David McGowanSuzanna IngramUWRT 1102-02604/27/2015Final Portfolio EssayE-Portfolio: Design and Contents

Design

My e-portfolio is designed simply. I used a blank background and no additional color. My focus was on organizing my written work for the reader. This Ikea website has a clutter-free look and is designed to be minimalista style I like. The image above is the only one on the website. It is a picture of a day by the ocean in the south of France that I find calm and minimalist. I also used lower-case, clean text to make items easy for the reader to find and to avoid distraction with complicated fonts.Contents

My e-portfolio contains several pieces of my written work, including my research project, the three-column notes I compiled while writing the research essay, my mid-term reflection, nine blog posts from the semester, and a series of written artifacts from this class and my film class. Each one has helped shape my learning process in the class. For purposes of explaining how these artifacts helped me learn this semester, it makes the most sense to start from the beginning and work through how each artifactincluding my drafts and blog postshelped me write my final paper.

Pre-SearchMy process work artifacts include my initial pre-search for the research essay, and three drafts of the final research essay. My pre-search helped me brainstorm about my research topic. It is interesting to revisit my pre-search because the document shows how my research topic shifted over time. When I did the pre-search, I was interested in the craft brewing community in the area. I reviewed a brewery-related article about the local brewing scene. As the semester moved forward and coupled with Andrew Gunns (Humane League) visit to our class, I began to shift my topic to focus on the local food, rather than the local beer.Blog

Like the pre-search, my blog was also important in shaping my paper and my learning in this class. The blog posts were almost like we were writing the paper over the course of the semester. For example, Blog Post 2 helped me think about whats driving the increased interest in local/gourmet food in a more detailed way. The blog writing process also encouraged me to look for new sources to write about. Blog Post 2 helped me narrow my topic to local food. Similarly, Blog Post 3 helped me develop a research proposal I planned to highlight the most prominent driving force behind North Carolinas push for quality nutrition and local food. Although the weekly blog posts were sometimes a struggle for me, they helped me keep thinking about my topic and sources.Three-Column Notes & Writers Notebook

Like the blog posts, the three-column note process was both challenging and very helpful for writing the final paper. The three-column format forced me to organize my sources and pick out the most important parts. As the Engaging Questions textbook point out, [m]aintaining a research log can help you work more efficiently by making it easier for you to keep track of sources and by helping you to avoid having to retrace your steps. Although I didnt use everything in my three-column notes document, each thing opened up its own new ideas and reinforced another point. I had never organized sources this way before and found it helpful to organize my thoughts. One of my artifacts from my writers notebook (Artifacts Writers Notebook) is a description of my three-column notes bibliography. This writers notebook entry shows that I realized during the semester that I needed to put additional sources into the three-column format and that I saw it as a way to link my resources together.Draft 1Using the sources in my three-column notes and portions of blog posts, I was able to put together Draft 1 of my final paper. As you can see on page 3, I was missing a large part of the final paper at this early point. I was organizing my thoughts for the paper, and had only really developed my first section, on How it was/past food trends/corporations/processed engineered food. Still, the paper probably wouldnt have been as developed as it was if I had not had to write an early draft (Draft 1).

Draft 2 & Writers Notebook

In Draft 2 of the final research paper, I added several of the sections that were missing from Draft 1. Many of these additions stemmed from the documentary Food Inc. Working on Draft 2 showed me the holes I still needed to fill in to make stronger arguments. The draft also helped me start thinking about my conclusion, which, as you can see at page 5, wasnt finished. Around the time I worked on Draft 2, I also completed a writers notebook entry addressed to the reader (Artifacts Writers Notebook 3/23/15). That entry helped me realize that, considering the complexity of my topic, it was normal for me to be struggling to find a counter-argument.

Draft 2 Feedback

The feedback received on Draft 2 (under Artifacts - Feedback) of my research essay was of great benefit to me in aligning my essay with the MLA format and thinking about big picture questions. Adhering to MLA format was perhaps the biggest difficulty for me. Many of the online MLA guidelines that I was using had actually created more confusion, so feedback in class was particularly beneficial, although even after this draft I still had many MLA questions.Draft 3

By Draft 3 (Artifacts Process Work), I added a conclusion and added more to the final paragraph of my paper about new trends in the food industry as compared to the local food movement. I also took out the section headings Id been using as a guide for myself to outline my paper. I felt that my paper was close to complete, but still needed work.Draft 3 Feedback

Although I received helpful feedback in my Draft 2 peer review workshop, I still had doubts about my citations as I knew that I had made mistakes in citation technique. After reviewing Draft 3 with Professor Ingram I was able to eliminate errors in my citations as she added clarity to the information on MLA formatting that was available online. In addition to formatting, Professor Ingram aided me in the completion of my essay as I was unhappy with how I had brought my essay to a close. I had closed my essay on a paragraph on what might continue to drive the local food trend (increased publicity of the effects of the typical American diet, exposure of mass food production practices, and increased availability of healthier organic foods. After meeting with Professor Ingram to work on Draft 3, I felt that I needed to add another paragraph to enforce my belief that the new food movement was not so much a new food trend, rather a return to how we (our grandparents) used to purchase and consume food.

Final Research Project EssayIn my final research project essay (Research Project), I made this change by adding an additional sentence in the concluding paragraph rather than an additional paragraph in the essay. It reads, While other food trends of the last decade (gluten-free, soy everything, soy-free everything, paleo) seem short-lived, the local food trend has more staying power as it is a return to the way we used to eat. This sentence helped me sum up my concluding argument about local food and balanced out the information about food trends Id added to my paper. In addition, my final paper includes many of the edits from Professor Ingram, including cleaned up MLA citations. It also includes a full Works Cited page. Midterm Reflection & Wild CardsThere are three other items in my e-portfolio that dont necessarily directly relate to the drafting process for my final research paper. The first is my mid-term reflection. That paper helped me link the work we had been doing on the research paper to key concepts in the class, like critical thinking, making connections, and independent inquiry. It also helped me state my challenges with the writing process and feedback, both of which I still think need development. The other two items are film comparisons from my Superhero themed film class. These short essays depend on making connections between two different films, so I thought they fit with one of the key concepts in this course. They also require rhetorical awareness even though all the films we watch and discuss are superhero movies, The Incredibles presents a very different set of images than The Watchmen, as do Metropolis and Gotham. Even though I might not have recognized it while I was writing these papers, these film comparison papers are examples of using the key concepts in other contexts.

How My Writing Has Grown Through Engagement with Key Concepts

My writing and my understanding of the writing process have improved this semester. In many ways, this was the first time I was exposed to a lengthy research paper process. This semester helped me understand the planning and revision process for writing a research paper. Several of the key concepts in the class help show this improvement.Getting Out of My Comfort Zone

First, my writing grew because I got out of my comfort zone. I am not a natural writer. I had a career in professional athletics prior to returning to college, and I plan to pursue a career in sciences, so I have had limited exposure to the research and writing process. This course challenged me to ask myself questions about my audience, conduct pre-search, and gather sources in a way I had not previously.In particular, I found thinking about my audience to be a new and helpful exercise. I also enjoyed seeing the variety in the audiences my classmates selected. For example, Andres Galindo wrote, in Blog Post 6, about choosing between white Americans and Latinos for his target audience. In the end, he chose Latinos because they are the ones that are affected by this inequality issue[s] he wrote about. I see now how a paper designed to describe an issue to an affected group, like Latinos, might be different from a paper designed to persuade a different group, like privileged white Americans. Similarly, Brandon Rotimi wrote in Blog Post 6 that he hoped his research would be viewed by all in hopes of all coming to an understating, his main audience was Afro-Americans. Although my audience wasnt a particular racial or ethnic group, I identified with what Andres and Brandon wrote about their work potentially appealing to multiple groups. I ultimately ended up with a fairly broad audience. The Writing Process and RevisionThis course allowed me to fully participate in a longer writing and research process. Most of my other college writing has been short essays with one-time topics. Participating in the longer writing process and accepting feedback and revisions helped me shape a piece of writing on a longer timeframe. Spending more time thinking about one piece of writing also helped me develop a more cohesive paper. For example, in Draft 3, I was struggling to find the right way to conclude the paper and wanted to say more about how the local food movement is different from other food trends. In the final draft, I added the following to my conclusion: While other food trends of the last decade (gluten-free, soy everything, soy-free everything, paleo) seem short-lived, the local food trend potentially has more staying power as it is a return to the way we used to eat. This sentence helped me tie my thoughts together and make a stronger argument about the difference between local food and other food trends. Engaging Questions says to [a]void premature closure on research and thinking. (403). I agree that the best resources are not necessarily the first ones I found. (403). I benefited from adding sources and changing paragraphs through the last draft. Making ConnectionsOrganizing my sources and spending time re-working my paper helped me develop my ideas and make connections between different sources. Before this course, I would have struggled to tie a film like Food Inc. to a New York Times article to an NPR broadcast. This drafting process helped me make connections between, not only genres and various modes, but also within the 10 Key Concepts themselves. Along with my peer review partner, Keylee Brown, we concluded that key concepts are interrelatedexercising one necessarily means using others. For example, making connections requires critical thinking. The Grade I Deserve

I believe I deserve an A in this course. In terms of my e-portfolio and final portfolio essay, Ive met the requirements in the posted grade scale. My portfolio is easy to navigate and simple, Ive demonstrated my use of key concepts, and quoted from my own work and described how each piece of the portfolio contributed to my development in the course. Besides the e-portfolio, I have sincerely pushed myself in this course, both to participate and to develop myself as a writer. I feel that I have improved and given this course great effort.And now, Im off to enjoy some local food (and beer).