Compendium

In terms of essays, there have been two major composition projects that I have completed in this course. The first major project was about “Describing and Evaluating”. The objective was to "Reflect on your relationship to writing within an analysis of the writing situation. Develop your sense of audience and your sense of what to include and exclude about your experiences. Respond to your classmates' writing as if you were in a conversation with the writer about his or her writing experiences." I was asked to write about situations in which I felt engaged in writing and situations in which I felt disengaged. The project called for specific examples of writing assignments in my past. Various brainstorming questions included "Who were you writing to and why? What were you hoping to do with your writing-- what were you hoping would be the effect? What were the readers' responses --  that is, how well did the writing work? As you think back on these different writing situations, what did they make you think about yourself as a writer and about writing? What kind of conclusions can you draw about the role of writing in our culture and in school situations?" 
This paper was more of a reflective piece, rather than an analytical or research one. I wrote about when I interviewed my mother about her journey to move to America. I chose this situation as a time when I was engaged because "I didn't have to write about a book I read or a poem I analyzed. All I had to do was tell a story, one that was unique to me" (Chin). The second essay that was assigned was an “Exploration”. Each student chose a topic that involved writing, like note-taking, Facebook, or handwriting. I had chosen text messaging, and developed my research question which asked “how has text messaging affected generational gaps individually and amongst one another?” (Chin). I used four sources, two secondary, one primary and one visual. The primary was a survey amongst Drexel freshman and the visual was a graph. Unlike the first project, more research was done and questions were asked throughout the entire paper.

            In terms of discussion boards, we have had twelve informal writings which we submit online through BlackBoard Learn. They range from aspects of each project, like the Letter to the Reader or the Research Question, from writing a rhetorical situation for an essay in the Praxis. Weeks 2,3, and 8 all involved analyzing and responding to an essay in Praxis or another form of medium. Weeks 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10 all involved submitting a part of one of the composition projects. For instance, they included the Letter to the Reader, the Annotated Rough Draft, or the Proposal with the research question, to the Reflection on Writing so far this in the course.

            For responses, I responded to a fellow student’s post of when she used rhetoric. In my response, I was looking for the five parts of rhetoric and examining them. This response was added as a comment to the submission.