Riley's Final Portfolio

Website!! http://childnutrition.weebly.com/

Coming into this class as a freshman I figured I might be up for a bit of a challenge, but to me that is a good thing. I had been lucky enough to have had Bruce Ballenger, who is an amazing professor for 101, but we didn’t go over a lot of grammar or MLA. Which is exactly what I was expecting this class to be based around. I have always been a pretty good writer. All through High School I was praised for my writing skills and even won the English award my senior year. That has never really been an issue for me. Grammar and formatting on the other hand are my worst fear. I was on the school newspaper last semester and really struggled with the formatting. It was extremely complicated and structured. It overwhelmed me to the point that I was unwilling to go back into it this semester. So while fearing that aspect of this class I was looking forward to gaining more confidence and ability as far as grammar and MLA goes. I was also really looking forward to the service learning aspect. I am a strong believer in using real life stories and interviews to strengthen your writing and credibility. It makes a factual piece more interesting and adds depth to the topic. I also knew going in that volunteer service is a great way to increase your understanding of certain issues. This was very exciting for me, and really the main reason I chose this class.

The reading at the beginning of this class was, I admit, a little discouraging for me. The articles were long, dry, and really hard to get through. Although the topics were interesting, it seemed as if many of the authors were struggling to get to a certain page count, and were missing the whole point. I began to question academia at this point and the many rules behind it. The idea was becoming more and more absurd to me. Even now I fail to understand the method to the madness of “academic” writing. However in the class discussions I gained a stronger respect for it. Several people had some great explanations as to why it exists, and why it is a good thing. I still feel there has to be a better way, but I understand it better. My creative writing teacher in high school used to tell me “you have to learn the rules to break them.” This is something I have always taken to heart. When we started into the digital rhetoric aspects of the course I noticed there was a huge shift in writing style. I began to feel like I could be more human in my writing. This was a big relief for me. I prefer creative essays and writing above all else for this very reason. Along with this though came all of the citations and MLA. Needless to say I spent many hours in the library talking to the ladies at the help desk. I also had Owl at Purdue pasted on the bookmark tool bar of my computer. I do wish that we had spent more time focusing on the MLA hand book. I feel like it would have been a great source, but I just became so lost in it. It was much too confusing and is now another dust collector on my book shelf. Hopefully this summer I will have more time to spend on it. However it seems like I have said this many times before, and still failed to do so.

My favorite project this semester was the website. It was definitely challenging, but I liked that. I did end up changing my topic last minute, but I believe this was of huge benefit to me. The topic I was hitting on before was extremely difficult to define. Not to mention there were next to no articles on the efficiency of the public education program vs. that of early education. I was surprised by this as it has always been a big question for me. In the end I think it was just too narrow. This actually had happened to me several times in my 101 class as well as in my senior project. I tend to narrow in too far and then struggle to find enough information. I think keeping my topic broad was a valuable lesson that I finally learned in this class. Finding information on nutrition and the education system was much easier. There was a plethora of information that, although hard at times to narrow down, was extremely impacting to me as a reader. Especially when I looked up Jamie Oliver like you mentioned. When I found that video I was really inspired to do a good job on my website. I also knew quite a bit about nutrition already and was able to use that background knowledge to delve deeper into my readings. I feel like I was also able to better explain everything in a way others could understand. On top of this I was seeing solutions to many of the problems I was facing in my writing such as child pickiness, proportion control, etcetera, when I went to Head Start that I was able to incorporate into the website.

I feel like the greatest reward was knowing that others would be reading what we wrote. Why write for one person when your writing could have an impact on hundreds of people? It was intimidating at first though. I felt like my writing wasn’t good enough yet. Soon, I learned that no piece of writing is ever going to be perfect. As a perfectionist that was a hard lesson for me learn. I am one of those people who will sit and pick at a piece of writing for days on end, trying to get it right. I have to say I feel sorry for the people who get stuck with me during peer reviews (sorry guys) for that very reason. I think people get discouraged sometimes when I look over their pieces because I always have a lot of suggestions, but I do it to my own work too. There were times that I thought that I was a bad writer because I could never get it right. That is probably the most important thing my college career has given me so far. The understanding that all writing can be improved.

In the end I feel like I am coming out of this class not only as a better writer but a better person. Looking back on all the things this class and Head Start have taught me I realize how much I have changed. Although my grammar and MLA still need help it has improved, and I can now accept that there will always be challenges in my writing. Recently I changed my major to Anthropology and I am already beginning to see the benefits this class is going to have on my future college, and life time career. In a field where involvement in the community is key, I believe both the service learning and digital rhetoric aspects of this class will put me ahead of the game. This has been a great experience for me. I have had a lot of fun with my agency and met some truly amazing people along the way. Every struggle I went through in this course was truly worth it.