Portfolio and Self Reflection

For our first assignment in class, we were given the task of writing a literacy narrative based on the images of Norman Rockwell’s painting, “The Problem We All Live With”, and the political cartoon of the political cartoon of Betsy Devos by Glenn McCoy. To start off before writing the paper we analyzed the rhetorical situations of these images through writing and communicating with each other. We asked ourselves question like, what messages are the authors of these images trying to convey?, who is the intended audience for both of these images?

In my literacy narrative I wrote,

1 -When looking at the images individually and analyzing Norman Rockwell’s painting I found that the purpose of it was to inform us and to depict the importance that moment symbolized to the African American struggle for racial equality. The image evokes a feeling of disappointment in the way those around are treating this little girl just for going to school. It also brought up an unsettling feeling because it made me realize that sometimes society puts unjust and unreasonable limitation on those who do not deserve it.

         2 – After looking at Rockwell’s painting, I began analyzing the political cartoon of Betsy Devos by Glenn McCoy and found that the purpose of this cartoon was to persuade others that the struggles this woman is facing can be compared to the struggles Ruby Bridges faced when battling racial inequality. When looking at this image I also noticed that it could have intended to persuade people into realizing how unqualified she might be in trying to take on the role of secretary of education, and also demonstrate the way in which she is being treated for trying to do her job.

Here is an example from my essay on how this was one of many assignment, which led me into achieving the first learning outcome of this course. Through this assignment we explored and analyzed in writing, rhetorical situations by using the two images mentioned above. The second learning objective is also implemented through this assignment because we were allowed to revise the drafts of our literacy narratives in order to correct our mistakes and make our reasons stronger.

 Moving on to the second assignment, here we were given the task of writing an exploratory essay. We had to choose one of the short stories discussed in class to explore and illustrate one or more of the psychoanalytic concepts or terms discussed so far in the class.

For this assignment I chose the short story of “ The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe, and the psychoanalytic concepts of repression and displacement to argue the idea that the unnamed narrator undergoes significant shifts in emotions and develops an abusive expression towards his wife and the animals and due to these alterations, the psychoanalytic concepts of repression, and displacement are illustrated through the narrator’s behaviors.

This assignment allowed me to achieve three of the learning objectives for this course. The first one is that we were able to compose a text that integrated our stances with sources using the strategy of argumentation.

       -Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat”, is about a man narrating the events that occurred in his life, starting from being a man living a fulfilled life with his wife and animals, to the alteration of his personality due to alcohol. Eventually his aggressive personality leads him to self-destruction when murdering his wife and animals. The unnamed narrator undergoes significant shifts in emotions and develops an abusive expression towards his wife and the animals. Due to these alterations, the psychoanalytic concepts of repression, and displacement are illustrated through the narrator’s behaviors.- From Essay

 As you can see here in this part of the first paragraph of my exploratory essay, I am making an argument and proving it through the use of sources such as Freud’s “ Five Lectures on Psychoanalysis” and “ The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe.

Lastly, I feel like our final assignment in this class helped us achieve most of the learning outcomes in this class. Our last assignment was a Critical Research Paper, and although this was the assignment that I struggles with the most, I feel as though it pushed me the most and helped teach me more about using sources, along with other aspects of writing. For this assignment I chose to write about something different from what we were talking about in class. One of the prompts provided for this assignment was on Grimm fairy tales, which caught my attention right away. For this paper I decided to talk about how:

• Hidden in many fairy tales are vast Freudian psychoanalytic concepts like wishful impulse and displacement, that have to do with the individual and the actions they take influenced by their society. Fairy tales like “Hansel and Gretel” and “Snow White” by the Grimm brothers have been developed to mimic and show our worst desires, actions and their effects on others around us in society. – From essay

 For this assignment, the learning objectives of being able understand and use print and digital technologies to address a rage of audiences, and being able to locate research sources in library databases and on the internet, are achieved in the manner in which we searched and utilized different sources in our papers. For this paper we had to use two scholarly sources, and credible sources. This assignment involved a lot of research on your topic. One of the main struggles with this assignment was being able to find sources that were relevant to our topics and which supported our arguments. Another learning outcome we completed with this assignment was the ability to practice systematic applications of citation conventions. For this assignment out professor emphasised the need to appropriately cite all of our sources.

 Overall, I feel as though the learning objectives of developing strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing, recognizing and practicing key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations, engaging in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes, are all incorporated in all three of these assignments. For all of them we went through the process of revising and editing our work. We practiced using rhetorical strategies in almost all of our writing to persuade our readers through are arguments, and we engaged in the collaborative and social aspects of writing with all the assignments with our peers.

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