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.

In the beginning, when I began the writing assignments, I took a step back before putting my words together and I broke down my thought process. I did this because wanted to generate and open up my ideas. Mr. Hodges would give us our assignments and explain them thoroughtly with examples along the way. We would then get work to complete during class that related to the writing assignment so we had practice before starting our drafts. For example, my LTE homework. The LTE homework was used to as a way to evaluate and review an official LTE from the New York Times so we got a sense of the way an LTE was written. This was an effective method to learn how to construct an LTE because I saw first hand a real LTE and then later in class when we reviewed the homework and evaluated it.

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. 

Most all of the writing I did involves research so I read Op-eds, editorials and Letters to the Editors by official authors to help me construct my essays. I did this especially when I had to do the summary assignment because by reading and researching what other authors wrote it showed me what strategies they used to create outstanding writing. I then went on to research more about the topic, vaping, which was what I was writing my summary about. This gave me the opportunity to discover new information on vaping that I was not aware before reading other authors pieces.

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.

When writing with a specific point you need to make sure you are going to prove that point also while keeping other peoples views on the topic in mind. I want the reader who don’t agree with the point I’m trying to prove stay intrigued and have a purpose for reading it. I feel like I did this in my LTE draft because I wrote it about how vaping was bad and how it should be banned, and throughout my piece I added arguments interesting enough that would keep readers with different views. Rhetorically analyzing helped strengthen my writing.

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.

Providing strong pieces of evidence when writing my essay was an essential and effective that I strengthened my arguments to pull readers to my side. In my writing plan I found many different sources that I knew had strong facts and pieces of evidence. I then wrote down the different facts and evidence about legalizing marijuana in my writing plan because I knew those facts would end up becoming a key part in my Op-Ed for my portfolio.

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. 

It is extremely important while writing to accurately cite and represent ones work fairly and I feel my work does demonstrate that I do in fact represent complex ideas fairly and cite sources appropriately. In my Letter to the Editor, I feel like it is one of the pieces of writing I demonstrated this the best. I represented the editors original point of view in my writing and brought my own thoughts along as well throughout the essay. It is unethical to twist another authors words in order to make your own argument stronger. I feel one of the things I will take away most from this class is was learning how to provide context, background without taking out of context ,and citing sources properly.