UWP Portfolio Reflection Essay Final Draft

Merrielle Markham-Davis
December 10, 2018
UWP 1
Mario Giron
Dear Portfolio Reader
Throughout the course of UWP 1 I felt myself grow as a writer. Over the quarter we have
read many different articles that all correlated with the UWP learning outcomes: rhetorical
concepts, processes, knowledge of conventions, research, and metacognition. Each article was
on the topic of writing, different drafts, revision, peer responses, research, or giving feedback.
All of these articles have given me tools and examples of way I can become stronger in my
writing. They showed me how to think outside of the five-paragraph box that everyone learns
in high school and how to ask more reflective questions about any writing I am presented with.
I feel that one of the biggest learning outcomes I have improved in is processes. Before
taking this class I always felt pressure to write a first draft that was perfect, which is the reason
why I would always get stuck and think that I wasn’t a good writer. I constantly struggles with
hating writing because I thought I wasn’t capable of it. Reading Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts”
helped me realize that it was okay to write a perfect and cohesive essay right off of the bat. This
article made me feel less vulnerable as a writer because it reinforces the idea that first draft you
write is not going to be the draft you turn in- even famous writers don’t have perfect first
drafts. Another article that really helped me was Invention Throughout the Writing”. It taught
me different ways to help my first draft come to life. It showed me that I do know how to write
with good topics, I just need to get all of my ideas out, so I can sort through it and pick which
one I think is best. Both of these articles helped when writing my literacy narrative, “My
Journey Dealing with Anxiety Through Horses”. I was able to find my topic through free write,
then take that topic and write out a mistake-riddled first draft. I didn’t have the worry of it
being perfect, which helped my final draft be one of my favorite paper I’ve written.
Contrarily, I did struggle with writing my discourse community essay about the Orange
County Horse Show Association, but through struggling with it I felt myself grow within the
research and rhetorical concepts learning outcome. The research portion was new for me- I
have never conducted research on my own. Despite it being unfamiliar, I enjoyed doing the
research because it was on an interesting topic for me and I was able to uncover opinions of
people in the same community as me. Also, since my topic for the project was so niche finding
secondary research articles was difficult, but I was able to learn how to use Boolean phrases
and find things that coincided with my paper. The topic of my discourse community paper was
enjoyable to write about and even though I struggled with it I learned from my mistakes, which
made me a stronger writer.
I was able to grow within the knowledge of conventions learning outcome by understanding
about the different genres and what academic writing actually is from Irvin’s “What is Academic
Writing”. When I would think about academic writing, my mind first would go to a research
paper I wrote in Animal Science 1 my fall quarter freshman year. It was, in my opinion, the first
experience of true academic writing because it was a real scientific research paper. However,
reading Irvin’s article helped me realize almost every essay I have written was academic writing.
For example, throughout high school I took AP Literature and AP Language & Composition
classes, which consisted of academic writing weekly and about 3 essays for the AP Exam. I
didn’t realize that those were all academic writing at the time, that is a realization I learned this
quarter. Writing each essay I did this quarter, all in different genres that falls under academic
writing, helped me cement what the difference is, and this lesson will stay with me throughout
my future writing career.
Even though I felt a big growth in myself this quarter I don’t believe I am done becoming a
better writer. The metacognition learning outcome was one that I struggled with because
before this course I was never asked to give my opinions on my writing. My previous professors
and teachers would always have me give peer review, but never feedback on my own writing.
However, I did learn how to give a more effective peer edit throughout this course by reading
Straub’s article “Responding Really Responding”. In the past, when I have peer reviewed other
people’s papers, it usually goes the way Straub describes in the first paragraph of his article. I
used generic comments, try to emulate how the teacher would edit the essay, and keep it
simple. Also, I would sometimes catch myself being too nice because I don’t want to offend
anyone, which I now know is only hurting the person who I am peer editing for. Reading
Straub’s article gave me better ways to peer edit and ideas on how I would like people to edit
my papers. I have gotten some peer reviews over this quarter that I found very helpful because
they left directed questions, example rewrites, and explained or followed up on their comments
with a note at the end of the review. Also, leaving cover memos for your peers was a great idea
because it gave the reviewer an idea of what tone and point the author wanted their essay to
have. Although, actually writing the cover memos, specifically the strengths and questions, was
very challenging for me because I never have felt confident in myself as a writer. I can still grow
in that aspect, even though it has gotten better over the course because of the learning
outcomes we were taught.
This quarter I feel I have become stronger in my writing because of the fantastic essays we
have read that I can relate to and learn from. Each big writing assignment we had correlated
with the articles we read and they all had great points to learn from. The learning outcomes
were taught and perceived in a effective manner which contributed towards my growth as a
writer. I thoroughly enjoyed this course, writing the assigned essays, and continuing my journey
as a writer.

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Merrielle Markham-Davis

December 10, 2018

Dear Portfolio Reader

made me a stronger writer.

my future writing career.

outcomes we were taught.

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