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.

This course has helped improve my writing skills by so much with the levels of improvement being taken onto each piece of writing.  I think the Letter to the Editor is a great demonstration of how I used various styles of editing to develop my writing. I started gathering information by reading articles on The New York Times to begin to understand how to emulate a well written letter to the editor. This style of writing was new to me and I made sure to take notes and refer to the ten components laid out in class for us. I thoroughly followed along to the constructive feedback I received from Professor Hodges. I was eager to revise my work and fine tune it during my multiple drafts until I thought it was the best it could be.  

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. 

I wrote my Editorial with a specific meaning in mind. I read multiple articles and closely analyzed others work to understand their points of view. My piece of writing has ideas and concepts that can easily be traced back to objectives by others. Since I chose a popular idea like gun control laws I knew I had to set mine a part from the others and really get my point across differently. I thought clearly about the research that I had done and made my opinions based on what I had learned. I cited multiple sources and joined together concepts of their works to match with mine. My work had meaning in letting others know that now is the time to stick up for stricter gun laws. 

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.

All pieces of writing should be written with the purpose of an audience. I researched online to form my own opinion of how lenient parents should be with their children. I read numerous articles with all different points of view on the subject. Reading other peoples work has helped shape what I began to write. After gathering all the needed information for my Op-Ed I started writing with my audience in mind. I wrote it to cater to others who share a similar perspective. I was sure to include things that I thought would appeal to readers. My work was written to inform parents that they should not be so hard on their children. This demonstrates my purpose for my writing and shows that my audience is for adults with children. 

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.

We included other authors articles in all of the pieces of writing we have done. I think the Letter to the Editor demonstrates this the most because it is a response to an article that we read. We started by choosing an article that interested us and then researched more on the topic. I responded to an article with the opposite point of view then the one I shared. I wrote about my own opinion after gathering the needed information from that specific article and others. I also think that reading other authors including my classmates work has helped shape my own work along the way. Reading others work has allowed me to gain more knowledge and ideas of how to get across my own concepts.

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 so important to cite your sources in a responsible and fair way. All authors should hope that no one would treat them unjust. Citing your sources is a big way that people can mess up their ethical responsibilities. For example, if someone were to take ides and not cite their source it is unfair to the original owner. Also, it would be cruel to cite someone in an out of context. It is important to respect others ideas and treat their work how you want yours to be treated. I fairly cited all of my sources in all of my writing but for example I think my Editorial had well written citations.