Final Reflection

Inquiry is the process to go about better understanding something by asking questions. Like the
steps of problem solving you must first identify what your focus will be for your inquiry. You can then go
about various methods of research and thinking to develop a better understanding of your topic. Most of
this semester has been dedicated to this idea of inquiry. A few examples of the inquiry done in this class
would be the group inquiry project and the inquiry project. Both had to ask certain questions based on a
topic and then try to answer them. For my groups inquiry project we did it based upon cultural and
historical monsters. Many of are questions tried to determine where or not monsters changed over time, and
if so was it due to cultural and historical influences? We ended up successfully answer this question by
using the movie of Dorian Grey, both the 1950 and 2010 version. From these two examples it was easy to
see how the characters had changed over the years and adjusted to the audience of its time. For my inquiry
project I did it based on the topic of general education and whether or not the general education programs at
schools really made students well rounded. I wanted to figure out if the knowledge taught in those classes
actually correlated to useful knowledge or was just extra time and money spent on classes. After doing
multiple readings I discovered some interesting things. First, general education is more for the college in
the way that it ultimately benefits them more than the students. The way I saw it was that colleges get the
money and students get the stress of extra courses. Finally I learned that even if it may seem irrelevant to
the student at that time, all knowledge is useful in some way and we as students should be grateful to
receive it.
Revision has been extensively used throughout the semester and is an integral part of developing
ones own writing. All the writings done have been accompanied by some sort of refining and polishing. A
few examples include drafts of papers, forums for both feedback from students and the teacher, and in-class
workshops. Multiple drafts of a paper is typical and usually an obvious method of revision. We would also
submit these drafts to be looked at by the teacher and our peers. Feedback from both parties would greatly
help when adjusting and altering the writing, especially when it was meant for a specific audience. The in-
class workshop seemed to work the best and was also my favorite. Face to face interaction is a much better
way to convey information and help someone. I also found it more useful because both students and the

teacher were in the class. This made it easy to get questions answered and have valuable feedback from
multiple sources.
Collaboration is the process of coming together with peers to investigate other ideas or ways of
thinking. This concept can be very useful because of the various point of views and opinions presented.
Many forms of collaboration have been done this semester. Some of the most notable would have to
include dialogic journals, seminars, and inquiry group project. Dialogic journals were a way for us to
express our own opinions and ideas after reading over a certain article. Peers would then comment on our
journals expressing what they thought and connect in some way to our writing. This collaboration was
interesting because it sometimes led to an argument between opinions. These journals were very helpful
and usually the first step when beginning a paper. Seminars was another form of collaboration that we did
often in class. It usually started with a central idea that everyone would have the opportunity to say
something about and then expand from there to other areas of conversation. The biggest use of
collaboration was used in the group inquiry project. With a team of three other students we did a project
based on cultural and historical monsters. Throughout the project each student could present their own
findings which then influenced the final product of how the project came out. From all these forms of
collaboration I learned a great deal about how others think and that sometimes your idea isnt always the
best.
Intertextuality can be defined as making or finding connections between writings. Many of the
writings done in this class were accompanied by other writings from students. Some examples of
intertextuality are dialogic journals, reflections, and the synthesis for our academic genre. In our journals
we tend to reference other articles while we give our opinion of them. Other students also respond in these
journals, furthering the amount of intertextuality that goes on. We also do reflections both in our notebooks
and on our portfolios. These reflections can reference either some other article or writings weve already
finished. The most useful time of intertextuality that I used this semester was when we did the synthesis
portion for are academic genre. In this part we had to take multiple quotes and or writings from various
authors to bring together in a way that it was as if they were having a conversation. This was very difficult
to complete but ounce done it also showed a great form of intertextuality.

The idea of rhetorical awareness was very important for all writings this semester and is basically
defined as understanding the situation youre in, in terms of setting and who your audience is. This concept
expresses the idea that you would talk or write differently with friends that that of a teacher. Some
examples of rhetorical awareness that we did throughout the semester would be our portfolio, inquiry group
project, and inquiry project. When designing our portfolio the main question we asked ourselves was, who
is this meant for? Designing a project around a particular audience is very important because it directs how
the project should be presented. The portfolio was mainly meant for the teacher and the other professor that
grade them. This would mean the portfolio should be presented in a professional way. On the other hand
the inquiry group project that we did was meant more for the other students. Since it was a project to be
presented and talked about between students the writings and way of presenting would be geared more
toward them. The inquiry project was also greatly influenced by rhetorical awareness. Each genre was
meant for a different audience and in turn required a different style of writing or way of presentation. For
my academic genre it was meant for the audience of educators so the style of writing was more
professional, or as the title hints at, a more academic style. The social genre was geared toward the
audience of those who use social media to communicate. The blog I did for this genre was a more relaxed
style and somewhat easier to read. The last genre for this project was creative. For this piece I decided to do
a poster meant for the students of UNCC. Since the audience was college kids the poster was less
professional and tried to be more enticing. The choice of audience defines a piece and should be considered
before each writing.