Post-Course Reflections

The purpose of Course Reflections is to have you pause in your learning and think about
what youve learned so far (or havent) with regard to the Course Learning Outcomes
and why theyre important.

General Guidelines:
Its healthy to discuss questions or confusion about these things. In
other words, the goal isnt to prove to me that you understand or
have learned these concepts. The goal is to write through, in a
reflective way, your growing awareness and/or lingering questions
about these concepts.
For this first one, you will compose a 500-word reflection in three parts:

Part one: 200-word reflection on Rhetorical Knowledge

Guiding questions:
Do you think theyre important? Why or why not?
Who needs to have these skills? What types of fields/careers use these
skills?
Can you think of future instances where you might need these skills?
Consider your life beyond college as much as you consider studying to
earn your degree.
Description of this learning outcome from the syllabus:
Rhetorical Knowledge
Rhetorical knowledge is the ability to identify and apply strategies across a range of texts and
writing situations. Using their own writing processes and approaches, writers compose with
intention, understanding how genre, audience, purpose, and context impact writing choices.
By the end of FYW, students should be able to:
Use rhetorical concepts to analyze and compose a variety of texts using a range of technologies
adapted according to audience, context, and purpose
Assess how genres shape and are shaped by readers' and writers' experimentation with
conventions, including mechanics, structure, and style
Develop the flexibility that enables writers to shift voice, tone, formality, design, medium, and
layout intentionally to accommodate varying situations and contexts
I feel like Rhetorical Knowledge is more about knowing your audience than anything else. If you
understand who you are speaking too then you should have a pretty good understanding of how
you should speak or persuade them. At the same time, I feel like it is important to carry on your
own voice and personality through you paper. Nobody will give you the time of day if you speak
like a robot, whether what you are saying is factual or not. Understand who you are writing for,
and word you paragraphs accordingly.

Part two: 200-word reflection on Critical Reflection

Guiding questions:
Do you think theyre important? Why or why not?
Who needs to have these skills? What types of fields/careers use these
skills?
Can you think of future instances where you might need these skills?
Consider your life beyond college as much as you consider studying to
earn your degree.
Description of this learning outcome from the syllabus:
Critical Reflection
Critical reflection is a writers ability to articulate what s/he is thinking and why. For example, to
explain the choices made in a composition, to contextualize a composition, to address revisions
made in response to reader feedback etc.
By the end of FYW, students should be able to:

Demonstrate reflecting on their writing in various rhetorical situations

Use writing as a means for reflection

Demonstrate their rhetorical awareness, their writing process, and their knowledge of
conventions with regard to their own writing

Illustrate that reflection is a necessary part of learning, thinking and communicating

To me this is just understand what you are reading. Not everything is black or white
though. When it comes to some writing you will need to read between the lines to
understand or feel what point an author is trying to get across. Even then, some things
are left up to your interpretation. Is an author trying to make you understand them, or is
he trying to invoke creative thought in you? Its up to you to critically reflect and decide.

Part three: 200-word reflection on Knowledge of

Conventions
Guiding questions:
Do you think theyre important? Why or why not?
Who needs to have these skills? What types of fields/careers use these
skills?
Can you think of future instances where you might need these skills?
Consider your life beyond college as much as you consider studying to
earn your degree.
Description of this learning outcome from the syllabus:
Knowledge of Conventions
Conventions are the formal rules and informal guidelines that define genres, and in so doing,
shape readers and writers expectations of correctness or appropriateness. Most obviously,

conventions govern such things as mechanics, usage, spelling, and citation practices. But they also
influence content, style, organization, graphics, and document design.
By the end of FYW, students should be able to:
Demonstrate how to negotiate variations in conventions by genre, from print-based
compositions to multi-modal compositions
Investigate why genre conventions for structure, paragraphing, design, formatting, tone, and
mechanics vary
Use the concepts of intellectual property (such as fair use and copyright) that motivate
documentation conventions to practice applying citation conventions systematically in their own
work.
Develop knowledge of linguistic structures, including grammar, punctuation, and spelling,
through practice in composing and revising

Knowledge of conventions is pretty much understanding the rules and

playing by them. This is important because you cant effectively make
your point if you are writing in a way that others cant understand.
These conventions establish a common ground so that everyone can
be on the same page and understand each other.

Part Four: 200-word reflection on each of the five SLOs

For each of the Student Learning Outcomes (listed and explained below) please answer
the following with at least a paragraph of response.
1. Before this course, what writing experiences did you have that helped you
understand this learning outcome?
2. What activities or assignments in this course helped you learn and/or practice
this learning outcome?
Student Learning Outcomes for FYW
As writing faculty, we recognize that all of the following student learning outcomes are
interwoven, and often happen simultaneously. We also recognize that rhetorical awareness and
critical thinking happen throughout all of composing and that its artificial to try to separate these
acts from the highly complex work of composition. We have done so to help a variety of audiences
students, colleagues in other departments, for exampleto better understand concepts
introduced and reinforced in FYW so that they will continue to be practiced and developed
throughout a students lifetime of literacy development.
Rhetorical Knowledge
Rhetorical knowledge is the ability to identify and apply strategies across a range of texts and
writing situations. Using their own writing processes and approaches, writers compose with
intention, understanding how genre, audience, purpose, and context impact writing choices.
1.My only writing experiences prior to this class involving Rhetorical Knowledge would be emails
when I was in the Air Force. It was expected of me, to know who I was emailing and address them
accordingly. You couldnt send an email to a high ranking individual like a Colonel and have it
worded as if you were addressing a friend or even your supervisor.

2.For whatever reason, I always think back to the first paper we wrote in this class. I guess
because it was my first real college assignment and I stressed it so heavily and put so much
thought into it. To me, all of the SLOs were evident in this assignment. Rhetorical Knowledge
being prevalent in the sense that I had not written in academic format in many years. I know had
to write and appease the teacher as well as entertain the teacher and my peers.
By the end of FYW, students should be able to:
Use rhetorical concepts to analyze and compose a variety of texts using a range of technologies
adapted according to audience, context, and purpose
Assess how genres shape and are shaped by readers' and writers' experimentation with
conventions, including mechanics, structure, and style
Develop the flexibility that enables writers to shift voice, tone, formality, design, medium, and
layout intentionally to accommodate varying situations and contexts
Critical Reading
Reading critically is the ability to analyze, synthesize, interpret, and evaluate ideas, information
and texts. When writers think critically about the materials they use, they separate assertion from
evidence, evaluate sources and evidence, recognize and assess underlying assumptions, read
across texts for connections and patterns, and identify and evaluate chains of reasoning. These
practices are foundational for advanced academic writing.
1.In my former Military Life, critical reading was crucial. We actually liked to refer to it as
attention to detail. As a JTAC, it was my job to study a mission set and pull the important
information from it. A mission is not like people imagine them to be. Some high ranking
individual doesnt walk into the room and say heyyou guys are going to go here and do this.
Missions actually start as words on paper that lay out the overall plan and what the goal is. You
had to critically read to decide what you needed and what logistics were required to complete the
mission.
2.In this class, peer reviews are the most evident demonstration of critical reading. Trying to
understand what my peers were trying to say was challenging. All the while, I was trying to study
their Knowledge of Conventions and make sure they were in bounds there as well. It proved to be
a little challenging and was hard for me to put a lot of effort into it when the same effort wasnt
reciprocated.
By the end of FYW, students should be able to:
Use reading for inquiry, learning, and discovery
Analyze their own work and the work of others critically, including examining diverse texts and
articulating the value of various rhetorical choices of writers
Locate and evaluate (for credibility, sufficiency, accuracy, timeliness, bias) primary and
secondary research materials, including journal articles and essays, books, scholarly and
professionally established and maintained databases or archives, and informal electronic
networks and internet sources
Use a diverse range of texts, attending especially to relationships between assertion and
evidence, to patterns of organization, to the interplay between verbal and nonverbal elements,
and to how these features function for different audiences and situations
Composing Processes
Writers use multiple strategies, or composing processes, to conceptualize, develop, and finalize
projects. Composing processes are seldom linear: a writer may research a topic before drafting
then conduct additional research while revising or after consulting a colleague. Composing

processes are also flexible: successful writers can adapt their composing processes to different
contexts and occasions.
1.I had next to no process when I first attended this class. Everything I had written before seemed
so much more practical and to the point. Everything had such a specific reason. I wrote an email
in response to a question, or I drafted up something to try and get approval for different things.
Most things already had a set format, so there wasnt too much thought that went into it. A lot of
copy and paste honestly.
2.This class forced me to come up with some sort of process. I like to call my process, not a
process at all. I basically write, if its crap or completely off topic then I will trash it and start again.
On rare occasion my first paragraphs are on to something, so instead of restarting I just begin to
tweak and reword until I am satisfied with the overall flow and topic of my text. Again, this was
most evident in our initial assignment. I actually scrapped entire passages between my first and
second and even third drafts.
By the end of FYW, students should be able to:
Demonstrate flexible strategies for drafting, reviewing, collaborating, revising, rewriting,
rereading, and editing
Recognize and employ the social interactions entailed in writing processes: brainstorming,
response to others writing; interpretation and evaluation of received responses
Use their writing process in order to deepen engagement with source material, their own ideas,
and the ideas of others and as a means of strengthening claims and solidifying logical arguments.
Knowledge of Conventions
Conventions are the formal rules and informal guidelines that define genres, and in so doing,
shape readers and writers expectations of correctness or appropriateness. Most obviously,
conventions govern such things as mechanics, usage, spelling, and citation practices. But they also
influence content, style, organization, graphics, and document design.
1.I can be a very abrupt and crass individual at times. A lot of times my Knowledge of Conventions
plays directly into my Rhetorical Knowledge. Where people may not be offended by my
outspoken, what you see is what you get nature, that still doesnt make it appropriate in certain
environments. In the Air Force we used foul language all the timeit was pretty much a way of
life. That doesnt mean it is okay to willie nillie throw some shits and damns in an email to a
General Officer. Grammar in my former life wasnt quite as important though. As long
as things were spelled correctly, nobody cared about comma usage.
My spelling and punctuation have suffered greatly with the amount of time I have
been out of school. Every assignment we did in this class, from the simplest blog all
the way up to full blown final drafts, help tremendously. The more I write, the more it
becomes a little easier almost second nature. Peer reviews did actually help a lot
with this. I was a little upset at the lack of insight and help developing my ideas, but
my peers sure were quick to tell when when something was misspelled or misused.
By the end of FYW, students should be able to:
Demonstrate how to negotiate variations in conventions by genre, from print-based
compositions to multi-modal compositions
Investigate why genre conventions for structure, paragraphing, design, formatting, tone, and
mechanics vary

 Use the concepts of intellectual property (such as fair use and copyright) that motivate
documentation conventions to practice applying citation conventions systematically in their own
work.
Develop knowledge of linguistic structures, including grammar, punctuation, and spelling,
through practice in composing and revising
Critical Reflection
Critical reflection is a writers ability to articulate what s/he is thinking and why. For example, to
explain the choices made in a composition, to contextualize a composition, to address revisions
made in response to reader feedback etc.
Critical reflection is becoming increasingly evident as the semester draws to a close. The more I
work on my portfolio the more I realize how important it is. As a matter of fact, I will probably
dedicate a page to critical reflection and critical reading both. We have done so much peer review
and I think they wouldnt be possible without. As well as revision, Its hard to build on on previous
drafts without reflection on what you have already written. Critical is understood differently by
different people but reflection in inherent.
By the end of FYW, students should be able to:

Demonstrate reflecting on their writing in various rhetorical situations

Use writing as a means for reflection

Demonstrate their rhetorical awareness, their writing process, and their knowledge of
conventions with regard to their own writing

Illustrate that reflection is a necessary part of learning, thinking and communicating

(Developed by Curriculum Committee, Approved by Advisory, 4-15)

Part 5: Portfolio Page Building

List as many things as possible that you learned in the course.
It might help to scan back over all your work one more time. Think about all the
Parlors, group work, daybook entries, discussion forums, etc.
Narrow down from the your list just ONE CONCEPT you learned that seems most
important or most meaningful.
Find at least 4 artifacts of your work that demonstrate or reveal you learning, writing
about, or practicing this concept.
What course learning outcomes can you draw connections to through these artifacts
and/or this concept?
Remember that any one artifact or concept can connect to multiple course
learning outcomes.
This is a potential page for your portfolio.
Revision
Multimodal Text

Reflection
Setting Goals
Writing as Inquiry