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Lisa Nakano

Professor Oses

UWP 001 Section 8

12 June 2024

Final Portfolio Letter

Introduction

In my final portfolio, I gathered all my projects from UWP 001, including this final

portfolio letter, literacy narrative, discourse community, and in-class free writing assignments.

This letter explores five concepts, rhetorical concepts, reading and writing processes, knowledge

and conventions, research, and metacognition. I talked about my experiences with each of these,

and how I utilized them in various assignments throughout the course.

Rhetorical Concepts

When I think of rhetorical concepts and analysis, I immediately think of genre, purpose,

and audience. I believe I used this learning outcome most effectively in my literacy narrative and

all the in-class free writes.

In the literacy narrative, I chose to direct my writing in the STEM pathway, which was

difficult to integrate into a narrative at first. This required me to really think about the genre I

was going to write about, as well as how I would demonstrate my thinking to the audience

without making the STEM aspect too strong. Additionally, my purpose of writing in a STEM

“voice” was the most important aspect of my literacy narrative, and I was fortunately able to

nicely tie everything together to explain why my topic contributed to my literacy development.
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Similarly, I felt like all the in-class free writings in this course presented all aspects of

rhetorical concepts. The definition of rhetorical concepts is to think about audience, purpose,

context, genre, revision, editing, etc, and every reading focused on at least one or more of these

concepts, which we wrote about. Furthermore, each reading and free-write that we did felt like

they were aligned with the projects that we were doing, like the literacy narrative and the

discourse community. These readings were like tips and suggestions that we could use to

incorporate into our projects, which I found very useful.

Reading and Writing Processes

Throughout the course, the two articles of the free writes, “Navigating Genres,” by Kerry

Dirk and “Revision Strategies by Student Writers and Adult Writers,” by Nancy Sommers

supported me through my writing projects, and I would like to address how they defined this

particular learning outcome.

Starting with Dirk’s article, the author taught me an entirely new meaning of genres and

how they are arguably the most important aspect of writing processes. Before exploring the

article, my definition of genre was the topic or focus of concepts like a play, story, book, movie,

etc. However, the author dove into a deeper meaning of genre being chosen in everyday life,

decisions, outcomes, and more. Genres are even more complex in writing when writers have to

decide on a topic, and genres are what determines the trajectory of the writing. Personally, I was

able to choose a genre, and build around it to construct my projects. Furthermore, the concept of

genres allowed me to effectively decide on the sources I want to use, choice of vocabulary, and

tone.
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On the other hand, the article by Sommers uniquely stood out to me because the process

of revising is as equally as important as writing the paper. This is also where reading effectively

comes into play, and really tests the writer’s reading abilities. By being able to critically think

and read through what I wrote, I am then able to find, refine, and alter my writing to something

better than before.

Knowledge and Conventions

I found knowledge and conventions to be special out of the learning outcomes, because I

felt this concept incorporates research and reading and writing processes together. In other

words, one has to thoroughly look for and understand a topic in order to make connections with

their thinking.

This concept was heavily used in the discourse community, because I had to immerse

myself into the community by researching what they do, as well as their goals. My topic was on

the Bodega Marine Laboratory owned by UC Davis, and since I was not part of their community,

I had to obtain knowledge in a different way, by researching. A part of knowledge and

convention is that most of the time, the writer has to know about the community more than the

reader to effectively write, as if they are a representative of that discourse community. Moreover,

I think I was able to obtain valuable knowledge about my discourse community, and convey the

information in my own writing to the readers.

Research

Research is important in any form of writing, because it really tests the writer’s ability to

put outside sources into their own words. The research aspect is particularly strong in scientific
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writings, and since both my discourse community and literacy narrative projects were based on

research on a specific topic, I was able to resonate with this learning outcome the most

throughout the quarter.

Starting with my literacy narrative project, my topic was on herpetology and how this

certain genre helped me throughout my educational journey so far, and how I envision it to shape

my future. Using herpetology as my main theme, I used a specific frog species (Corroboree

Frog) to intertwine their description with my life, to construct my narrative project. This meant

that I needed to do extensive research on the frogs, looking into their native habitat, origin,

population, etc, as well as using my own interpretations to make it understandable for the

readers. I was able find scholarly articles, data, and graphs to incorporate into my project, while

Constantly connecting why this whole concept of herpetology is significant for me. While it

seemed odd at first to write about STEM in a narrative asking to describe my literacy

development, the scientific genre is something that I resonated the most with. Hence, I believed

that I could effectively research and tie it together with my writing and literacy development.

Regarding my discourse community, this project required even more research than my

literacy narrative, since I had to look for and utilize sources I would not primarily use. The

discourse community focuses on a niche group or organization, and because I focused on a

specific group, I had difficulty finding sources that both included the community, as well as

content to support my claims. Specifically, my discourse community was on the UC Davis

Bodega Marine Laboratory, and the prompt of focus was on how the community helps writers

accomplish goals. I feel like this project was a good experience for me, since I had to think

outside the box to find appropriate sources for my research. Normally, I would have not used
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social media as a source, but I was able to include an Instagram post, along with other scholarly

articles, datasets, and the official website.

All in all, the literacy narrative and the discourse community project were the two

assignments that really tested my research skills to incorporate my findings from sources to the

writing.

Metacognition

I believe the in-class free writing played a crucial role in metacognition, since I was able

to evaluate my own thought processes as I am reading. The free writing required interpretation of

the text that we read, and I was able to connect what I learned from the free writing to my own

projects like the discourse community and literacy narrative. Furthermore, the concept of

metacognition allowed me to assess my reading and writing proficiency, as well as areas I do

satisfactory and areas that I flaw in. The readings that emphasized the importance of reflections

also helped me in this area as well. The constant self-evaluation has taught me a new way to

critically think through the information I am absorbing, and how to regurgitate them in my own

interpretation.

Conclusion

Rhetorical concepts, reading and writing processes, knowledge and convention, research,

and metacognition, all have helped me in my literacy development this quarter, and I believe I

will be able to use these key ideas for my future projects. Not only have they been important

concepts, but a guide for thinking about how to project my thinking to the audience in the most

effective and successful way.