Extra Credit

Assignment #5: Portfolio

Due: April 30^th

Pre-Assignment: Create a proposal for the setup of your portfolio. We will have our conferences on either April 16^th or April 18^th, and you must come prepared. Your proposal will be your ideas on how you’re going to create your portfolio, and what will be included in it.

Portfolio Contents:

1.     Cover Page

2.     Table of Contents

3.     Introductory Reflection

4.     Textual Piece with Revisions

5.     Textual Piece Reflection

6.     OVE Piece with Revisions

7.     OVE Piece Reflection

8.     Closure

This work can be contained in a binder, a two pocket folder, or anything else that looks professional.

Cover Page: Your cover page should be something that looks neat, and professional. It must convey the title of your portfolio, as well as, the author of it.

Table of Contents: This should be your typical table of contents. It must include each section of your portfolio with the page numbers.

Introduction: Your introduction should be a reflection over the English 250 course. You should consider the question that we have focused on, “How does communication work in your field?” Talk about what you have learned from each assignment, and how it has allowed you to become better at communication within your field of study, and how WOVE is incorporated. This should have an introduction, a body, and conclusion.

            Note: These questions are something to think about:

            Communication Habits/Processes:

·         How have your composing processes become more sophisticated since you began the course?

·         How do you go about generating initial ideas for pieces you’re composing?

·         How do you accommodate different audiences when you communicate?

·         How does your audience then affect your communication style?

·         How do you draft and revise your compositions?

·         How do others assist you in your revisions?

·         How have you improved your editing process?

·         What are some common problems with your writing mechanics and how have you improved?

·         Which of your composing habits have remained?

Communication Development:

·         Writing (context, substance, organization, style, and delivery)

·         Oral (interviews, large group discussions, small group discussions, and presentations)

·         Visual (Power Points, Posters, Pictures, Maps, and Diagrams)

·         Electronic (word processing, e-mail content, ethical use of the Internet and electronic images)

·         What talents or strengths do you possess in the following areas?

·         What are some discoveries you have made in these areas?

·         In which areas do you wish you’d been able to do more?

Textual Piece with Revisions: In this part of the assignment you need to find a piece of your work that represents the writing side of communication. You will want to make sure that you can add a significant amount of revisions. These revisions should not just be a little “touch up” job, but instead you should see your assignment, and work through a new mindset. Make sure you keep your audience in mind.

            Planning and Drafting:

·         Which areas need the most improvement?

·         Where have I changed my mind about what I have previously written?

·         Where can I offer additional clarification?

·         What doesn’t seem to belong?

·         Can I see a better way to arrange the ideas in my new version?

·         What other issues do I need to address to make this piece more effective?

Textual Piece Reflection: Write a paragraph or more about why you have made the changes you have made to your writing piece.

                        Note: These ideas might help with the process:

·         Describe additions made to the piece and explain their benefit.

·         Describe some areas you deleted and explain why.

·         Explain why you chose to leave certain pieces.

·         If there was some reorganization explain why you chose to do so.

Oral/Visual/Electronic Piece with Revisions: In this portion of the portfolio, you will want to pick a piece that demonstrates oral, visual, or electronic communication. You will want to take this piece and revise it so that it is now your best piece of work. Once again keep in mind that you will need to do whatever revisions necessary to make this piece great.

Oral/Visual/Electronic Piece Reflection: This is the same idea as the written reflection. Include your thought process on why you made the changes to your OVE piece.

                        Note: Here are some ideas to consider:

·         Why you chose this piece as evidence of your best work in the oral, visual, and electronic modes?

·         What, if any, changes you made to the original version so that it is now your best work.

·         What you believe the piece demonstrates about you as an oral, visual, and electronic communicator?

Closure:  This should be a paragraph or two that wraps up your portfolio. It might be something that focuses on what you’ve learned from the course, or something that seems to draw your portfolio to a conclusion.

Portfolio Evaluation Criteria

ü Includes all required parts from above.

ü The reflection pieces accomplish these things:

o   Includes specific references to prior work to provide support for your decisions.

o   Demonstrates a thoughtful, honest, thorough and coherent analysis of your progress.

ü The written and OVE revisions satisfy these criteria:

o   Substance: demonstrates a thorough rethinking of your subject

o   Context: contains additional material appropriate for audience and propose

o   Organization: achieves improved focus, structure, and coherence.

ü There are no errors distracting to the reader.

Simple Reflection

            I decided that this piece needed quite a bit a revision, especially from the organizational standpoint. At first glance the original piece looks like a journal article that I certainly don’t want to take the time to read. It wasn’t necessarily the length of the assignment, but rather how many words seemed to fit on the page itself.  The first thing I changed up was the format, and I broke the assignment down into each major topic. This way you can get an overall idea of each portion you have to do. This is different from the original, because although the original head different topics, they were sort of combined and mushed together which made them really hard to interpret. After I had broken it down into each topic, I then gave a brief, overall description of what the purpose was for this part of the portfolio. I believed this allowed the reader to get a quick general idea, and then create their own thoughts. I then decided to follow each description with further ideas/questions if I felt that the description was not enough information to get the point across. Now, these extra questions/ideas are pretty much the same as the original wording because I know that Mrs. Mallory wants to get the descriptions across, and Mrs. Mallory is very good about including thought provoking ideas and being very detailed. Overall, I changed quite a few things from the original assignment, but I left the main points and concepts in place so that the reader would have an excellent idea on what was expected.

Friday Presentation

Speaker: Feng Biao
Major: Mechanical Engineering
Modeling and Simulation in Strain-Induced Phase Transformations in a Diamond Anvil Cell

I was honestly super confused during this whole presentation. What I understood was that the speaker was testing the strain and yield strength of plastics-strain-enhanced reactions in rocks. They would use diamond anvil cells to create high amounts of pressure by having one on each side of the plastic. I understood the diamond anvil cell as an extremely hard anvil. I understood the testing to be difficult to interpret because they had to look at the nano-indentation. I kind of thought this presentation was cool due to how advanced the technicalities of this presentation were. It showed me how advanced engineering can be, and how there is always more to look into. It was almost a little overwhelming how advanced the material was, and I don't know how I would ever be using these concepts, but there is potential I suppose.