Core Value 1. My work demonstrates that I used a variety of social and interactive practices that involve recursive stages of exploration, discovery, conceptualization, and development.
As someone who is not the best writer, this class was a major challenge to me. However, I definitely feel as my writing skills have improved since the beginning of the semester. When I went to revise my short arguments, I realized how much I actually improved. This is specifically the case for my Definition Rewrite. I changed my hypothesis many times throughout the semester and ultimately had to make significant changes to my definition argument. I researched and read many different sources before finalizing my hypothesis, as social media has been a topic that has been overdone. Even though this took a lot of time, I feel proud of the work I did, as took the topic of social media and made it my own by discussing the variations of how it does not help children. I discussed my thesis many times with my roommate and close friends many times, but ultimately, being able to have one on one conferences with Professor Hodges gave me the opportunity to collaborate with him in my research. If it weren’t for these conferences, I wouldn’t have been able to form my hypothesis.
Core Value 2. My work demonstrates that I read critically, and that I placed texts into conversation with one another to create meaning by synthesizing ideas from various discourse communities.
Having to come up with my own research topic and find research to back up my hypothesis was a big challenge. I had to spend a lot of time researching for evidence that could help prove that my hypothesis is true. In my research paper, I used a variety of sources intertwined together to help strengthen my thesis. Being able to combine different research together made my argument as strong as it could be, and helped me explain why social media is a problem for today’s youth. I made sure to explain in my paper what information belonged to who, but in the end, I created work that helped make my research paper what it is now, while of course keeping my academic integrity and cite my sources.
Core Value 3. My work demonstrates that I rhetorically analyzed the purpose, audience, and contexts of my own writing and other texts and visual arguments.
I believe my rebuttal rewrite represents this core value very well. When writing my definition and causal arguments, I was only focusing on one side of the argument I was making, which is that social media hinders children’s development and that parents need to be responsible for their children. However, there are two sides to every story. In my rebuttal, I wrote about how children don’t need their parents, and that they are capable of taking care of themselves by learning from their mistakes. In the argument, however, I made sure to refute this by saying why kids need a positive role model in their life to guide them to make the right decisions. I had to write a different purpose for my thesis that was intended for a different audience but had to refute it to get my point across.
Core Value 4: My work demonstrates that I have met the expectations of academic writing by locating, evaluating, and incorporating illustrations and evidence to support my own ideas and interpretations.
The visual rhetoric is a great example of this core value. We had to watch a 30-second ad council. Public service announcement without the sound while describing the video second by second. At first, I thought this was going to be an easy assignment as I just had to write down what I saw. While this is true, I also had to incorporate the director’s intentions. Thus, this assignment incorporated the use of illustrations while describing what these visuals were to supposed to make the audience feel. I had to go back and re-watch the video multiple times to understand what the smallest details meant as well as why the camera angle was placed where it was. Bringing in my own interpretations along with the illustrations helped me interpret the director’s intentions.
Core Value 5. My work demonstrates that I respect my ethical responsibility to represent complex ideas fairly and to the sources of my information with appropriate citation.
Academic integrity is one of the most important things to me, as it should be for every student as well. I wouldn’t be able to include my own thoughts and opinions in my work if I didn’t research and read another people’s work. My annotated bibliography encompasses my ethical responsibility of a writer and student, as I explained what the source was about, and most importantly, how I used them in my research paper. Even in my research paper, I made sure to use cite each source in the correct way, as well as use quotation marks for all direct quotes, even if they were two words. This core value will forever main the most important to me, as I can never take credit for anyone else’s work but my own.
Counterintuitive 