University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Final e-Portfolio Essay

Zachary Hunter Duncan
Suzanne Ingram
UWRT 1104-037
November 15, 2016

What Grade Do I Deserve?

I believe that for my e-Portfolio I deserve at most a low-A or high-B because I put in some
thought into it, though I could have put in more time and effort into it. I waited too long to even
get started on my e-Portfolio and I regret it. After all, Ms. Ingram did tell us not to procrastinate
till the last couple weeks to do our e-Portfolio. I must get all my major assignments to be
finished and polished. I have attended all classes this semester and have completed all
assignments except for one or two. All my blog posts are completed and follow all the
requirements that were given. I have been active in all the group discussions as well. I feel like
my writing that I have turned in (and havent turned in) this semester has been my best writing
yet and I think that is a direct result of the amount of time, effort, and thought that I have put into
what I wrote this semester. I have been spending a great deal of time incorporating the key
concepts of critical reading, stretching out my comfort zone, and inquiry & making
connections into all of pieces of writing. I was looking at the e-Portfolio grading scale to know
what to write for this essay, and it hit me suddenly that Ms. Ingram is laying out how to get an A,
if you only follow the requirements, Thats pretty awesome!

How Has My Writing Grown This Semester?

Hmmmm, that takes some thinking to be able to answer, doesnt it? It is almost as if you must
either nag or brag on yourself, and I am sure I am not the only one who finds both of those hard
to do. So, heres my best shot at it. I believe that my writing has grown this semester by me
feeling a connection to my work because I am doing it for something other than just for a grade
and to please a teacher, rather I am doing it for myself, to express myself. One of the biggest
things I have learned is not necessarily about the writing part itself but instead the process in
which I start and end my writing. The composing process has been an improvement because I
now have different ways to approach my assignments and create an outline before even writing
the introduction paragraph. Also, I have learned how important it is to add details to my writing
in order to engage my reader.

3 Challenging, But Key Concepts

Composing Process- This is one of the key concepts that I struggled with the most this
semester. Before UWRT 1104, I never made an outline or planned in any way whatsoever, I just
dove right in to struggling to trying to find somewhere to start and end. I now understand how
important the composing process is, because it makes starting and ending your paper (along with
the rest of your paper) so much easier, which is what I always struggled with.
Stretching Your Comfort Zone- This was a BIG key concept that I really struggled with
before and some going into UWRT 1104 with Ms. Ingram. I always stuck to topics and different
things that interested me and never even paid attention to anything else. With Ms. Ingrams help,
of course, I was able to force myself to dig into different things that I ended up finding really

interested that I would not have even considered reading into. With me stretching my comfort
zone in this writing class, I also feel like it has made me stretch my invisible wall that I put
around myself when dealing with situations involving new people. I went into UWRT 1104 with
the intention that I was going to know one person that I knew before the class started, but I have
actually made some awesome friends.
Critical Reflection- At some points in the semester, I found Critical Reflection to be a
challenging key concept. I had always been able to get by by just scratching the surface of
topics, but in this writing class, I now see how important it is to reflect critically. When you do
Critical Reflection, you can learn things that are not physically written down but that are,
instead, inferred. I learned that the more that you do this, the easier it gets to reflect critically on
future pieces of writing.

Pieces Of My e-Portfolio
Blog- The blog section of my e-Portfolio has helped me immensely this semester. With
each post, I was learning something new. They helped me develop a composing process
of my work and other key concepts throughout my short time in UWRT 1104, with
Ms. Ingram.
o The first blog post, I believe, was to familiarize ourselves with how to write them
and to get used to using the software of the website builder. Going back and
looking over my blog post, Syllabus Questions and Short Answers, it gave us,
pretty much, a crash course on how the class was going to be ran and when all the

major works were due, such as, [The] Final e-Portfolio is due on 12/07. This
seemed to be really helpful to me to grasp the ground I was on, called college.
o The second blog post, Peer Review, I believe peer review can be a very positive
thing, because it complicates and enriches our thinking. I would not have said
this in high school because peer review was nothing like it is in college. In
college, we actually write things to each other that we can use instead of, awk
or choppy.
o The third blog post, Shitty First Drafts, I finally realized that first drafts do not
necessarily have to be complete but that if there is a thought there to run with
that it is okay. I now understand that just because the first draft of something is
really bad, doesnt mean it cannot be turned into something great.
o The main blog post in my opinion was our MIDTERM. I am not sure why I think
it was our main one other than maybe just because it has the word midterm in it
so it sounds important. In this post I sort of in a way reflected back on my
experience with UWRT 1104 so far, and I believe my thoughts about it has pretty
much stayed the same.
o Next was the blog post, Audience Profile, and I used this post to help write my
MG Reflection essay. It really made it easy to write because it was laid out so
organized.
o Last, but certainly not least, our last post [The Final Post ], was about different
ways to approach an assignment and just good tips for classes in general. Look
for Key Verbs in the Assignment was a tip that stood out the most to me. It made
it easy to understand what the assignments were asking.

 Major Assignmentso Exploratory Essay: This was a pretty interesting assignment to write on. I
decided to write about one of the many different experiences that I encountered
during the time of my internship at Newton police Department. I realized, after
actually thinking about it, that I was fascinated by the methods, processes and
trials that detectives go through to solve a crime. I never would have thought it
would have taken me taking a writing class to find this out.
o Multi-Genre Project: I really loved this major assignment, minus the annotated
bibliography, because it gave me some trouble, but overall probably my favorite
assignment. I felt like I was given so much lead way and could write about
anything I wanted and that made it really easy for me. What makes you
wonder?- What a strange question to answer. Once I put in some thought with it
though, it just flowed.

Multi-Genre Essay: I found this part of this major assignment pretty easy
to write because I felt like everything was pretty much laid out for us and
all we had to do was put it together. This just explains my genre pieces
and shows my reasoning for choosing my topic.

Annotated Bibliography: I really struggled with this part of the MultiGenre Project. I am not all that great at summarizing sources all that well.
I felt like I was either putting way too much or not enough. I still do not
feel like my Annotated Bibliography is as good as it could be but I have
tried my best to perfect it.

Organization And Design Of My e-Portfolio

The organization of my e-Portfolio is fairly simple. When first opening my e-Portfolio you are
brought to the Home Page, where you can see a glimpse of my personal life and such. Also on
the home page you see a big picture of the UNC-Charlotte sign and if you click it starts you on
your journey through my e-Portfolio by first taking you to this document that you are reading
right now. This is just to help you understand my experiences with UWRT 1104. In the righthand corner, there is a Menu Button pops a menu out that has the options: FINAL EPORTFOLIO ESSAY, BLOG, MAJOR ASSIGNMENTS, AND ARTIFACTS. If you click on
BLOG, it takes you to my blog page with all my post on it. Under the MAJOR ASSIGNMENTS
tab, you can choose from EXPLORATORY ESSAY and MULTI-GENRE PROJECTunder
that is my MULTI-GENRE ESSAY and ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY. Under the
ARTIFACTS tab you can choose from: PROCESS WORK (3), FEEDBACK (2), WRITERS
NOTEBOOK (2), MODULE (1), and WILD CARD (1).