Khyree Matthews

Apr. 14, 2019

ENG 101-15

Ms. Lilley

Self-Reflection

English has always been a troubling subject for me since about Middle School. I can

remember the times going to the library to pick out a book for different assignments for class. So

now looking at English it has really changed but got closer to what we write about and how we

can bring that to an audience that can relate to what you are writing. I'm not really a big reader, I

don’t like typing paper, so I felt that this class was going to be very difficult. With the help of

Ms. Lilley, it made it easier for me to type papers and actually enjoy it at the end of the semester.

I would say at first typing papers I would personally just type what's in my head.

This semester I learned about the Rhetorical triangle and Rhetorical canons that helped

me analyze information and bring it all together to come into a final draft that I felt I would get a

good grade on. The Feedback from peers and Ms. Lilley helped me improve in places I was

missing things. With the class only being about 20-30 students Ms. Lilley made it easier for us to

interact and come together as a whole to improve as well. Overall, I felt that personally I got

better as a writer because I can relate to the information and come up with a strong argument on

why I believe in what I believe with the help of all the Rhetorical approaches.

When writing at first, I didn’t really approach it as well as I should have, I would just

type whatever is in my mind. That is a weakness for me I would just speak my mind for 5-6

pages and not really get into the topic of discussion. Another weakness of mine is not analyze the

information I get and connecting it to the class and what we have learned. Once I learned how to
do that, I feel that my papers started to make more sense. Some of my strengths are that I can

relate to a lot of things are make a scenario where a person can see my view in what I’m trying to

say. Grow up like how I did all you can really do is take it and learn a lot of things and that's

what I do, and I try to bring my experiences into the paper, and have it come together to make it

better overall.

Out of all the assignments that we did this semester I struggled for days on our Visual

Rhetorical Analysis. We were given a task to analyze an advertisement based on the rhetorical

triangle and rhetorical appeals and canons. Include the rhetorical situation of the advertisement

and any logical fallacies if applicable. With this being my first college writing assignment, I had

a lot of flaws. With my peers help and the feedback from the Professor I went through and

criticized my papered. Seeing all the mistakes helped me redo my paper and I feel that it is way

better than my last draft. I feel that after completing this course I have improved overall in

writing papers.

For example, in my final draft you can see my thesis statement states “This advertisement

is a great example of a visual rhetorical advertisement that uses style, memory, ethos, logos, and

arrangement to get its point across”. After reading over this a thousand times I would've thought

this was a great thesis but after receiving more feedback it made me want to make it better. I

changed it “To make it an effective visual rhetorical advertisement Gatorade used style, memory,

ethos, logos, and arrangement to get its point across”. Another example is I never truly knew

how to do MLA format so my whole paper was out of whack and made me a page short of what

I needed. With all I had going on that week I must’ve forgot that it was 4 pages and not 3. So, I

went through and analyzed the text more and you can see that on my website.
 One of my favorite assignments was the Compare and Contrast on some Super Bowl

Advertisements. In this assignment we had to analyze two Super Bowl commercials and tell an

audience why we felt why one ad was better than the other. After viewing feedback and getting

the grade I learned that I have to analyze and not just tell what I see. I failed to show who my

audience was in this paper. In the beginning of the semester I would have thought a sentence like

“For anyone that doesn’t know about the Super Bowl is the end of the road for fans it’s what we

all wait for all regular season” was a good sentence to state who my audience is but I have

learned with the help of the professor and my peers that isn’t about what you say it's how you say

it. You voice and how you transition between paragraphs can tell the reader who you are trying

to talk to, and you don't even have to state it. I put on my website 2 additional assignments where

you can see my work and see that I have improved over the semester.

With Our assignment being making a Website I wanted to show a more personal side to

myself because I know that I can be a hard person to read. When you first go to the website you

are going to see in big letters “KHYREE’S PORTFOLIO” with 4 little tabs you can press to see

all my work. The first tab is the home page with my name, the class and about Me section. I

added this to give the audience a quick background knowledge on myself. On there you will also

see a picture of me and a quote I have lived by for years of my life. The quote is by LeBron

James and he said “Don’t be afraid of failure. This is the way to succeed”. I live by this quote

because all my life I felt like a failure I would always be doing something wrong until I accepted

who I am and took it and made it into my passion which is becoming a Videographer. I will

succeed by any means to get where I want to be and nobodies’ criticism will change who I am. I

also have the schools logo to show I am a Spartan and will graduate from UNCG. I would call it

my Motivational stamp for myself. I wanted something on my website that showed my future.
 On my second tab of my website it has my assignments you can see that I have

completed for class. On the Assignments tab I have downloaded and put them into the website

thanks to weebly’s new addition of Scribd. It allows the user to upload files of work and see it

just like a word document. Viewers are allowed to zoom, adjust and even download the file all

through the website. All of the papers on there have been through several drafts, Peer reviewed

and Graded. I hope you enjoy and relate to my work. I have spent hours on these papers and

would like any comments if you liked my writings. I take all Feedback good or bad as a learning

experience to get better as a student and also better as a person.

On my third tab I placed my self-reflection so viewers can read about how my whole first

semester in a college writing class went. I want views to know I took this assignment and class

Personal and that is what writing is about. You can just write and read to yourself you have to

have an audience to present to so I added all my writing including this so it can help someone in

the future and maybe someone can help me with my writing . I feel that if we stop trying to be

like the next person and just learn how they did then life would be way easier. Everyone wants to

hate or talk about people who are making it in life. I think that slows us down as a society if we

would do the work and actually try then get feedback. Overall you improve better from negative

or positive feedback but you have to be humble and take that knowledge to you advantage.

On My last tab I have a creative element that we were assigned to do on our website has

3 visual images on it. They all have similarities and differences, but I wanted to show a

comparison with Zion Williamson, LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. Each one of these athletes

dominated in their high school careers LeBron James and Kobe Bryant got the opportunity to go

into the NBA right after high school. With there being a new rule in place Zion Williamson

didn't get the chance that LeBron and Kobe did. I wrote my research paper on this topic because
I strongly feel that the NBA is wrong for making this rule and a lot of colleges are benefitting of

the talent they receive. You can see in the visual and compare that Zion is well enough skilled

and has the physical ability to play with players better or worse than LeBron and Kobe.