Adan Hernandez

UWP 1 Section 6

March 20, 2017

Word Count:1649

Reflective Essay

Before ever taking this UWP class, I never really found myself to enjoy writing and never truly

understood what comes makes a English class so important. I always doubted my writing and

never felt like my writing would be considered academic writing because I never felt like my

writing satisfied what my teacher is looking for in the essay. When reading the UWP 1 learning

outcomes, I remember thinking to myself, I have never even heard of these thing and have

never really done any of these outcomes in the past. The only outcome I briefly knew when

entering UWP was Rhetorical Knowledge, I understood that it consisted of audiences and

genres but didnt know that it also included purpose, context, mode, discourse community and

others. In addition, I understood the concept of research but didnt fully understand the different

types of research and how they help with my writing. Other than that, I have never understand

and heard of the other outcomes such as Processes, knowledge of Conventions, and

Metacognition. In addition, when first reading the learning outcomes that consisted of Rhetorical

Knowledge, Processes, Knowledge of Conventions, Research, and Metacognition, I didnt

understand how these were learning outcomes and didnt really know how they would make me

a better writer.

For my first essay that was about Rhetorical analysis, I decided to write about a presenter

named Marc Mero who used Rhetoric to persuade some children that were in Middle School not

to do drugs. When analyzing the presentation and how Mero used Rhetoric techniques to
persuade these young students, I figured out that Mero must have considered the audience very

heavily, which is a part of Rhetoric and realized that he had to present his purpose of being

there in a very certain way that would gather the students attention. Also when analyzing his

presentation, I understood that the purpose of his essay was to convince these young students

to not get involved with drugs because its only a one way street to negative outcomes and

realized that Meros context were the real persuasion tools he used. I actually didnt realize most

of the most important concepts and aspects of the presentation until I received some help from

my peers during workshop. In addition, when revising my peers essays about their cultural

object that they decided to analyze, I gained some different ideas on how to approach Meros

presentation on how drugs affected his life. I realized that Meros reactions and body language

also provided some type of persuasion due to the fact that these motions helped emphasize

what Mero was saying and also helped the students realize how drugs affected his life in a

negative. In addition, between drafts, I edited my drafts of Rhetorical Analysis based off the

ideas my peers have provided and have included Rhetoric that I have realized I missed based

off the feedback of my peers. Some connections from the skills and thinking I practiced through

this essay and my future is how to be open to different viewpoints and ideas and use them to

help me create a better understanding. Also, in the future I will be able to provide the feedback

that my peers are looking for by providing my views and ideas that can be used by them to help

improve their writing or any other thing they may want my views on.

When writing my second essay that was about Discourse community is when I realized the

differences between primary and secondary research. I learned that primary research is

research that I personally do such as observing, surveys, or interviews; whereas, secondary

research is research that I receive from sources such as articles or books. I decided to base my

research off multiple discourse communities that get confused between one another; Chicanx,
Hispanic, Mexican, and Mexican American discourse communities. My essay was heavily based

on primary research but included some information that I received from articles and passages.

The primary research that I used were observations and interactions with each discourse

community. However, since there isnt much people that consider themselves to be apart of the

Hispanic discourse community instead of the Mexican discourse community, I had to do some

secondary research on how Hispanic discourse is different than the rest. Which is when I read

that Hispanic discourse includes all of Latin America where their main language is Spanish;

whereas the Mexican discourse speak Spanish but there are also different languages in

Mexican discourse that arent involved in Hispanic discourse. Leading me to learn about the

Knowledge of Conventions learning outcome. I met this learning outcome when realizing that

each discourse community has its own language and its own set of beliefs. I also used

conventions to interact with each discourse community and explore what each discourse

community is about. In fact, if I were to have more time to work on my research and work on my

portfolio, I would have gotten more into detail on how these communities are being compared as

the same community and how they are being discriminated. In addition, I realized that they were

different due to the fact that I act way different when I am at home compared to the way I act in

an academic discourse community. Where I act myself and am very goofy in my house

discourse community; whereas I am formal and serious when involved in an academic

discourse community. However, there are some connections involved between home discourse

and academic discourse. For example, in both discourses I am respectful to the ones that may

have experienced more than I have or know more about a topic than I do. I could use these

skills of interaction and research in my future where I will need to interact with many different

people from many different backgrounds and communities. Also, when it comes to research, I

will use this skill in pretty much every time I need to come up with an argument and need to
provide some background behind it. I could also use these skills in my future to future my ideas

and discover different views that I may have never considered in the first place.

Leaving only one more learning outcome: Metacognition. I personally, feel like this learning

outcome can be shown in two ways: through writing or in your brain. For example, through

writing, I demonstrated how I reflected on rhetorical choices when describing how Marc Mero

used Rhetoric techniques to persuade middle school students to not get involved with drugs. In

addition, when writing my essays, I to into mind on who my audience will be and provided

evidence such as his own words to prove that Mero used rhetoric in his speech even though it

may not seem like it. In which the purpose of writing about Meros presentation was to expand

on his purpose of presenting and to exemplify my understanding of Rhetoric and how it used in

scenes where it may not seem like rhetoric is being used. Not even really noticing, I reflected on

rhetorical choices made when writing about Meros presentation and discourse community.

When writing about discourse communities, I made a rhetorical choice to talk about each

discourse community on their own and explain the purpose on why these discourse

communities shouldnt be considered the same to persuade my audience that each discourse is

different and have different values and customs than others. In which I decided to describe each

community on their own and describe what each community is about because my audience may

not have known what what the community is about. Also, I felt like a exigence was involved on

the comparison between the discourses and how they were being viewed to be the same and

were being discriminated as one. And I felt compelled to talk about how these communities are

their own discourse because I am one that has been misunderstood to be a Hispanic person

even though I am Mexican American. These skills of metacognition to help me reflect on what I

am trying to inform and provide my best evidence as to why I believe in something or dont. I

could use these skills also to expand on my ideas and improve my writing. Also, the learning
outcome of Metacognition can be used to help me understand what I am truly about and forces

me to actually think about what I believe in and sometimes challenge my own thinkings.

In conclusion, each of these learning outcomes are being used to improve my academic

writing in which I never really felt confident in until now. Using the Rhetorical knowledge learning

outcome helped me search for the main purpose inside a specific type of speech and also

helped in analysing a piece to find specific concepts that are being used and describe how they

add onto the purpose of the speech. Where the processes learning outcome was being used

and met every time I revised my drafts based off the feedback I received from my peers and my

teacher. And if I were to have more time to work on my portfolio I would have made further

revisions such as doing more research and include more of my peers ideas on how to improve

my writing. In addition, I would have done more reflection on my own writing and would have

challenged my ideas more often in hopes to improve my writing with the feedback received from

my peers on my ideas and views. However, not only have these learning outcomes have

improved my academic writing, it has also helped me as to how handle certain occasions in the

future. I could use these learning outcomes to expand on my ideas and provide evidence as to

what I believe in and help my peers by providing them the feedback that they need to improve

their writing. I could also use the skills like interactions in the future to connect with whoever I

am talking to and provides different viewpoints every time I interact with someone that has a

different background.