Guardiola 1

Jorge Guardiola

Dr. Nelson

ENGL 1301- 122

December 1, 2022

Portfolio Reflection Essay

As the end of the semester approaches, excitement and emotions come into place when

looking back at the days spent on homework and study hours. Reflecting on the new campus and

the new teachers that change the view of education come into place when gathering all the

homework and tasks done throughout the whole semester. Reviewing and reflecting on the

semester is adding up all the rhetorical choices made in the essays, the tasks that influenced me

the most, the things that can and cannot be applied to other courses, knowing my strengths as

well as my weaknesses, reflecting on the website and its challenging parts, and finally reflect on

how I as a writer have changed over the course of writing this essay.

Rhetorical choices differ in all three essays because of the different genres each had for

example the first one was a written genre, the second one was a visual genre, and the third one

was the analysis of a peer-reviewed article. For the first essay, the rhetorical choices I had to

make had to fit in the section of viewing the formatting of the written genre I was analyzing in

this case it was a welcome week poster from Tamiu. Guardiola, Jorge. “Essay 1 Genre Analysis:

welcome week.” 17, November 2022. ENGL 1301-122, Texas A&M International University,

student paper. For the first essay, I had to analyze how the wording of the poster attracted the
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community of students to the events that were arranged and how the information on the poster

was used to fit the event by looking at the bold words as well as the color font of the words to

later compare it to student and staff feedback on a Facebook post of the poster. Guardiola, Jorge.

“Essay 1 Genre Analysis: welcome week.” 17, November 2022. ENGL 1301-122, Texas A&M

International University, student paper. The second essay is a visual genre analysis and to

analyze I had to use the rhetorical choices of looking at the background of the image to start

describing it to the audience as well as looking at the colors used in the image and what little

details were used that the common audience wouldn’t notice. Guardiola, Jorge. “Essay 2 Visual

Analysis: Essay 2 Final Draft.” 13, October 2022. ENGL 1301-122, Texas A&M International

University, student paper. For the third essay, the rhetorical choices I had to introduce into my

essay were pathos, logos, and ethos, and analyze where each of those helped build the peer-

reviewed article for example pathos is when someone shows emotion on a paper, logos is when a

writer uses logic to support his information, and ethos is when a writer uses ethical ways of

giving credit to another writer or expert. Guardiola, Jorge “Essay 3 peer-reviewed article:

Homework, students, and parents: a rhetorical analysis.” 10 November 2022.ENGL 1301, Texas

A&M International University, student paper

The final portfolio introduced on a website requires all the work to be presented to

the audience in a formal yet interesting way and requires the use of some rhetorical choices just

like the essays. Even though I am building my website as I am writing this reflection essay I

have used techniques from essay one over to my website. Guardiola, Jorge. “Essay 1 Genre

Analysis: welcome week.” 17, November 2022. ENGL 1301-122, Texas A&M International

University, student paper. I am using rhetorical choices such as enthusiastically promoting my

website by putting the information in a comfortable way so the viewer does not waste his energy
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on reading too much information and also by attracting the audience by putting pictures related

to the theme I used. I added choices from the second essay as well by managing my background

to look more enthusiastic and putting places to visit and nature pictures so the audience finds the

website more interesting with the various colors the pictures offer. Guardiola, Jorge. “Essay 2

Visual Analysis: Essay 2 Final Draft.” 13, October 2022. ENGL 1301-122, Texas A&M

International University, student paper.

Many activities and assignments were done throughout the semester and the ones that

helped me the most were the peer-review feedback worksheets that were done in the process of

the essays. The peer-review feedback worksheets helped me take a look into some of the things

that needed improvement and that my peers noted needed to change. I started by looking at the

three most noticeable things that needed change and three other things that I will keep and the

reason that I will be keeping them for the last section of the peer-reviewed feedback worksheet I

listed all the items that needed to be changed or just worded differently and when class ended, I

could use my free time to rework the mistakes. Guardiola, Jorge “peer-reviewed feedback

worksheet.” ENGL 1301-122: English Composition I, Texas A&M International University,2022

Skills gathered in the course of ENGL 1301 not only serve to be applicable in the essays

or worksheets needed for the class. The skills and lessons can be transferred on to others classes

instead of just using them for English class I can use the skills learned over in my criminal

justice class and in my history class. For example, in my criminal justice class discussions are a

daily thing and for that matter, I have to analyze some scenarios that are related to laws and daily

life. The professor always looks for punctuation and other grammar errors in the responses and

my strategy for the scenario is to travel back to the lesson from where the scenario comes from

and paraphrase to the point that it is not being stolen from the original writer and also connect
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ideas from the text to the audience to the scenario just like in essay 1. . “Essay 1 Genre Analysis:

welcome week.” 17, November 2022. ENGL 1301-122, Texas A&M International University,

student paper. In history class writing is my best ally due to the fact that I take notes on a daily to

keep track of the lessons and the key points of the lessons. Arranging the contents of the lesson

in the paper and following those notes with the years or with continuous wars is just the same as

doing essay 2 and looking at the important points of the visual text and describing them in the

essay while also making it fit with the past information. “Essay 2 Visual Analysis: Essay 2 Final

Draft.” 13, October 2022. ENGL 1301-122, Texas A&M International University, student paper.

Now that we have talked about the skills that can be used to our advantage some skills

can not be used in other classes and for the same reason that it only fits ENGL 1301 class. Some

skills I would say that do not fit other classes would be the analysis of rhetorical appeals in text.

In math class, I would not have to analyze a text because it is all equations and formulas that I

would need to memorize. I would say the same thing for criminal justice class or univ class

because in criminal justice I just need to analyze the law and apply it to the given example and

not give any further explanation and in univ class, I would just have to analyze the common

components of university and students engaged in it and not just search for something in

particular like in essay 3. Guardiola, Jorge “Essay 3 peer-reviewed article: Homework, students,

and parents: a rhetorical analysis.” 10 November 2022.ENGL 1301, Texas A&M International

University, student paper

My writing strengths and weaknesses have changed over the course of ENGL 1301 and it

all started by doing the different assignments. My vision of college when I started ENGL 1301

was a simple and easy vision or thing to compare but when the class came and the first essay was

about genre analysis I completely forgot how to write and how I needed to start a paper. My
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writing strengths changed in the way that I can write better introduction paragraphs and

conclusions. Feedback from the professor as well as my peer feedback really helped me out in

seeing where I needed change and where I need to be more focused. Now when I write the

professor has given me more credit for the conclusions and the major points that my essays need

in the paragraph that is in the conclusion. Another writing strength that I have been getting

better at is looking for punctuation in my paragraphs. When revising my essays, I can say I

revise and edit at least 10 sentences and then rearrange paragraphs to be more effective to the

audience. My writing weaknesses I think have stayed the same because the only thing I lack is

the way I organize my paragraphs and their ideas. I sort the ideas out in the thesis but when it

comes to putting them in paragraphs my ideas go all over the place and end up confusing the

reader.

The website is also part of the portfolio and the requirement for the website is to organize

all of the work done throughout the semester divided by the certain categories that the professor

has asked for. The website app or online page-making webpage is called Weebly. Weebly is a

free online website where users can go and create free pages for all kinds of things going from

portfolios to a menu for a restaurant. Having to learn how to use Weebly had its ups and downs

because technology can always be confusing. The most challenging aspect of using Weebly was

having to adapt to the website and how the resources that Weebly provides work. It was mostly a

trial-and-error sort of thing for example I started by figuring out how to make pages and then

how to start doing subpages but it mostly took about three or four tries because it is not that

much complicated in the process of having the pages done. The least challenging part of using

Weebly was organizing my portfolio because that aspect of the essay depends on how I want it

and how creative I can be. Adding pictures, text, or moving things around is basic knowledge
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any modern knowledgeable person would figure out in 30 minutes of using the website. It takes

time to adapt and more time to figure out how the resources work. Watching tutorials can save

people time and can be more effective yet trying it out on your own and applying the resources

yourself is the beginning of self-teaching.

Finishing the final reflection essay is like a review for the same thing that mostly

everything done in the semester is listed either here or in the final portfolio. My identity as a

writer has very well changed in the pathway of finishing three essay analyses. Now when I get to

read a paper, I search for the key components the author is giving me, the reader, and how the

author impacts other peoples thinking with his writing and how that is effective for the writer.

When also looking at a visual text meaning a poster, book cover, or an ad promoting something I

think of the key things that make up the visual text and how the images adding the color and

background and little details attract the audience. I also think of the visual texts if they would be

fun to attend and think about the possible feedback that the text is having in the community that

it is targeting. I don’t read peer-reviewed articles never but when I finished the third essay, I

know that when I take a look at one I would not hesitate to look into the rhetorical appeals the

author is making and then describe why the author made those rhetorical appeals.

Overall, Putting strength into every single one of the essays has payed out in the most

beneficial way being learning. My identity will continue to change and my strengths will get

better with time and my weaknesses will go down and doubt will disappear. Time for me to learn

on my own will help me achieve the self-confidence to achieve a better look into education but

just with time, it will happen.

Works cited

Guardiola, Jorge. “Essay 1 Genre Analysis: welcome week.” 17, November 2022. ENGL

1301-122, Texas A&M International University, student paper.

Guardiola, Jorge. “Essay 2 Visual Analysis: Essay 2 Final Draft.” 13, October 2022.

ENGL 1301-122, Texas A&M International University, student paper.

Guardiola, Jorge “peer-reviewed feedback worksheet.” ENGL 1301-122: English

Composition I, Texas A&M International University,2022.

Guardiola, Jorge “Essay 3 peer-reviewed article: Homework, students, and parents: a

rhetorical analysis.” 10 November 2022.ENGL 1301, Texas A&M International University,

student paper.