Erika Radke

Professor Maple

English 101

11 November 2018

Critical Reflection

To demonstrate my growth of my writing throughout the English 101 course I decided to

construct my portfolio, so that the SLOs would be the first thing on my website. By starting with

the learning objectives, I could demonstrate my growth in writing throughout the semester. I chose

to display the strength of my best writing last to show the journey that it took to reach the final

goal of the course.

The first SLO I decided to show was the SLO 5 which was demonstrated in the personal

narrative outline. It was the first step when writing my personal narrative paper and helped me go

through several thought processes before writing the final paper. With the use of drafting and

several iterations I finally was able to portray a personal narrative that was grounded and showed

strong storytelling. The SLO that I displayed next was SLO3 which is used in my rhetorical

analysis paper. It was a challenge to write a paper talking about Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. In my

original iteration of the paper I focused heavily on the background of the Gorillaz band. Only

skimming the surface of the actual use of rhetorical devices. But by using this paper, I later choose

to revise it and put more detail into the rhetorical devices. Which in the final portfolio would

display my growth by editing and explaining the rhetorical devices used in the two music videos.

The third SLO I choose was SLO6 which is used to appraise our own writing. The document that

I choose was the reflection essay for the rhetorical analysis paper. Personally, appraising my own
work is hard to do. And I thought that this paper was the best example of my critical analysis of

my own work. Discussing my improvement while also stating what could be changed. My final

SLO that I used was SLO4 and SLO2 which is linked to the original website we created. I thought

it was appropriate to show two examples of SLOs when it came to the website. When making the

website I had to use evidence-based arguments and show the sources and paraphrase my work.

The order of my SLOs followed the structure of the course materials that we worked on throughout

the semester and provides evidence of my growth as we worked through this class.

The next item listed on my e-portfolio is the first website that we created during our time

in class. The topic I choose was discussing the gender pay gap and going into detail about feminism

in America. I choose to keep the website separate from the SLOs even though I had discussed it

previous under the SLO2 link on the previous page of the website. On the website page I provided

a website link and added another paragraph touching on the use of the SLOs. I thought it

appropriate to add them since the website did cover several of the student learning objectives. A

button opens another window to the gender pay gap site and a paragraph below displays the

evidence-based arguments that were used on the website. By providing this information I could

show the strength and structure of the project and portray the use of SLOs.

The revision paper is the following page on the website which provides the revised paper

and the original. The paper I choose to redo was the rhetorical analysis paper since I didn’t go into

detail about rhetorical devices in my original analysis. I went back and added in more connections

to Ethos, Pathos and Logos so that the paper would be complete. Without the revisions the

argument would have faltered and not made my connections clear. And the paper would have

remained unstructured. By providing this information on my portfolio is would demonstrate my

growth as a writer, and my skills in editing.

 The final part of my e-portfolio is my critical reflection paper which would be a final touch

to the overall product that is the courses final paper. By adding it to the end of my portfolio it

would give a clear understanding in why I put my portfolio in this order and explain the reasons

why I did so. The revision paper helped me understand what it takes to edit a paper, while the

SLOs pushed me forward to be a better writer and how to analyze other writers as well. The final

paper would be the summarization of the English 101 course, and the steps it took to my growth

as a writer.