Nafis Muhammad

Professor Ingram
UWRT 1103-026
December 9, 2015

Final Portfolio Essay (FPE)

When I started this class I was a tad bit rusty on my writing skills. And I think that
showed quite a bit when it came to writing our first piece which was the exploratory essay. I
received feedback about spelling errors and other grammatical errors that weakened my paper.
And as we moved forward I took that feedback and fixed a lot of it in the 2nd draft to the point
where I am confident that I can write a stronger paper when the final draft is due. My final copy
is much more personal I added memories like . I vividly remember it being a chore to sit
through a Saturday night basketball game with my grandad. Another big part of my paper was
the paragraph about the impact of sports with a long paragraph about Nelson Mandela. This
decision to include this was heavily criticized by Ms. Ingram and my pears based on the fact that
I failed to mention myself in any of the paragraph. Well with this final paper I have completely
changed that around, I still use the nelson Mandela quote but I also added myself into the
equation. One example would be at the beginning of the paragraph I start of saying, Sports are
unique in their own right because they have a tendency to bring together any group of people
whether that be race, religion or gender with the goal of working as a team to accomplish a task.
Being a part of a few sports teams I have witnessed this. Whether it be with my AAU track team
or one of the soccer teams I was a part of. Each of those teams featured people of all kinds but I
did not matter because our goal was to win. These are just a few examples of how I corrected

Nafis Muhammad
Professor Ingram
UWRT 1103-026
December 9, 2015
the mistakes in the first and second drafts. My 3 column notes were absolutely abysmal, the
annotations contained very little information and the connections were lacking. It was just
horrible, so I listened to the feedback I got and I rewrote a lot of the annotations to make them
better and more informative. For example in the first couple drafts I had annotations that were
literally 3 to 5 sentences and now all of my annotations are at minimum 10. And they all are
strong and detailed like this one As I begin to start my research, I needed to first learn more
about Internet Addiction. So whats the first thing I do? I google internet Addiction Disorder
and The Center for Internet Addictions website was one of the first to pop up. The center was
founded by Dr. Kimberly Young in 1995. It provides treatment for Internet addiction. This
website provided me with information as to how a person will know if they have an internet
addiction. She says If your Internet use pattern interferes with your life in any way shape or
form, (e.g. does it impact your work, family life, relationships, school, etc.) you may have a
problem. She also makes the point that if you find that you are using the Internet as a means to
regularly alter your mood you may be developing a problem. One last point that she makes it to
distinguish what determines if a person has this disorder. Noting that it is not the actual time
spent online that determines if you have a problem, but rather how that time you spend impacts
your life. This was a great start for me to begin my research. The source was so insightful and
credible that it lead to another great piece of information that helped when it came to producing
my multi genre products. I also made it a goal to show the connections in my annotations so I
tried to show a little multi-modality (key concept) in my blog by color coding the connections to

Nafis Muhammad
Professor Ingram
UWRT 1103-026
December 9, 2015
each other. Overall the 3 column notes are now what I would consider a piece of work that I
would be proud to have my name on. The multi genre project was one of my favorite
assignments, because it got me to again get me out of my comfort zone. Usually when you do a
lot of research you expect to put it into one giant paper, but this project got me to think outside
the box and present my research in a different way. It was definitely more interesting and
exciting but I also found it more useful for explaining my argument more effectively than if I
would have just an essay. In terms of revising my multi genre project, the one big focus was my
magazine article. Most of the feedback I received was to expand and enhance the article my
doing things like giving a better explanation of internet addiction, fixing the list of symptoms (a
lot of them were in the form of questions), and give a more specific and detailed plan for parents
to prevent this. And I think I accomplished all of this with the final draft of my article. For
example, the new definition of internet addiction is easier to understand and even includes an
example (which was suggested), it reads Internet addiction is a compulsive need to spend so
much time on the Internet that other parts of life such as relationships, work or health are allowed
to suffer. The person becomes dependent on using the Internet and needs to spend more and more
time online to achieve the same high. I also changed my plan of action for preventing internet
addiction instead of just saying to set a time limit for your child it now recommends a 1 hour
time limit saying Set certain restrictions on internet use (1 hour long time limit, only access to
certain websites, etc.) . I think using all of the feedback I got really helped to better my writing
skills, and made all my final copies better. When looking back at where I started and finished a

Nafis Muhammad
Professor Ingram
UWRT 1103-026
December 9, 2015
paper, it is night and day and you can tell that I really learned and improved from my mistakes
and got better as the semester went bye. To me the revision and feedback of our work is the core
foundation of this class, as they are big reasons as to why my writing skills have gotten better
and I have used them in every paper and even in blog posts. Blog posts also have enhanced my
writing skills allowing me to make connections, which is a feedback that I have been given to
improve on. Blog post usual requires making some sort of connection (Another key concept).
Whether that be making connections to the book and or making connections from our life to an
assignment like the exploratory essay. For example in blog post 5 we had to make connections to
the syllabus by way of asking 5 questions. One of my questions were "In the Couse Description
it states, "Students learn to distinguish rhetorical contexts, practice different conventions, and
develop positions in relation to research". What are conventions? And which ones we will be
keying on during this semester of Writing? With all these being said I do thing that my final
papers and maybe even my blog post show the progression that I have taken in this class. And a
lot of that progression will be noticeable throughout my e-portfolio.
My goal when designing my e-portfolio was to make it as intuitive as possible. I didnt
want to make it a chore for my reader when he/she views my prepared material, therefore I
challenged myself to make every aspect of my e-portfolio as accessible as possible. Because of
this my e-portfolio is very simplistic, the only glitz and glamour of my e-portfolio is in my
writing. The first page of my e-portfolio is my homepage. It serves as the starting point of my eportfolio as well as a way for the reader to get to know the author of the work they are about to

Nafis Muhammad
Professor Ingram
UWRT 1103-026
December 9, 2015
read. I saw this theme (of the homepage being an about me page) when looking through
examples of other e-portfolios and agreed that this is the most important thing a viewer should
see before they go forward with the rest of my e-portfolio. At the top of my e- portfolio are seven
tabs. Each contain all of the assignments that were required to be in the e-portfolio. One of the
tabs for example is labeled Exploratory Essay, and under that tab I provided my 1st, 2nd, and
final draft. I also provided other artifacts that took place during the same time I wrote the
exploratory essay such as feedback and prewriting. When looking back I think this was the best
design to choose, every tab has something that is either an artifact or impacted my learning in
UWRT. Its all laid out in a nice way, no extra scrolling or any crazy links for the reader, it allows
the focus to be solely on my work and the artifacts I chose.
For my four writers choice artifacts I chose the 1st and second drafts of my Exploratory
Essay, my midterm, and a pre-writing exercise for the Exploratory essay. The Exploratory essay
was the first writing assignment of the class. And because of that it acted as a starting point for
my college writing. After writing the essay I received feedback that help me break away from my
high school mentality of writing. This was a struggle for me early into the semester, I even
mentioned in my dear reader letter of m exploratory essay I keep finding myself trying to do the
five paragraphs that are normally expected. To which Ms. Ingram responded It wont be the
norm for you anymore. That genre doesnt work in most situations after high school. This was
the beginning of me getting out of my comfort zone, which just happens to be one of the 10
key concepts of the class. With the feedback I received for these two papers from both peers and

Nafis Muhammad
Professor Ingram
UWRT 1103-026
December 9, 2015
Ms. Ingram made it clear that it was time to get out of my comfort zone of a five paragraph
essay. And it really made me take a deep look into new venues I could take to enhance my
writing skills and take them to a college level. Such as trying new formatting methods such as
the quote at the beginning of my paper. With that being said the 1st and 2nd drafts of the
aforementioned paper have played a huge part in progressing my writing skills on the later
projects of the first year writing course. Because of such a significant impact, I felt it was
necessary to include them as two of my four writers choice artifacts. My next artifact is my
midterm. I chose my midterm because it was the first paper after the exploratory essay that was
assigned. Which means it was the first paper that I really go to take into consideration all the
great feedback I got from the exploratory essay and put it into fruition. It also was a paper that
was different than the exploratory essay in terms of the peer help. This paper had to be done
without much feedback prior to its due date which meant I had to rely on the exploratory essay. I
also think the midterm was used in a way to actually get me to think about the assignments in the
class and look at what we have done in a different view then I did before. It allowed me to bridge
certain concepts to the assignments we completed and I think because of that it really impacted
my learning. For example, it made me understand why we did blog post and how they could help
me for future assignments. Such as blog post 3 that was used to turn our interests into legitimate
inquiry questions. This paper was the first paper that really made you think about connections
successfully put that into an essay and I think it that later helped with the Bib Assignment as well
as the Inquiry Project. The last Writers choice artifact was a pre-writing exercise that was done in

Nafis Muhammad
Professor Ingram
UWRT 1103-026
December 9, 2015
class. The pre-writing exercise was meant to get us to include more personal sensory details in
our exploratory essay. For me it was huge because in my first draft I used little sensory details
(As this was noted in the feedback I received). And because this exercise was done between the
first and second drafts it really helped to correct those lacking details of the first draft and work
them into the second draft in order to convince readers that sports really are my passion. Even
when writing my final copy of the essay I continued to use this exercise as a guide, it really
helped to perfect my paper. Moving right along from those four artifacts to my next set of
artifacts that were beneficial to my learning: The Feedback artifacts.
For my two feedback artifacts I chose the feedback I received from a peer, as well as Ms.
Ingram. The feedback was for my exploratory essay, in which I have mentioned several times as
being an important factor to me as it relates to the class. The feedback I received really focused
the lack of personal detail in my essay was well as the grammar. On comment from Ms. Ingram
said Where is Nafis in this paragraph? or that is where you should focus your efforts- on your
personal passion & experience. It was something that I really wanted to change and expanded
on in my final draft. So much that when I was writing the final copy, I read that reread the
feedback over and over and I went through and fixed everything that I perceived the feedback
was about. What I learned when going back to write all of my final drafts was just how important
the feedback actually was. Having a starting point with the paper and helpful feedback really
made the final process much easier and allowed me to write a completely different and overall
improved paper. By and large, I think having feedback is great way to critically reflect (Key

Nafis Muhammad
Professor Ingram
UWRT 1103-026
December 9, 2015
concept) on your work and make it better. Although they may seem little this two cases of
feedback I received was huge for my writing throughout the class. As well as the next set of
artifacts: The Writers Notebook artifacts.
For my Writers notebook artifacts, I looked to find items that were valuable in my
understanding of the material in the class. For me those two items were the peer editing
workshop procedure guidelines and the genre project handout we did in class. Peer editing for
me is one of the most important components of this class. After rewriting several of my drafts
and looking back at the feedback I can honestly say that having that feedback that I received
from the peer editing workshops were very useful. The feedback I received on a lot of my papers
were a fundamental part of my learning. For example I learned what mistakes of mine were
common, how to better structure paragraphs, and overall just how to write a more compelling
paper. And all this learning took place in these workshops that the picture is giving guidelines to
successfully conquer. Another great thing about peer editing and using these exact guidelines is
that they made peer editing more effective. I learned better ways to assist people in writing better
papers and this is something that not only helped me not in UWRT but also other classes.
Another Writers notebook artifact that I found important to my learning was the genre analysis
handout. This handout was part of a class activity that eased the decision of which genre projects
would best fit my target audience. It also required us to analyze a genre, which in return allowed
us to think about the genre in more in depth and examine things like, how does it use the
rhetorical appeals, what are the allowances and constraints of the genre and what is the purpose

Nafis Muhammad
Professor Ingram
UWRT 1103-026
December 9, 2015
of it. These handout was really productive for me and my writing of the SMS conversation,
magazine cover and article genres that I ended up opting for to represent my inquiry question.
My last artifacts are my wild cards. These are also equally as important as the rest to my
understanding of my freshman writing class. The first is the rhetorical analysis presentation that
was given and class and available on Moodle. I precisely remember Ms. Ingram explaining how
rhetoric is everywhere. Ive come to learn and experience that this is almost always true
especially in a writing course, you will always use some type of rhetoric whether that be through
the appeals or through a rhetorical analysis of some sort. The presentation focused mainly on the
appeals (logos, ethos, pathos, and kairos). What I liked most about this PowerPoint is that it puts
the rhetorical appeals into modern day examples that were easy to comprehend. I must admit
even though I took an A.P. class based on rhetoric, I never fully understood them. However this
PowerPoint helped a lot, as I mentioned before the examples were an important part to this. For
example when explaining pathos, Ms. Ingram uses the ASPCA commercials saying the sadness
and empathy of Sarah McLachlan would be considered pathos. The presentation also does a
great job in explaining how you can use this your writing such as "To establish a persuasive
ethos, a writer can claim authority by showing he is knowledgeable. This helped me a lot when
writing papers and blog post but it also played a role in my genre projects of the multi genre
project. For instance, in my reflection I wrote how I think a lot of my genres use pathos, as its
my goal to get the parent to feel sympathy and want to protect their child from this disorder. I
also stated that I used a ton of statistics in my article as I try to appeal to logos. This

Nafis Muhammad
Professor Ingram
UWRT 1103-026
December 9, 2015
presentation was important because it made the appeals easier to understand which made it
simpler to incorporate them into most of the work I have done in the class, but it also helped to
advance my rhetorical knowledge. And this is important because it is one of the key concepts
and I feel like the information from the presentation as well as in the textbook (Who says? The
Writer's Research by Deborah Holdstein and Danielle Aquiline) helped me to understand rhetoric
a little better than before. Speaking of that textbook it happens to be my next wild card. I put
quotations around textbook because to me this book is more than just an ordinary boring, hard to
comprehend textbook. In fact it completely challenges the status quo of a normal textbook by the
language it uses, that makes it really easy to understand, comprehend, and make connections to.
This book assisted me a lot through the entire semester of this class. As class progressed I begin
to notice that majority of the assignments coincided with certain chapters of the book. For
example when we were researching our inquiry question, chapter four was a big help. Chapter 4
gives tips for finding a topic, turning personal interests into appropriate research topics and
finding the right audience. This chapter was huge for the development of turning my interest of
sports into an appropriate research topic. Chapter 3 was also useful because it explained
plagiarism and what websites to avoid, which was obviously helpful when completing my bib
assignment. This way I knew which sites were credible and I could use for my article and which
sites were a bunch a baloney. The chapters in the book not only had a profound impact on my
writing assignments they also helped me to develop and write responses to my blog posts. For
example in blog post 2 I state after reading "In Addition to Fulfilling the Assignment" I

Nafis Muhammad
Professor Ingram
UWRT 1103-026
December 9, 2015
determined that the purpose of my essay was to inform, entertain, and analyze my passion. I
wanted to first explain my passion, how it started, and why it is my passion. From there I wanted
to analyze my passion and why I feel it is bigger than just my passion, it also has other impacts
in society. I wanted to accomplish all this while also making the text entertain for the reader.
When reading the book it allowed us to achieve of the more important key concepts of the class
which is critical reading. Critical reading was important when it came to analyzing the text and
using it to enrich my work.
In conclusion, if I was asked what grade I would give myself for this e-portfolio I would
feel confident enough in what I have provided for the reader to honestly say I deserve and A.
During the creation of both my e-portfolio and my FPE I used the requirements for an A grade
as a guideline. So I made sure that my e-Portfolio was complete, thoughtfully arranged and
easily navigable and I explain all of this in the second paragraph. Next I made sure especially
when describing my artifacts to use quotes from my work in order to analyze it effective. I am
positive that I quoted everything from my work to my pears and professor more than the minimal
five times. I also made sure to incorporate upwards of seven instances of how I utilized the key
concepts of the course. Those being making connections, critical reading &reflection, getting out
of my comfort zone, and multi-modality of digital and print texts. Most importantly I think these
11 pages of text fully explain each and every aspect of my e-portfolio. I feel confident that I have
left no unanswered questions for the reader or teacher.