EH 102 Final Portfolio Project: Reflective Analysis of Your Writing Process
Final Draft Due:
Expanded Draft of Reflection Due:
Rough, Rough Draft of Reflection Due:
This semester has likely challenged you to think about argumentation and writing in ways that
are different than those you may have experienced in the past. You have been introduced to
new audiences, purposes, and contexts for your ideas, and have been challenged to adapt your
ideas and voice to these new situations. Like the portfolio that many of you completed in EH
101 here at UAB, this portfolio asks you to substantially revise one of your and then write a
reflection that develops an argument about your grown as a writer and supports it with
examples from your work in the course.
Your Task: This project has two components: (1) A substantial revision of one of your essays
from the course, and (2) A Four Full Page (minimum) Reflective Essay that examines what you
have learned about your writing, argumentation skills, and ability to adapt to various audiences
with evidence from your revised essay and others to support your claims.
Revision Assignment: Throughout this course, we have written our drafts in stages and revised
and expanded them each step along the way. Revision is essential for most writers, and many of
us do not really express what we are trying to say in enough depth until we begin revising.
“Substantive” revision means looking at what you have written with fresh eyes, taking the time
to expand ideas, reorganize sections of your essay, develop stronger conclusions, rewrite
sections of your essay, etc. This is different than “Editing,” which is looking for grammatical
mistakes, typos, etc.
For The Revision Component of This Assignment You Will Need To:
1. Bring the Essay you are Revising to Class Each Day for Revision Workshops
2. Substantially Revise the Essay, Expanding Their Ideas, Organizing Them More
Cohesively, and Developing Their Analyses in More Depth.
3. Critically Edit the Essay—Correcting Errors, Developing the Rhetorical Style of
Sentences, Correcting Citations.
4. Include Drafts and Revision Work in Your Portfolio
**You do not need to use Track Changes or Highlight Changes You Have Made.
Reflective Analysis Assignment: Reflective Writing can sometimes bring out our tendencies to
“smooze” our readers, or to tell someone what they want to hear. You might find yourself
tempted to say things about your professor, but I want to encourage you to focus this reflection
on your own work. This Reflection is no less difficult than any other essay we have written this
semester, and it must clearly explain what you have learned about your own writing and
provide evidence from your revised essay and other writing in the course to support your
discussion.
Context: **Please read and annotate the “The Framework for Success in Post-Secondary Writing”
before writing your reflective essay. This document will give you some useful categories for
thinking and writing about your intellectual development and your development as a writer.
Thesis and Organization: you might wonder if a Reflective essay like this one has a thesis. In this
essay, your thesis needs to express what you feel you have learned about your writing through your
work this semester, and you will need to support this thesis with body paragraphs that provide evidence
that backs up your claims.
Genre and Audience: Your audience is, as it has been all semester, your classmates and myself,
and the genre of the reflection is organizes as a narrative, one that tells the story of what you
have learned about your writing while also presenting evidence of what you have learned.
Required Responses: The following two questions are required, but those below are options
that you might pick and choose from.
1. What have I learned about my writing and rhetoric through the process of researching
my issue, adapting my writing to academic and public audiences, and responding to
feedback?
2. How will I challenge myself to develop my writing in the future?
Other Options to Explore: you might also consider the following questions, though you will not
be able to cover all of them in a single essay:
 How did my thinking and writing change as I moved from the Change Project through
to my public argument? Looking back on this development, what do I know now about
writing, research, and persuasion that I did not know then?
 What rhetorical knowledge have I gained by adapting my work to both academic and
public audiences?
 What have I learned about the processes of writing—coming up with ideas, organizing
my work, writing multiple drafts, and revising my work?
 What have I learned about the importance of receiving feedback on my work from my
peers and others?
 What have I learned about developing my ideas in more depth and providing evidence
to support my ideas?
 What have I learned about the research process and finding sources to support my
work?
 What have I learned about rhetorical situations and rhetorical strategies?
Developing a Successful Reflection: there are a few keys strategies to keep in mind for this
final project.
 Draw on your own experience as evidence. If you argue that you have developed your
understanding of adapting your writing for different types of audiences, for example,
you might draw from your experience of transforming your Academic Argument into a
Public Argument and use a few short quotations from your projects to support your
discussion.
 Remember that the Reflection is Narrative in Form: take your readers through the
process of your experience, reflecting upon what you knew about your writing when
you entered the course, what you learned throughout your work in the course, and how
you will continue to develop as a writer and reader in the future.
 Don’t smooze the teacher: keep the focus on your work and the insights into your
writing process you have made through the process not on the professor.
 Provide Evidence: back up your discussion of what you learned with discussions,
quotations, and examples from the essay you have revised as well as the revisions to
your other essays through peer review throughout the course.
I look forward to reading your reflections on your hard work in this class!