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Samantha Smith Ms. Ingram English 1102-100 22 February 2014 Midterm 1. I cannot believe that it is already time to complete our midterms. It felt like yesterday we were introducing ourselves to the class, but after thinking about it we have completed many assignments and have had many class discussions. Our first reading response letter was about writing in general and the writing process. From this assignment I learned that words are not the only form of writing, that writing communicates a message and tells a story. This means that writing could be in the form of art because a picture can tell a thousand words. For the other two reading response letters, I learned about the different appeals by Aristotle. I already knew about ethos, pathos, logos but kairos was totally new to me. I learned about the process of researching which is important considering we will be researching a topic for almost half of the semester. We were also assigned to complete an exploratory essay. This paper helped me to find the topic that I want to research on. As well as inform my teacher on my writing skills and how I can improve. Overall I believe that I deserve an A in this class. I have put all of my effort into these assignments. I have basically covered all of the key concepts. I completed critical thinking when I was to think about my passions as well as to use critical thinking to interpret the textbook. I learned what writing process and revision process works best for me and my group members. The only key concept that I am struggling with is risk taking. For all the assignments this semester I basically just did the ordinary. I need to work on my creativeness and I believe I will be able to fulfill this after the completion of the multi-genre

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project. I have worked hard this semester and quite frankly I am looking forward to the next half of the semester because I get to work on a paper about my favorite television show. I give Ms. Ingram kudos for that. 2. I decided to rhetorically analyze Sydney Sheins e-portfolio. I chose hers because I like all the visuals on the homepage. My eye was drawn to all the colors. From a quick overview of the portfolio, the intended audience would be other college students and teachers because the portfolio as a whole tells us what she did in English 1101 as well as gives us personal information about her. Sydney uses logos well because she used pictures as evidence of her work that she completed. The theme that she used is calm and peaceful. She has earth tones throughout the pages that convey the emotion of relaxation. She has a different page for each of the assignments that she completed in the year. On each page she goes through the writing order of her papers which helps me understand the narration of the paper and how the final draft was formed. Sydney used the mood of linguistics by her word choice. For each page she defines what the paper is and then she writes subtitles to describe the writing process she went through to get to the final draft. As I have stated before she used visual mode really well because she has a color theme throughout and has pictures that help define her writing process for each of the assignments. Her portfolio was successful because she displayed all of her work for the semester and displayed it in a manner that was easy to understand. If you read her embedded documents you can tell that she grew as a writer. For example, in her literacy narrative she had very good details in her writing and I am amazed that she used first person because I know how hard it can be to write in the that tense, but she did not express what she was feeling through the paper. By her final draft she added her opinion of the situations into

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her writing which made it much better. I would give her an A for the portfolio because it looks like she put forth a lot of time and effort into it and everything was thought through. 3. After the completion of the exploratory paper, I was amazed that I had so many passions. I had thought since I had so many that it would be easier for me to think of an inquiry question, little did I know that it would take me forever to come up with a good one. I decided that I really wanted my research topic to be about Downton Abbey, but I could not think of an inquiry question for the life of me. I did research just to see if it would help me and I am happy to say that it was beneficial. I came up with, what are the appeals of watching Downton Abbey? This way I can talk about the show as well as explain why people watch the show. I am supposed to imagine that I am sitting at a round table with exports and scholars and informed observers that will help me answer my question. For one expert I would invite the author of Downton Abbey, Julie Fellows. She would be important because she could explain why she wrote the series and describe how the television series is different from the books. She could also tell me who the intended audience is. Secondly, I would invite one of the many series directors to the table. The director is the one who has the vision of the series; they put the words to a picture. The director would be important because they could answer questions about events that took place behind the scenes and why he chose certain items, such as why did they film in the Highclere castle, what was its significance? The third person I would invite would be Michelle Dockery, the main character in the series. She would be important because she could tell me why she chose to be a part of a British show when she is American. And she could give me the inside scoop about certain scenes in the series that I would find interesting. I also would invite my friend and classmate Kathryn to the round table because I believe that if there was such a table she would highly disappointed if she missed the

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opportunity to meet the author, director, and some of the cast. She would be important to the table because she is one of the few young adults that I know that enjoys Downton Abbey as much as I do. She could help me by explaining why she watches the show.