Throughout this semester I was able to learn new techniques and strategies that helped me improve my writing. I got to use these strategies on 3 different projects, my discourse community paper, my annotated bibliography, and my multimodal project. Looking back at my work I could see how I have changed as a writer for me the assignment I enjoyed doing the most was my annotated bibliography because it was a bit more challenging for me than my other pieces of work. I got to choose and really look for the research I needed and wanted, I got to see what kind of research spoke more to me which is why I thought it was a great idea that we had to choose and annotate using 3 different genres. I think I have developed as a writer because now I have a better understanding of the types of genres that are out there and the impact it has on the audience you might be targeting. With my annotated bibliography and multimodal project, I got to see the different impact it would have on my audience, although both were about the same topic the way the information was presented was different. Some notable lessons that have stuck with me after finishing certain assignments are to use the feedback you’re given no matter if it’s from your peers or your professor don’t ignore it or feel like they don’t like what you have to say, take it and show it in your writing. Another lesson is to always go back to your work and make sure you’re happy with what you have writing something random and submitting it will not make you feel good and it won’t feel like you accomplished something. With everything online make sure you are in check with your work, time management was one of my biggest issues this semester, I understand things could get overwhelming, and sometimes you may feel like not doing the work but at the end of the day, you’re doing this for yourself. Coming into this class I thought I was going to do it read papers and write about them but this class turned out to be more interesting then I thought, we did write papers but the fact that we could get creative and choose topics that were important to us was something new, I really enjoyed analyzing the AOC speech and the Wollstonecraft Letter. To the future students that take this course next semester the advice that I will give you is to not be afraid to talk to your professor or your peers, if your confused or need help with something speak up, that is something I wish I would have done more this semester, go to office hours or interact with your peers on the discussion center it’s not the same as a face to face conversation but at least you won’t feel overwhelmed or like you’re lost.

The 2 smaller pieces I have chosen to include in my portfolio are Analyzing the Declaration of Independence and Drafting my annotations I’m choosing these 2 smaller pieces because I got to analyze two different genres also because one of them was easy for me to write and the other one was a bit more challenging. The Declaration of Independence came easy to me because I was able to hear someone read out loud but I was also able to read it myself, I was able to choose which sections stood the most out to me and summarize it and what it meant. Drafting my annotations was a bit more challenging because my first annotation was an hour-long documentary which I had to watch, listen to, and annotate then decided which information I wanted to use there was a lot of pausing and rewinding to make sure I didn’t miss anything or quote something incorrectly. I think these two pieces get to see what kind of writer I am and how I am able to work using different genres.