What is this e-Portfolio really about?

When I originally heard about an e-Portfolio, I was so confused. I had never heard of
doing something like this before, and never considered making a webpage for a whole course. I
had taken classes prior to college in webpage design, so I felt prepared to take on this
assignment. The task was to basically go back through everything Ive completed this semester
and elaborate on it; evaluate what I did good, bad, right, wrong, where I improved, and where I
didnt. This is where I fill in the blanks from the past semester. My e-portfolio will contain the
improvements and habits in my writing, everything that makes me what I am, and what my work
becomes throughout my experiences. My literacy would not be nearly the same if things would
have been differently for me throughout my lifetime (Literacy Narrative). If you scroll down on
the main page of my e-Portfolio, you will find a copy of my plans for the website. I wrote what I
was going to consider on each page, to make sure I had everything I needed and wasnt missing
any artifacts.Each tab on the top of the website will guide you to topics we learned about this
semester. View each one and you will find artifacts, final drafts, and other processes I completed
to be successful in UWRT 1101.

CLT Success
I used this title on my home page for my e-Portfolio for a couple of different reasons. Not
only is my hometown Charlotte, and my middle name, but the school where I am gaining my
education and success, is obviously UNC Charlotte. This title stands out to me because I feel that
it explains a students success through Charlotte, the city and the college, is very important. In my
eyes, you will not only gain knowledge through school, but you will experience many things in
the city you are living that will teach you important aspects you must know in life. There are

visual, gestural, linguistic, and spacial modes used on this site. Ive worked extremely hard on
the design of my e-Portfolio to make sure the squaring of the content is exact on each page. I
tend to be particular about colors, sizes, shapes, and structure when working with photography,
video making, and webpage design in courses. Every picture is a one of the good vibes in my
life; memories with people that I will always remember and cherish that mean the world to me.
Since I was never really into reading or much of the subject of English, my interactions
themselves are what have shaped my knowledge. (Literacy Narrative) Though some pictures
may not be a good writing place for me, they help relate back to what shapes me into the person I
am, and how I will show that in my work. This e-Portfolio will help explain my personal
experiences growing up in the city, and now using those events to put into my writing. I feel that
the assignments I worked on have influenced each other, simply because it was all based on
occurrences that can be linked together. My goal for this e-Portfolio is to thoroughly show the
audience where Ive come from in the past and how I have reflected on that, mostly in this
semester of the UWRT 1101 course.

Important Key Concepts

In the past semester in First Year Writing with Professor Ingram, I think all nine key
concepts that she introduced to us in the syllabus were covered in our work. I personally feel that
all of the concepts that were for us to focus on were used, whether we realize it or not. The main
couple of key concepts I noticed in my work were getting out of your comfort zone, providing
and receiving feedback, making connections, and intellectual growth & maturity. Its hard for
me to choose only three concepts that I found the most important in my work because these four
seem to work very well together and writing seems almost impossible without these. I think that

the first concept, getting out of your comfort zone, is the most important thing to think about.
The reason I say this is because if you are not comfortable with your own writing and expressing
your thoughts onto paper, then it will never be your best work. People also tend to limit
themselves to only the things they know or the things that interest them; writing needs to be
more. Personally, I think that to avoid being stuck while in your writing and to make it your best
possible work, you need to have no limitations on yourself. If you are in your most comfortable
environment where you are in your best mindset, your work will express what it needs to in the
best way possible. I used to be really scared with my writing, and never confident that it was my
best work. I believe that because I started to write in ways I never did before and about topics
that were new to me, it has helped my writing grow. The next concept, providing and receiving
feedback, is really important in a course like UWRT 1101. As I talk about later in my blog posts
and revision, peer workshopping was a new process to me. I loved doing these workshops with
classmates because its great getting outside opinions on your work, especially from those whom
are close to your age and interests, that can empathize things you are saying. This procedure
taught me what to look for when reading someone else's paper and what others are expecting
from my work. I think that focusing on this key concept has a great influence on my writing
process & revision and helps create better critical thinking when writing an essay. Thinking
about the audience while writing my paper makes the outcome a lot better, because the paper is
directed to your audience, not yourself. The third and fourth key concept, making connections
and intellectual growth & maturity go together well. I think throughout your intelligence and
maturity growing, you are using these experiences to make connections in your writing. The best
kinds of papers are the ones that provide examples and quotes from real life situations. This helps

the reader get inside of the authors head better and understand their point of view. These key
concepts help make a paper strong and the UWRT course successful.

Literacy Narrative
In the Literacy Narrative tab, you will find an activity, some feedback, a rough and a final
draft. I remember when we were assigned this paper, I was at first really confused about what
Professor Ingram was expecting. I was thinking how am I going to know exactly what makes
me literate and who my literacy sponsors are from so long ago? It seems crazy now to think I
was so confused about such a simple paper; a paper that would be written about nothing but me.
I went through high school expecting college to be about the same, only learning more complex
topics and using bigger words to sound smarter. Little did I know, my first writing course in
college, UWRT 1101, was a whole new experience for me that I had never dealt with before.
Most work I had done prior to college courses was not by our choice or point of view. The essays
we wrote were pure research, and all other assignments were repeated facts that we basically had
to memorize. This all changed for me once I came to college, and got my first writing
assignment: the history of your literacy development. This draft consisted of my definition of
literacy, the ways I am literate, and the important sponsors that got me there. When I sat down to
write this paper, I instantly started typing words like it was nothing! Who knew it could be so
easy to write an essay all about yourself? Though this was not a topic I was used to writing
about, I grasped onto the concept of it very easily and wrote it like it was second nature. In the
first draft, the sponsors I wrote about were growing up and facing challenges with my family,
clubs, and athletics. My literacy would not be nearly the same if things would have been
differently for me throughout my lifetime. (Literacy Narrative) In the second literacy narrative

draft, we were to pick the most interesting event from our first draft to focus on and rewrite
about. For this draft, I took my experience from when my parents got divorced and I had to
change elementary schools. I focused on my time of taking my first steps into school, what was
going through my head the whole time, until I sat down at my desk in my new classroom. As
displayed in this tab, there is an artifact of an activity we did in class where we sat back and
pictured this moment actually happening in our heads. You will see my thoughts from the
activity, along with a picture I later came across that perfectly describes what I pictured in my
head. Our third draft was to either choose one of the first two drafts to revise and turn in, or to
combine the two drafts into one. Of course, me always feeling the need to try new things and
stand out, and getting out of my comfort zone, I combined the two essays. Unfortunately, the
third draft was not my best work. I just tried to put the two papers together and it ended up being
a huge disaster. It didnt flow well into my single event that I focused on in my second draft, nor
did I use much dialogue to help the audience cope with my characters. I went from saying what
the definition of a literacy narrative was, to the smell of Hemby Bridge Elementary. In the
Literacy Narrative tab, there is a second artifact of my third draft for this essay. After peer
reviewing, receiving feedback, and revising my work, I finally completed my final draft into a
confident paper that I really enjoy. This is easily my favorite paper we did all semester, just
because it was great to sit back and remember the good old times. I loved going back to one of
the moments in my life that helped impact me physically, socially, and intelligently. The
occurrences I had at this new elementary school helped prepare me for my future in Union
County, and also gain a sense of knowledge for communication with strangers and making

friends. (Literacy Narrative) This helped me appreciate a greater time before I get older and
may forget it one day.

Portrait of A Writer
In this tab, you will again find an activity we did in class, some feedback, along with my
third draft for this paper. This artifact, side-shadowing, really helped my classmates and me
break down our papers and find the purpose in our writing. I think that this activity was great to
use in drafts to help find what youre missing in your work. There is also feedback displayed on
this page from multiple sources. I also displayed a picture of my tattoo on this page, along with
its meanings, because I include this in my paper. I put it on the Portrait of a Writer tab because I
talk about self-expression in my paper, and how tattoos are the perfect example of that. I use my
tattoo as an example to show how it relates to my writing and freedom of speech. However,
writing this paper was a roller coaster; I usually like crazy rides, but this one was chaotic. Unlike
my literacy narrative, I started out this essay thinking the topic was pretty easy and seemed to
flow when I was writing. Since the last paper we wrote was about myself and my writing, why
wouldnt this be easy too? All we had to do was write an essay about ourselves while answering
eleven questions. After I wrote a couple of drafts and got feedback from Professor Ingram, I
learned I was headed in the wrong direction. I included my fourth artifact on this page with my
third rough draft that I turned into Professor Ingram. She pointed out mistakes that my peers and
I didnt notice in our workshops. When I got to the point that I was going to write my final draft,
I felt stuck. I had no idea where to begin fixing errors and I even considered deleting all of my
drafts and completely starting over. After writing five or six total papers, all going completely
separate ways, I found a confident final draft. The paper now explains what it means to me to be

a successful writer and happy with your work, along with considering your audience. Write
about what you feel like writing about and this is good because it forces you to really know what
you are talking about. (Portrait of a Writer) I also found the best place I should write in and
when to do it. The key concept that would relate to this paper most would be getting out of your
comfort zone. This paper answers a lot of questions about my writing that I didnt even know
the answer to. I had to dig way deep into my writing to find myself and put that into words that
my audience would understand. This is one of the reasons I made my webpage design pictures of
great moments in my life. It helped me find my writing place and bring out the best in my
writing, in the way that these pictures bring out the best in me.

Blogs
Looking back on my first blog post, I seemed very confused as to what to expect in this
course. I asked questions like What all is going to be in our e-Portfolios? and How are we
going to use the textbook in class? After my experiences throughout the semester in UWRT
1101, a lot of my questions were answered. Looking back at what I said in blog post #5, I see
now that our e-Portfolio is going to consist of a little bit of everything that weve done
throughout this course. The purpose of keeping up with our blogs throughout the semester was to
let Professor Ingram and other classmates know our thoughts on certain topics, and how we
apply those aspects to everyday life. The blogs are a great way to voice your opinion freely and
read about other writers thoughts and views as well. The key concept that would relate most to
my blogs would be intellectual growing & maturity. I say this because the blogs were assigned
to us as something for the e-Portolfio to represent our growth throughout the semester. The blogs
to me are the best way to look at growth. This page was the first to be made for all students and

has been updated all throughout the semester. I have discovered many answers to questions I
have had this past semester, and can definitely see an improvement in my writing, even in just the
blog posts!(Blog) Since blogs to me are more personal with the student and the audience, I used
a picture that best describes the writing place. Me standing alone watching this sunrise
expresses that I enjoy the smallest things in life, usually when I am alone, and the start of a new
day is like the light to the end of a tunnel. In environments like the vibes this picture, I feel that I
am most comfortable to do just about anything to the best of my ability, such as writing.

Midterm
In this tab, you will only find two things, since this was a brief assignment. You will first
see the feedback I received, and my midterm paper. I didnt find much challenge in this
assignment, because it was mostly reflecting on the semester and our work ethic. Professor
Ingram gave us a list of questions to answer so that we would be aware of how the semester was
going. This was a great way to get feedback on Professor Ingram on how well we are doing in
the course, and if we are heading down the right track. Surprisingly, in my midterm I said that
the one key concept in the course I didnt recognize us using was the one I see the most now.
Intellectual growth & maturity has to have been the biggest concept we have covered this past
semester. I have grown as a writer just by taking this course, because I have discovered things in
my writing I didnt know before. My writing in high school was very specific on one topic, just
like the teachers expected, and were never digging too deep into our thoughts and writing
processes. I think that being in college now, my writing has matured in ways it was never before,
and is much stronger than spitting back facts that teachers wanted to hear. I say in my midterm
that The papers have been really in the authors mind, and I really enjoy that because I feel like

Im getting an understanding for the writing process and developing intellectual growth and
maturity in my writing. (Midterm)

Wildcards
My two wildcard artifacts are both assignments I had throughout this semester at UNC
Charlotte in two other courses. The first wildcard is a blog post I had to complete for my LBST
Global Connections course. This was the first blog post of many in the course, and looking back
on this post along with more current ones, I have seen growth in my writing. Like my progress in
UWRT 1101, I didnt see it as I was writing or even immediately after, but over time looking
back at all the assignments I had completed, I can find areas I have grown in, along with making
connections. These blog posts were ways to put ourselves as students in the shoes of an avatar in
another country during the 1900s. We had to make connections with our avatar and their society,
along with connections to the U.S., in order to make our avatars blog interesting, accurate, and
well-flowing. The second wildcard artifact in this tab is my Commitment to Success essay for
my Freshman Seminar course. This assignment was a way to reflect on why we came to college
and how we are going to pursue our goals and dreams to be successful. I chose this as a wildcard
because I really enjoyed writing this paper for a course, because I used skills I learned in my
UWRT 1101 course to write this paper. Learning from Professor Ingram that papers in college
are much more free, and there really isnt a right or wrong answer, I felt confident in this essay. I
discussed my short and long term goals for college, and it felt great to reflect on these
achievements and help motivate myself to accomplish them. This paper really helped open my
eyes to stay on track in college if I want to be successful in my work.

Notebook

In the last section of my e-Portfolio, you will find my two artifacts from my notebook.
These notes are great tips provided by Professor Ingram to use throughout writing our essays this
semester. The first notebook artifact is about the Rhetorical Analysis which helps determine if
your work is successful in fulfilling the authors purpose, along with the audience. The four
focuses in the Rhetorical Analysis are the rhetorical triad, Aristotles Appeals, multi-modality,
and the genre. These four steps are things used in a text to serve a social purpose. The rhetorical
triad is every choice a writer makes in the context for its purpose and for the audience. The
appeals are patho, etho, and logo, which is how the author gets your emotions involved in their
writing. Multi-modality are the 5 aspects used in your work to grab the audiences attention.
Lastly, the genre is not just any literacy, but its any text. These four steps describe the
interactions between the author, a text, and the audience. The next notebook artifact is my peer
reviewing notes. These were very useful tips all throughout the course because we peer reviewed
basically everything! Peer reviewing really helped me grow as a writer because I learned through
other people. I have seen much of providing & receiving feedback in peer reviewing, because
thats exactly what its doing! This procedure taught me to not only to understand writers aims
and goals, but how to use the criticism I give back in my own work. Some of my favorite tips
from the list are encourage risks, understand their views, and dont act like the teacher. These
were some of the tips I used when reading over other students work in class. Intellectual growth
& maturity is expressed through these notebook artifacts, because both pages of notes have
helped me grow in my writing by learning through my own criticism and by paying attention to
what my audience sees in my ideas.

Self-Assessment
UWRT 1101 has made a huge impact on my writing. It helped me dig so deep into my
work that I feel so much more free in my writing. I loved working on this e-Portfolio because it
helped me put all the artifacts together and find myself as a writer. I have filled in all the blanks
and answers all the questions I had when I started this semester in the course. If I were to give
myself a grade in the course, I would say I have an average of a low A, or exemplary according
to the e-Portfolio grading scale. Throughout the semester, I feel that I completed most of the
assignments with well written papers, along with a confident e-Portfolio webpage in the end.
When I put my time into my work, I worked really hard to make my essays and organization of
things the best they could be. I never slacked when I worked on assignments for this course
because I actually really enjoyed them. Even when I worked on the small things like blog posts
or taking notes in my notebook, these became to be some of the most important aspects in my
website. As I explain above, the blog is the most visible assignment showing growth in my
writing, and the notebook artifacts are great tips I used throughout my writing this semester. I say
a low A because there is always room for improvement in my work. I will never give myself a
perfect grade in the course because I will always criticize myself. I can determine improvement
itself rather than searching for perfection. I will leave no questions unanswered , and hope that
my e-Portfolio can help guide future UWRT 1101 students in examples for what they
need. (Midterm)