Francisco Viramontes

English 110-052
Mrs. Potter
December 8, 2014
The journey I have taken throughout this course is one with ample amounts of
progressive change. In the beginning I was a neophyte, with a routine on how to create ideas
for literary pieces and how to write them. Most of my writing pieces sounded unprofessional
like I was just writing for myself. In the beginning of every writing assignment I would try to jam
all my ideas then filter through them to make sense out of what I was writing. I tried to make
my sentences as complex and as long as I could so I could impress my teacher. It was not until
the end of my high school year that I learn that I should have variety. I couldnt even justify
why I did what I did most of the time, the main reason was that I just wanted to fill in space.
The student learning outcomes not only made me a better writer but also a more efficient one.
SLOs A, B, C, E, and F are where I have made the most progress throughout this semester.
SLO A to me is the ability to become a multidiscipline writer, to write in a varying
amount of genres and styles, to have the advanced development in finding purpose and
audience before or during creating a piece of literary work. In the beginning of this class I had a
completely different definition of genre than I do now. I was adjusted to producing essays,
nothing else. Not only that, I never thought about my audience. I would just throw out what I
knew and hoped for it to makes sense so I could get a good grade. The essay genre was the
only thing I knew and when I wrote my research paper my senior year of high school I did it as
an extended essay rather than a legitimate research paper.

In my SWA #1 before I revised it, it was just a simple essay that talked about death
metal. I was saying things like This genre began to take shape and form in the mid-eighties
with Possesseds album Seven Churches in 1985 and Many assumptions are that we are a
bunch of Satanic, Death loving, malevolent people, but we are not. The genre was supposed to
be a user guide and I treated it like an essay. I was neglecting all three pieces of this SLO: genre,
audience, and purpose. Although I kept the two pieces I just quoted, I began to retake the
genre of a user guide by saying, People of this discourse community like to read literature like
Guitar World Magazine, in which they can catch up on Death Metal news. I was telling my
audience in order to properly blend in with the death metal discourse community they needed
to know resources where they can inform themselves about what is happening with death
metal.
Then with my SWA #3 I began to grip the idea of writing with consideration to my genre,
audience, and purpose. With my letter I satisfied the genre, audience, and purpose that I
neglected in my first SWA. I said It wont be any easier in your psychology classes, the essays
and pieces of literary work you write now will be ephemeral compared to the things you will
write, addressing my close friend DeAndre. He was my audience, my purpose was to convince
him that things will get academically hard as he continues with his schoolwork and this had the
atmosphere of a letter, because talking to him in an informal manner.
In the final assignment, MWA #3, I refined these three requirements to fulfil genre,
audience, and purpose. Saying In her talk A call to reinvent liberal arts education, Liz Coleman
uses all three methods of persuasion; logos, ethos, and pathos to drive the point home that
liberal arts education needs to undergo some drastic changes I stated my purpose and implied

my genre and audience. By MWA #3 I knew exactly how I wanted to present my genre,
audience, and purpose with a personal style and touch.
My personal definition of SLO B is being able to write in a respectful, socially acceptable
and appropriate manner. It is a bit difficult to show how I improved in this area mainly because
when we wrote about my discourse community I was able to properly fit the criteria for SLO B.
Using esoteric vocabulary that belonged to my discourse community like Distortion and
Djent, I addressed the audience I wanted to reach properly. As we continued into sequence
two, I learned how to address my intended audience properly, and when to be pompous. In my
letter in addressing my close friend I knew I could be a little less formal than usual. In my letter I
said, Even I get overwhelmed and need help brother, and if I am experiencing this, it is
inevitable that you will too, which is an extremely rare way that I address people. I am a
prideful person and I loathe admitting weakness. The way I wrote my letter was in a much more
respectable manner than I did in my first SWA #1.
By SWA #3, I had gained advanced development in writing in an appropriate manner.
Writing an a respectable manner makes me sound more professional like this Liz Colemans
usage of Thomas Jeffersons quote If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of
civilization, it expects what never was and never will be, it establishes a solid foundation for
ethos as well. I sound like I know what I am talking about also building my credibility and
authority.
To master SLO C one must maximize efficiency in developing ideas for any genre the
writer writes and optimized development for plans of action or plans of procedure. For SWA #1
I spent so much time just trying to organize myself so I would not be overwhelmed with my

own ideas. Mentally when I was thinking of what I could talk about, 50 ideas hit me at once. I
had a grad amount of trouble finding what direction to take my user guide. It was not until the
peer-revision in which I got a sense of direction to take my assignment. When I said The goals
of the Death Metal community are to survive as a genre of music, have fun, express yourself,
and experiment with the core elements of the musical genre in SWA #1, I wanted to talk about
each of those qualities but it would cause too many tangents so I did not.
When it came to SWA #3 I had a better way of coming up with ideas. I started to make a
mental funnel to filter out ideas that would cause problems in my brainstorming period. I knew
I needed to come up with more personal thoughts and more emotional appeal. I did not get
overwhelmed, which was a first in my English career. I had a linear process in my ideas as
shown here I first want to tell you my experience in my classes to justify my cause. I
introduced what I was going to say and started my way of saying what I was going to say in
small steps. It was easier to organize my thoughts and increase the smoothness of my flow.
SLO E is the gift of finding value, meaning, and purpose in the way of using certain words
and/or specific dialects. For SWA #1 I was able to do this flawlessly, using words that had
special meaning within the death metal community, although went it came to writing a letter it
got tougher. I did not know what words would add meaning to it and by the end I thought that I
only needed a bit of informal words to show the value of the letter I created. In my memoir I
said I hope that this letter gave you a few ideas on what it is like to be a UNM student, the
trouble with being a UNM student, and the tutoring program that will help you when I cannot,
which I thought helped added the personal touch that all letters should have. With saying that I

hoped and saying the tutoring program that will help you when I cannot I add value and
personal meaning in trying to persuade my close friend to go to CAPS.
By MWA #3 I grasped the concept well. With more sophisticated diction in my MWA
#3, I added meaning and value to what I said. For example, when I said I love the logos when
Liz Coleman using the simple cause and effect technique to illustrate that the price for being an
expert in liberal arts comes with increased technically and more specific career paths I added
authority, which also in consequence adds to my meaning.
SLO F embodies the meaning of the ability to look back on and justify it properly, clearly
defining thought process and intellectual development throughout the piece of work being
reflected upon. At first when it came to reflections I thought it would just be like a cover letter;
that I would not have to do much in order to fulfil the criteria needed. For my reflection that I
did for MWA #1 I just talked about my thought process rather than justify it. As reflections
became mandatory with assignments after MWA #1, I started to gain a clearer understanding
on what to do with these reflections. I started to see why I did things a certain way and how
they affected my writing. It went from what I did to why I did it. When it came to analyzing the
SLOs, I had a tough time because I did not know how I could judge myself in accordance to the
SLOs. Assignment after assignment it became easier to gauge myself in respect to the SLOs and
compare myself. Once I did, when the next assignment came I realized I did not progress
significantly and thus my reflection suffered a bit. For MWA #3, my reflection became strictly
honest and blunt because it got harder to analyze my small improvement over a week.
Next semester I will not take an English class because I was advised to jump into circuit
analysis, but my progression with these SLOs will not only help me when I take English again
later in my college career, they will also help me articulate cryptic terms that belong to the

engineering discourse community. When I go to visit my high school English teacher I will
impress him with my academic advancements in my writing. I went from an essay producing
machine into a flexible writer ready to write anything!