Olivia Davis

       As I sat at the desk in my room, starting my first semester of college doing online classes (due to the COVID-19 virus), I never expected to be able to learn so much from my classes. However, I learned a lot this semester, and grew in my ability as a reader and writer. The most important skill I learned is how to revise my own writing, keeping in mind things like audience and purpose. I also mastered other course goals, such as using sources effectively and reading with greater confidence. Even though we were not able to meet in person and have regular classes, Professor Oesch-Minor adapted the course to online well by adding lots of readings and videos so we would have a deeper understanding of the information being taught. The class also has an online aspect in that we use an e-portfolio to display our semester's work.

 

       We had three main writing projects this semester: a Film Review, a Feature Style Narrative, and a semester Overview. For the Film Review, we chose a topic, researched documentaries about that topic, then chose one film and wrote a review on it. I chose health as my topic, and after researching different award winning documentaries, I chose the film 'What the Health' by Kip Andersen. Before starting my project, I read an article on how to write film reviews. Then I began by watching the film for the first time and taking notes on characters and things that stood out. Then I started researching the topics in the film, before finally writing the first draft of my paper.

 

       For the Feature Narrative, we were to choose a topic and immersion experience to write about. Originally, my immersion experience was also about health. However, due to my personal circumstances, I changed my topic to the COVID-19 virus. I wrote about my personal experience with the virus, and included important facts and information I found in my research. Originally, I had all my research at the top, and only included a little bit of my experience at the end. However, after revising, I chose to format my writing as if every other paragraph was a diary entry, so it switches between facts and experience.

 

       Lastly, for my Overview, I wrote about my e-portfolio, specifically on how I built and designed it while keeping my audience and platform in mind. I also included before and after pictures of my site and projects.

 

       For my English final, I have chosen to revise my Film Review and Feature Narrative. I chose these projects because they needed the most work to meet their criteria. For my film review, I re-watched the documentary, and chose a scene I thought was important to include in my writing. I also added additional images and pop out quotes, as to follow the 3×3×3×3 rule. For example, before revision, my last paragraph read "He shows how, by following a plant-based diet, two women who had chronic illnesses and were taking lots of medicines for different problems, became healthier within a short period of time by only changing their diet.". However, it was changed to "He shows these claims by following 2 women throughout the film. In the beginning, these two women had chronic illnesses, which they were taking lots of medicines for. Kip has these women stop taking their medications and start following a plant based diet. He claims that by only changing their diet, they were able to become much healthier within a short period of time.". 

 

       For my Feature Narrative, I incorporated more personal experience, so it read less like a research paper. I also added a section about the newly created vaccine, since that is an extremely important addition in research. I again added more pictures and pop out quotes, so the reader's eyes could track easily down the page. I have also modified my website as a whole, making sure each page is designed for ease of use. I also added an overview and retrospective essay tab, as well as descriptions about and links to each writing project on my home page.

 

       To be able to make these revisions, I had to learn how to reflect

on my writings in order to improve them and to meet the purpose and audience. This means first choosing an audience. For example, my audience for my Feature Narrative is my fellow English students, my friends and family, and anyone interested in my personal experience with the COVID-19 virus. Throughout the semester, I learned to read with greater confidence in two different areas, regular print text and online sources. I grew with my reading in regular text by tackling hard excerpts such as Pratt's 'Art of the Contract Zone’ and Percy's 'My Terrifying Night With Afghanistan's Only Female Warlord’. I grew in my confidence with reading online sources by reading and analyzing research material for my Film Review and Feature Style Narrative. By using this research in my writing, I demonstrated that I learned how to effectively use sources by synthesizing, quoting, and documenting them in MLA format for the works cited page.