Final Course Reflective Memo PDF

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Summary

End of semester project for portfolio ...

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When I signed up to take English 219, I did not think that I would get much out of the class thinking that it was just like any other English class that I’ve taken in the past. Throughout the course of the semester taking English 219, I was able to learn many skills that I am looking forward to being able to apply to not only my professional life, but my personal life as well. Throughout the 16 week semester, we completed 3 major projects, as well as putting together a portfolio. These projects and the portfolio alone were unlike things I had ever done, so the experience itself was definitely a good learning curve. We focused on nine main topics in the course, with the first being project planning. For project one, I chose to demonstrate how to throw a ceramic wheel and put together a visual presentation. For this specific project, it did not require the most planning, however planning out and organizing how I would present my project was vital. For project 2, we wrote a complaint letter and response, which required more planning as I had to research my topic and be able to adequately fix a problem that arose within a company resulting from their own mistakes. For project 3, I made a proposal on how to fix homelessness in Albuquerque and include a written portion as well as visual media portion. Project 3 required the most planning and research by far. For project 1,2 and 3, I was able to improve how I planned by identifying important aspects of the project and building on those, which allowed me to cut out unnecessary aspects. The second are that we focused on was project analysis. I was able improve exponentially, as this was an area that I had never thought was important. Through project 1, 2, and 3, I was able to analyze my audience and learn how to determine what their specific needs were, while using my personal viewpoint and even life experience to aid in presenting this data in the best way possible. By doing this, I was able to improve my projects by being able to identify what data I needed to collect, as well as being able to specify my approach to handling an issue. I learned that my own opinion and needs are not the most important, and determining what the audience needs to hear is the best way to handle any issue. Thirdly, we focused on content development. I believe that this aspect goes hand in hand with project analysis. To properly develop my projects, I first needed to analyze my audience’s needs, then build on that and gather relevant and helpful information that will support any project that I am creating. Next, we focused on organizational design, written communication and visual communication. Before taking English 219, I never had to make visual presentations and only knew how to write essays, so this was an area that I grew a lot in and was able to

improve how I approached projects. I have always been an organized person, so to improve organizational design, I focused on writing my ideas out, then putting them in to a format that made sense visually, as well as factually, which allowed the information to add to each point made before it. By doing this, I was able to get my point across in a clear and concise manner, while still being able to present it in an appealing and professional tone. For the seventh area, we were tasked to focus on reviewing and editing. I have always been a person who believes that once I do something once, there is not much that I can do to improve on what I have produced. During the course of this class, I was continuously proven wrong. I learned that even if content is good, I can always improve on delivery or tone. Personally, when I thought about how to improve on my reviewing and editing skills, I kept a written plan of each project that included my goals for the project, what information I needed to get across and how I wanted to portray it, as well as what I wanted to avoid. While editing, I also focused on reviewing what I had in an outside perspective. I focused on reading my projects and all work in an outside perspective, which allowed me to determine what I needed to change to meet my audience’s needs. I believe that this allowed me to include only relevant information, which in turn allowed me to present content in the exact way that I wanted to. Lastly, we focused on content management and production and delivery. These last two points definitely go hand in hand with other things that we focused on improving this year, such as project analysis and organizational design. I really focused on staying organized and clear minded to avoid unnecessary information, as well as being able to take a step back and determine if the content that I was making would be up to my standards as well as my teachers. By keeping my information organized, I believe I was able to get all that I felt needed across in my projects with an appropriate tone and medium to do so. Overall, during English 219, I believe that I learned a lot of skills that will be useful in my future in a business degree. I was able to learn how to asses my audience and determine their needs, then form a project around that. I was able to learn how to make a visual presentation. When making a presentation that visual aids are needed, I was able to learn how to choose an appropriate mode to correctly present the media, as well as how to present these visual aids in a professional and efficient manner. I believe that English 219 will continue to benefit me in my professional and personal life, as I learned many skills that I would never have learned elsewhere....