Dear Michele,
In my ePortfolio, I included two projects: my Living Picture Narrative and my Podcast Project. While I had to include my Podcast Project no matter what, I chose to include my Living Picture Narrative because it allowed me the chance to talk about myself and my literacy in my favorite subject, drumming. I also personally think that my Living Picture Narrative is the best essay I have ever written. The only reason that my Living Picture Narrative came out so successful was because of the new writing skills I’ve obtained in this class. Through a lot of time and hard work, I have significantly improved two rhetorical concepts, including my writing process skills and audience awareness skills.
In my ePortfolio, I included two projects: my Living Picture Narrative and my Podcast Project. While I had to include my Podcast Project no matter what, I chose to include my Living Picture Narrative because it allowed me the chance to talk about myself and my literacy in my favorite subject, drumming. I also personally think that my Living Picture Narrative is the best essay I have ever written. The only reason that my Living Picture Narrative came out so successful was because of the new writing skills I’ve obtained in this class. Through a lot of time and hard work, I have significantly improved two rhetorical concepts, including my writing process skills and audience awareness skills.
1. This video shows how guitar hero translates over to real drums, which is how I learned to play on a drum set.
After writing the Living Picture Narrative, I improved in my writing process. Before starting this class, my writing process was very simple. I used to just think about a few ideas for an essay in my head, write a “shitty first draft”, and then revise that draft to turn it into my final draft. Needless to say, this wasn’t one of the best ways to make a good essay. I took a very different approach when writing the Living Picture Narrative which I think drastically improved the quality of my writing. To write this essay, I first brainstormed ideas. I basically made a list of different subjects I could focus on to describe my literacy journey and a brief description for each of those subjects. I then made an outline that detailed what the flow of my essay would look like. From there I made my first “shitty” draft. I then revised my draft by taking advice from my peers and applying that advice to form a second draft. For example, in my first essay, I included a portion of my paragraph that described how Guitar Hero guitars are not similar to actual guitars. One of my peers said that I, “might not need [it]” and that I should focus on how I learned to play drums. After reading the comment and rereading that portion of the essay, I realized that she was right and that that portion of my essay wasn’t really needed to help get my point across to the reader.
|
2. My band, As You Wish, was the culmination of everything I learned throughout my drumming literacy journey.
|
After writing my second draft, I then used the advice from your comments to revise my essay again. I read through my entire essay using those comments and really thought about the errors still left in my essay before changing them. Similarly to my peer, you suggested that I take out an entire paragraph from my essay because it also didn’t really add anything to my journey through drumming literacy, so I took it out of that draft completely. Finally, I changed a few words in my essay after going line by line to correct some grammar mistakes, forming my final draft. As you can see, this is a much longer process of writing than what I previously used before taking this class. My newly improved writing process skills helped me be more clear and concise in my writing.
3. I took notes while making my observations and implemented this research into my podcast.
|
The second project that I included in my ePortfolio was my Podcast Project. In this project, I learned a lot about talking to my audience. Audience is very important in the podcast project because if you want to effectively express your ideas for the podcast and try to persuade the audience, you need to know who you are talking to. Knowing this helped me learn that once you know your audience, you know what kind of tone you should use when writing. Since I knew that I was intending to write to other college students who were interested in video games and/or curious about video game tournaments, I used a very laid back tone. An example of this can be seen in my introduction, since I start the entire podcast with a casual, “What’s up guys and gals?”. I used my newly acquired audience awareness skills to try and persuade my audience to attend local video game tournaments.
|
As a little side note, I think that my persuasive skills definitely worked. After reading my script for the podcast, one of my peers met up with me after class to ask me where it is that he could find more information about when and where local Super Smash Bros. tournaments happen. I was more than happy to help him.
After taking this class, I’ve improved in many different rhetorical concepts, specifically my writing process skills and my audience awareness skills. My Living Picture Narrative helped me improve my writing process skills. Before writing the Living Picture Narrative, my writing process, was short, bleak, and consisted of essentially just a single draft. After taking the class, however, my writing process has improved to have a cohesive plan, including brainstorming, an outline, and several drafts and revisions. My Podcast Project is proof of my bettered audience awareness skills. Before writing the script for my podcast, I only thought of my audience as my professor or instructor; I would just write for them using the same, formal tone. After writing my Podcast Project, I gained a new consciousness for my audience. I now understand that knowing who I’m writing for helps me use the correct tone to approach and persuade my audience.
|
4. Recording the podcast was just as fun as writing it. I feel prepared to possibly start my own small podcast series in the future.
|
My ePortfolio says a few things about me. The first thing is says about me is that I’m very passionate about the topics I wrote about. If it wasn’t already obvious after reading both of my essays, drumming and Super Smash Bros. are two things that are not only important to me, they are part of what makes me who I am. As a writer, these projects show that I have grown a lot. I used to not really think about my writing; I would just write what I could to try and please my teacher and meet the deadline. I’m now more aware of what it means to write a good essay and the work it takes to get there. I’ve come to realize that writing about what you enjoy makes it a lot easier to do all the work to write a good essay. My ePortfolio displays how this class and writing these projects have helped me improve in both my writing process skills and my audience awareness skills, and I’m grateful for that.
Thank you,
Robert De Dios
Thank you,
Robert De Dios
Picture/Video Sources