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Hello! My name is Rachel Lindahl. This is my e-Portfolio for the 2021 Spring semester of English 101: Composition at Minnesota State University Mankato. This website has the three projects I wrote...

Here is my e-portfolio. It includes all my work for this semester. With this post, I believe that all my work for this composition course is completed. I might post writing stuff on here in the future if I ever actually write, but until then, this is it. Happy Spring 2021 semester is almost over (:

4/25/2021

#eportfolio

Project 4: Theory of Writing

This fourth and final project was a theory of writing. Its essentially where you take everything you learned this semester and put it into words on a page. Its a huge act of reflection, and it really made me realize how much my views on writing changed this semester. I used to think that it was just something that people did without much thought, just putting ideas or thoughts into words. This course taught me that there’s a lot more to it. Writing is a lot more personal and varied than schools have a tendency to teach. The way that people write, the skills they bring to the table, their wording, what they write about, all of it is based off past experiences and opinions. The way composition is currently taught is suffocating, saying that there’s only one good way to write, this academic standard that it forces down your throat. It makes it hard to enjoy writing because you have to conform to this foreign way of communicating. Writing should be varied. Everyone has their own way they talk, their own experiences. There is no one way to write because there are so many things to write about. Its not supposed to be uniform, its supposed to be a way that people can put themselves out into the world in a way they couldn’t before.

Overall, this assignment allowed me to look back on everything I’ve learned and how my views have changed. Its really interesting to read over these ideas I didn’t even know I had in me. This assignment acted as a summary of the entire course, and I got to see how much I’ve developed over the course of it.

4/25/2021

#project commentary #Project 4 #Theory of Writing

RWJ Week 14

Question: Brainstorm a list of things (can be fun things like baking/creative writing/gaming) that you can apply writing/composition skills (revision, organization, communication, rhetoric, etc.) to. Do one of those things and reflect on how it felt to apply writing/composition skills.

A list of things that I could apply my writing composition skills to, that’s very broad, but I’ll keep it to things that I personally do a lot (or would like to). Creative writing, gaming, drawing, hockey, soccer, rollerblading. In hindsight, I can’t really think of many things I do in general, let alone that can have these skills applied to them (probably like half that list)

For this assignment, I decided to draw and consider these composition skills in the process. the first thing I did was determine authors purpose. I wanted to create a landscape scene to the best of my abilities, and I want it to create a sense of serenity and warmth. To decide how to create this, I used elements of rhetoric. Pathos to determine the best way I can make the viewer feel how I want them to, ethos with my previous art skills and the fact that this piece is inspired by one I made in art class with charcoal, and logos by looking into what colors generally bring a sense of peace and warmth with them. I used reference Images a lot, which is very important. Using reference images can be like background research, used to ensure that what you are doing is right or makes sense. When it came to organization, I did a sketch layer to get a rough example of the scene I wanted. After that, I worked back to front to bring this piece to life. The organization of this was important to ensure that this turned out the best way it could. After a lot of work, I sent it to a friend for peer review, see if there was anything I could change to make it better. After that, I took their ideas and my own to revise the piece until I was happy with the final product.

4/20/2021

#reading writing journal #this is the last reading writing journal of the semester (:

RWJ Week 13

Question: Free write for 10 mins about your experience in this class, your experience writing and reading, what you think writing is supposed to do, what the importance of writing is to you and to the world.

This composition course has made me think a lot more about writing than I ever have before. Its made me realize a lot of things about it. Writing is a lot more open ended than it feels sometimes. There are so many different ways to go about doing it and an infinite number of things to write about. There is no one single way to do it, there is no right or wrong way to do it, and no one ever masters it. Writing is constantly changing and developing, and it is very personal to the author. No two people have the same way of writing. Similar maybe, but never exactly the same. Its a form of expression that everyone can do, and it’ll be different every time between every person.

Writing has many purposes, all depending on what the author wants. Research papers to share information, creative writing to tell a story, poetry to display emotions, there is an infinite number of things you can do with writing. Overall, many of the goals of writing can be put under one topic: creation. No matter what topic you may write on, you are creating something. The one true goal of writing is to create. Crafting stories, creating experiments, making conclusions, every form of writing is some sort of creation. Its a form of expression of something that can be shared with others. Information about a disease, a love poem, a sci fi fantasy story, all of these things are created by people and are shared with others to consume and enjoy. Writing is a way to share a part of yourself with the world, maybe even into the future. Writing is a way to share a part of yourself with the world to be remembered.

4/13/2021

#reading writing journal

Project 3: Field Research

To give a quick summary of this project, it was a group project where we came up with a topic to research about and then did research on it. My group chose to look into “the effects of online education on quality of education in college level students during a global pandemic.” To do this, we first found some other articles that looked into similar things. After that, we created an 11 question survey, each question with a variant of “yes/no” answers with areas to explain each answer should the person want to. The questions asked a variety of things related to performance to integrity to opinion on online learning during a pandemic. Based on the results of our survey, its safe to say a majority of people were negatively affected by the move to online learning during the Covid-19 global pandemic.

What I learned during this research project is the real meaning of research. Often times, when college students are assigned research projects, it doesn’t actually include research. Students are told to find other sources that give them information and compile them into one item. This is not research. Research is when someone does their own investigation to find answers for themselves. The idea of gathering other peoples work, however, is still there. Referencing some other peoples works as background research can be useful and give you more insight into what you are doing, but it should not be the whole project. What research should be, primarily, is a person’s own investigations into find an answer to a question they have by interacting with other people or the environment, whether that be through surveys, interviews, observations, or other means.

Overall, this project taught me what it really means to research. You have to get knee deep in it and do the work yourself, you can’t just rely on previous people’s work to get you somewhere new. Additionally, a bit unrelated to anything mentioned so far, but communication during group work is key to getting anything done. Wish my schedule wasn’t so busy during this project, but my group managed to work through it with minimal aggravation, so that's a plus.

4/12/2021

#project commentary #Project 3 #Field research

RWJ Week 12

Question: What is your favorite mode (written, spoken, images) to work in? How do you want to incorporate that mode into your projects if you haven't yet, and if you have, how did you feel about using that mode?

That is a hard question, because each had their own perks depending on the situation. Overall, I’d probably have to go with writing. Writing is a lot easier to work with in general, all you have to do is type out words to get your thoughts down, probably go back and edit, but that’s it. It is a lot easier than spoken word or images. While spoken word can get across far more emotion than writing normally can, it is hard to work with. If one mistake is made, you have to restart it from the beginning, if you can even restart in the first place. If you’re speaking in front of people and not recording, you can’t really go back, the mistake was witnessed by everyone. Images can also convey more emotion than words, but it also takes a lot more effort and skill. You have to create an image that will be able to get your point across, which can be difficult. Each way has their advantages, but overall, I’d have to say I prefer writing.

4/5/2021

#reading writing journal

RWJ Week 11

Question: What are your favorite ways of reading/viewing information? Is it visual graphs? Video explanations? Reading paragraphs? Why is it your favorite? How does it engage you?

I like visual graphs the best, videos are a close second to that. Visual graphs make it way easier to comprehend the data. It does the job of visualizing the data for you, making it easier to understand and compare the information within. Videos also do a good job at that, but I prefer having a visual graph. Video explanations are also good. Sometimes its better to have it explained by someone else instead of reading or trying to comprehend data from a paragraph or a visual graph. Generally videos will have moving graphics and a voice explaining things, which combines 2 ways of understanding. When it comes to reading paragraphs, not a huge fan. If they’re done well, definitely a good source. But depending on the topic, it can get overwhelming to try and comprehend the reading.

3/29/2021

#reading writing journal

RWJ Week 10

Question: What do you think you'll use from previous projects in this project?

I can’t really think of anything I could use from a Literacy Narrative (Project 1) in a research paper, but there are aspects of the Rhetorical Analysis (Project 2) that I could definitely use. One of the main ones would definitely be analysis. In P2 (Project 2), I had to analyze rhetorical elements in a speech. In this research paper, I am going to have to analyze and report on data that I gather. The topics may be very different, but the critical thinking needed to do both of them is the same. Another thing to keep from P2 is the ability to structure a research paper well. The way these papers are formatted is similar, and ensuring the paragraphs flow together well is something that I can use from my previous project in this one.

3/22/2021

#reading writing journal

RWJ Week 9

Question: What do you think are the best ways to make group projects work? What are some commonalities you think you might have with your group members? Feel free to also just rant and get out all the annoyances of group projects in this journal entry.

When it comes to group work, I normally hate it. In all my previous experiences, most people don’t do any of the work and I’m left to pick up the slack. Its annoying. However, when you get people who actually help with the work, I enjoy it. Sadly, these people seem to be few and far in between in my past experiences. I am more optimistic about this project though, as I know at least one person in my group will do the work with me. We partnered together and left the third person up to chance because we couldn’t think of anyone else for the group.

The best ways to make group projects work is definitely communication and collaboration. Stereotypical answer, but there’s a reason everyone says it. Communication is key, you can’t work as a group if you’re not in touch with your group. When I do group work, I try to work together on some parts and separately on others. Being able to identify what parts to split up or work together on is important. Staying together for certain parts ensures that everything that needs to be done gets completed and is completed well. Working separately allows for work to be done faster by splitting up parts of the work. Then, everyone can peer review each others work to ensure that it is of good quality. Finding the balance between working together and working separately is very important.

3/15/2021

#reading writing journal

Project 2: Rhetorical Analysis

A quick summary of this assignment would be we were given a couple speeches or essays we could write a rhetorical analysis on. I decided to write about “Christoph Niemann’s “You are Fluent in this Language (and Don't Even Know It)” speech uploaded to TED Talks in April 2018. This speech is about how everyone is fluent in the language of reading images. People’s brains fill in the blanks of an image and get meaning from it. Analyzing this speech made me not only agree with his claim, but also realize how often rhetorical elements are used in every day life, intentional or not.

Over this entire unit, I learned about rhetorical elements. Rhetoric is the use of persuasive language to convince an audience of something. There are many elements of rhetoric, but I’ll talk about the ones that I analyzed in my essay. First, there is exigence, the event that caused the author to give a response. I said that I thing the exigence for this speech was a want for people to realize that they have a language that they can speak in without knowing it. If people can recognize this, not only can they read images better, but they can also use this language to better communicate. I talked about the audience he wanted to address, which is anyone who didn’t know about this idea of image reading as a language. He wants to make people understand it.

Within the rhetorical elements, there are things called rhetorical appeals. One of these is ethos, someone's credibility to talk about a subject. I being up how not only do his past employments raise his credibility, but so does the venue he gave this speech at, TED Talks. Then I addressed pathos, playing to the audience’s emotions to make them agree with you. He compliments the audience multiple times and also uses comedy to get on their good side, further ensuring they’ll agree with him. Finally, I talk about pacing, or the specific timing of things within the speech. He uses pacing in the form of comedic timing to increase his pathos.

Overall, this assignment made me really think about how everyone uses these elements in their everyday life. Advertisements, speeches, many of the medias we consume use the rhetorical elements on purpose. But even people use these elements when they’re just talking without even realizing it. Its an aspect of existence I hadn’t thought in detail about before.

3/3/2021

#project commentary #Project 2 #Rhetorical Analysis

RWJ Week 8

Question: What are your discourse communities (for this journal entry we'll define it as the people that you have real conversations with)? How do you communicate in them? What issues do you talk about and if you disagree, how do you convince them or not of your opinion?

My discourse communities are either the family that lives in my house or a couple of friends. When talking to my family, its always face to face. For my friends, its always over messaging, maybe a voice call when were doing something else at the same time. I can’t really meet my friends face to face right now, the only reason I leave my house is for a weekly lab. Usually my family and friends talk about whatever happens during the conversation. Although, in this question, it seems like its asking more about discourse or debate than just casual talking. If there is debate to be had, its only with family and its somehow always about politics (which I am not too fond of). For the most part we all agree on most things, but when conflicts do occur its just a constant back and forth between the two because no one will give up there side. It usually ends by one person leaving or a long silence before someone decides to change the subject. Debates are not handled well in my house, sadly. I try to avoid them really.

3/1/2021

#reading writing journal

RWJ Week 7

Question: What sorts of rhetoric do you notice in your day to day life? Beyond academia and news, do you think people even think about rhetoric? Does you think the person making the funniest TikTok/Twitch Stream/etc consciously uses rhetoric? Or is it more unconscious?

Pathos is definitely present in everyday life. We’re constantly bombarded by advertisements that try to get us to buy the newest game console or go to McDonald’s to get the new deal on a BigMac. Without a doubt, these ads use the elements of rhetoric to their advantage. They use pathos in their music, imagery, anything to get you excited to consume their product or make you feel bad to go adopt a dog or make a donation. For logos they’ll give you statistics to prove that their product will make your life better. They build their ethos by showing that they’ve tested it multiple times and giving you demos on how their product works. They use kairos in the form of limited time offers to make you want to act now.

When it comes to a single person using rhetoric, I think it can be on purpose and unconsciously. Yeah, a twitch streamer might pull on your heartstrings to try and get you to donate money or act in a certain way to get an emotional response, but these are also things that people do on their own as well.

2/22/2021

#reading writing journal

Week 6 RWJ

Question: How do you talk about writing/texts with other people? Do you even talk to people about writing/texts?

Generally speaking, I only talk to other people about writings or texts in an academic setting. When I do that, I generally make sure I’ve read the text in its entirety and have a basic understanding of it. You can’t really talk about something in depth enough if you don’t have a basic understanding. Usually there will be discussion questions to talk about, so I would address those, give my take on them, and listen to what other people have to say about it. I enjoy going into further depth on topic that are brought up by other people. They may see it as annoying, but I enjoy seeing where people got their ideas from, what details made them come up with the idea, and seeing where my train of thought differed from theirs. A lot of times we end up going on a bit of a side tangent going further into depth on these ideas and other ideas that those original ones lead to. I like to start of with a structure and let the conversation flow to wherever it gets taken.

2/16/2021

#reading writing journal

Project 1: Literacy Narrative

For a quick summary of this project, the assignment was to write about how our connections and meaning of reading, writing, and other forms of literacy have changed throughout our lives. This project made me look at my literacy harder than I ever had before, and it made me think and realize things about myself that I hadn’t known before.

The entire unit before this project has been meant to help us develop the meaning of literacy and how we learn it. There is no certain way to do it, everyone has their own way they read, their own way they write, and there is no one that is definitively better than the others. Yes, you can have preferences and yes, society can have standards, but in the grand scheme of things, those don’t matter too much. No one is perfect at writing, and there are many different ways to write. There is always something to learn about how to do it, always a way to improve.

Everyone's literacy narrative is different. In my own literacy narrative, I connected the dots to figure out that I love creating things. I might not write much, but I love creating, its why I write at all. Some people don’t like to read or write, they have negative experiences with it. Some people like the more scientific and rigid structures. Throughout this entire project (and unit) I realized that literacy is a lot broader than I ever thought it was. Its a lot more personal than I ever thought it was. You get to choose how you experience literacy, and that’s something I never thought about before

2/8/2021

#Project commentary #Project 1 #Literacy Narrative

RWJ Week 5

Question: What are the ways in which you are keeping yourself sane through all the shitstorm that is this pandemic and just 2020-2021 in general? Do an extra one of those things this week.

I genuinely have no idea how I’ve managed to keep it together so far. Since March 2020, I’ve left the house a maximum of 20 times, and most of them were for biology labs. One thing I did was decide to attend college from home this year, which I’m lucky to be able to do since my sister doesn’t get that choice. Things that I’ve been doing more commonly though is just playing video games and such. I kinda always stayed in my room during the school year anyways, so not much changed in that aspect (besides being terrified to go in public). The only difference is that my classroom is my bedroom now, so I just sit at a desk. To stay in touch with friends we’ve started playing video games together and getting in a group call. Mariokart was what we played for awhile but we started playing minecraft again recently. On my own time I just drown myself in stimulus, I am always consuming at least one form of media, generally two. It’s probably not the best way to handle things but its getting me through it well enough.

2/8/2021

#rwj

RWJ Week 4

Question: How aware are you of the choices you make when you write or create something? Do you think "I have to use this word in the sentence here" or "this is the order that I have to tell this story in"? Or is it more unconscious, do you just let things flow?

It depends on the writing I’m doing. If I’m writing an essay for a science course, I’m thinking about every sentence I make and all the information within it. The rubric is right next to me the entire time to make sure that I’m meeting requirements as I’m pumping it out. My research is in another tab, just a click away from making sure what I’m putting in my paper is correct. A reason for this is probably because when writing these sorts of things, I want it to be as “one and done” as possible. I don’t do a rewrite of the whole thing, I make sure that thing is as pristine as it’ll get on as I’m writing it. I’ll have it peer edited and I’ll go back for grammar, but other than that I don’t like to change my essays that much.

When it comes to all other writing, I generally just let it flow. I don’t think much about what I’m typing, I just type. I can go back and change it later, but getting the ideas out there right away is important, lest you lose an idea or forget where you were going. I enjoy writing like this a lot more, it feels nice to just let go and go for it. Whatever comes to mind goes on the paper and it can be fixed later. I think that’s the best way for me to do it, no restrictions or expectations, just writing whatever I want.

2/1/2021

#reading writing journal

RWJ Week 3

Question: This class will be looking at various modes for composing*, the first one being audio. What modes for composition are you interested in? How do you think you can integrate various modes into all your projects in academia and outside of it?

I am more interested in gesture and audial modes of composition. I have done the other ones many times in the past for assignments, writing essays, making posters, infographics, etc. What I haven’t done much of is gesturing and aduial. The amount of times I’ve had to give a speech for class is shockingly small considering how I’m expected to be able to do it for jobs and such in the future. When I speak, I gesture a lot, which helps get emotions and points across. The times I’ve done speeches in the past have been for honors or IB english courses, and whenever I did speeches I was always complimented on my ability to express emotions clearly and giving my words that extra depth. An aspect of gesturing that wasn’t mentioned in the article but I wish had been is putting emotion behind your words using your voice. Maybe that's a part of audial, but I still think it's important. Not only would being good at this benefit speeches where emotion can be a driving factor, but also in more formal settings. If you can give off an air of confidence when you speak, you’ll do great out there.

1/26/2021

*composing is like how you express things. There’s visual (images, pictures, etc), linguistic (text or spoken word), spacial (how the text makes use of its space, like posters and such), gesture (using gestures and movement, generally when giving a speech), and audial (what you can hear, like music or silence)

#reading writing journal

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