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Matthew Brooks

Mrs. Litle

English 121-001

1 May 2019

Final Portfolio

As I walked into English class at the beginning of the year there wasn’t much of a

thought process in my head on how to write anything. I simply would sit down and write chaos

all over the paper to whatever and whoever I was writing. As the semester went on I learned how

to structure papers pertaining to visual literacy, summary and responses, annotated

bibliographies, and argumentative papers. In the five artifacts that I will present, I found out that

I fulfilled all the course objectives Mrs. Litle had for our class in each one. As I reflect on each

artifact I chose, I will interpret how that particular paper relates to a specific objective set for the

class.

In my first artifact the topic was visual literacy. It was the first major paper due and in

this paper I learned to look at an image and start to describe what the history and the meaning of

it represented. My portrait was a world’s vision of Jesus Christ. The audience of this portrait was

Christians and religious individuals. The purpose of this artifact was to interpret the images

visual content. An example I used was describing the background details, and his hand gestures

in the portrait and related them to pathos, logos, and ethos. Perceptibly the genre of this image

was religion. Jesus Christ is known as the way, the truth, and the life to heaven for those who

fallow Christianity. The formatting included an introduction covering the pictures details, the

body which consisted of emotional ties known as pathos, ethos told the credibility of the picture,
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and logos which persuaded the audience with facts and data. Artifact one covered objective one

for the class.

My second artifact was the second paper we had due. Artifact number two was a

summary and response paper. The topic of this paper was “the demotic turn of celebrity to

celetoid” (paper 2). In the paper I planned it by using additional sources then the one given by

Graeme Turner. I started by typing a rough draft out then having it evaluated by Alexa. Alexa

reviewed and revised my grammar as well as helped me structure the paper. In the artifact I did a

summary first followed by a response to it that analyzed what Graeme covered on a specific

topic. “I agreed with his demotic turn but disagreed with his theory from elite to ordinary” (paper

2). The exploratory came in when I used different sources then the original article offered. I used

these to persuade and argue the theory Turner presented. William Hung persuaded Turners

argument on how William became an overnight sensation, and an article I found on the rules

celetoids have to fallow argued his elite to ordinary theory. This Artifact covered the class

objective for number two.

Artifact number 3 was an annotated bibliography. In this bibliography I employed critical

and evaluative skills when picking my topic and resources. My bibliography was on the

“Negative effects of smoking cigarettes and its effects on children” (paper3) it’s critical because

it’s looked over by society when it comes to focusing on the children health risks it creates. I

evaluated it by the effects and risks this would have on those children. To support this claim I

had to have credible sources, my sources included govt. and educational agencies. These

agencies deal with the facts and data rather than personal opinion and that’s what makes them

credible. The sources provided proper documentation giving evidence of what transpires when

second hand smoke is inhaled as well as first hand. One example I used was a “judge granted a
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nonsmoking parent custody over a smoking parent because of a child’s asthma issue” (paper3).

Artifact 3 covers course objective four for the class.

Artifact four was my argumentative paper. In this artifact I argued why I felt there should

be more laws against public and private smoking. I chose artifact four to cover course objective

five because its timing came at the end of the semester. During this semester we continued to

learn writing conventions such as spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. This was

our last paper so all those work sheets and journals had given me insight on how to focus on

these topics. Also structure, every paper I wrote was structured different but I chose to structure

artifact four similar to my visual literacy paper. Intro, body, and conclusion using facts, data, and

emotions (ethos, pathos, logos) to argue my point. Each paragraph had a different tone and was

focused on a specific topic. I found to argue the topic of smoking it takes proper rhetoric and

well put together quotes in order to appeal to an audience.

Artifact five is a journal I wrote. The journal was titled “If I were an object what would I

be” (journal 2). I chose a screwdriver, usually I find a screwdriver in all the unorganized places

in a household. The presentation has to do with analogies. Comparing my characteristics to a

screwdrivers. An example I wrote was “we usually both like to be left alone” (journal 2). I did

this by representing my ideas as if I was the object. “I’ve had many jobs and a screwdriver can

be used in many useful ways” (journal2). Artifact five covered course objective number three for

the class.

Concluding the reflective essay I found out that in almost everything I wrote throughout

the semester that it should at least cover three or four of these objectives. They all seem to tie in

together. After evaluating all of my artifacts I found out that each one of them can relate to

almost every one of the objectives. My focus in the essay was to explain how each one did relate
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to those objectives. This is how I know my writing improved and I’m looking forward to

learning more writing techniques in my next English class next semester.