found that I have a hard time keeping my sentences going in one direction and I would get stuck trying to find the right end to a sentence. This doesn’t happen to me when I’m not giving a presentation very often, so then next thing I need to do to address it is to try to think about what I say really hard before I say it, or at least find some other way to solve the issue. I’m more aware of eye contact now, after getting some feedback saying I should use more. I think the biggest thing I learned from presenting this semester was that I need to practice presenting more before the actual presentation, because the times when I was prepared went much smoother than others.
I’ve always enjoyed visual communication in terms of organization and graphic design, but in this class I learned more about it than I previously knew about. In the rhetorical analysis of visual texts, I learned a lot about what elements go into designing an effective book cover, which I found both interesting and useful. In the A5 presentation I tried to apply some of these graphic techniques to make the presentation look good through the use of color and contrast and different fonts. I think the area I could improve most in for visual communication is the ability to put the right amount of information on slides, as I usually either do too little or too much. A way to fix this would also be to not have to look at the slides at all, because then too little would likely not be an issue.
In electronic communication, I do not feel very adept at making a website, I would greatly benefit from learning HTML/CSS so that I could actually make this look how I’d like it to. I don’t think the website looks very good, and I would be really happy if there was an easier way to do that because it seems like the user controls provided on the WordPress platform are very limiting for those who don’t know how to edit it with code. I did the best I could at making it easy to navigate but I’m not very satisfied with the result.
I have been using outlines when writing papers for this class and it has been a very effective way of organizing thoughts into paragraphs. Before the course I did not use this method of organization, and so my papers were often convoluted and not pleasant to read. I think the reason outlines have helped so much is because they allow me to write the paper non sequentially and just fill in things as they make sense and come into my mind. When generating the ideas for my papers, I often get slightly anxious trying to come up with something that I want to dedicate a lot of time to, but usually once I get started there is no trouble continuing. The annotated bibliography that was assigned for the A5 assignment was a different method of finding sources than I usually use, and starting with sources already gathered was effective in saving time and being able to plan out the paper before getting started. I had not done much revision on my papers until I completed the written segment of this portfolio, and after doing that I see more value in revision, as I found a lot of small changes to make that added up improving the overall quality of the paper, in my opinion at least. Before this class I had not had my papers reviewed by classmates, and the feedback I received gave me some new ideas to incorporate into the writing.
After reading about the four pillars, I’d say that there are areas in all of the pillars that I am doing well on, and areas in some that I’d like to improve in. For the Survive pillar, I feel like I take feedback well and am generally not too concerned with the setback that I face. There are certainly times however, that I do not get enough sleep. In the Pay Attention pillar I’d say my biggest strength is consulting all available resources, but this is slightly limited because a weakness from this pillar that I have is asking questions, I typically don’t feel the need to but once I actually do I feel reluctant and have the urge to waste a lot of time finding the answer myself instead of asking. This hasn’t been too bad of a detriment but I’d probably benefit at least a little from asking more questions. In the Begin the Journey pillar, I think my biggest strength is my ability to plan, and have good judgement for when I should change the plan. I definitely don’t have the admonition that I’d like to have but I do think it has been improving in the last year or so. For the fourth pillar, Stay on the Journey, I relate a lot with giving myself time to look around and back, I do this too much I think and would really benefit from being able to focus more on whatever I’m doing. Maps are pretty good I’ve used them and they are a very capable tool.
After completing the assignments given for this course, I feel like a more competent communicator. There have been areas that challenged me scattered throughout each assignment and from each of these challenges, there were skills learned that will continue to help me effectively communicate throughout my life.
Thank you,
Devon Valle