Length: at least 1000 words (4 pages)
Due date: 12/16
Organize Your Portfolio Website
You should organize the work on your course site into a finished portfolio showing all the work you have done this semester. Make certain that your entire course site looks complete, coherent, and like you’ve given some thought to its overall design and aesthetics. Make sure all the major assignments are available in the menu and that there is also a link in the menu that will take a reader to your sketches and reflection posts.
The reflection essay described below should become the new home (or index) page for your course site and should begin with a note indicating that the site is an archive of the work that you completed as part of ENG101 at Emory University during fall semester 2025. You should link to the course site, so that a reader who is going through your work can easily find out more information about the course you were in.
Here is a post with some helpful resources for editing your website.
Reflection Essay
Overview
The writing process is long. We plan, rewrite, revise, and repeat over and over and over again until—at some point—we arrive at a draft. But we know, if given the chance, that even then we could continue to improve our work.
Your final assignment is to pick the project that has meant the most to you from this course and imagine how you would rewrite or revise it if you were given another month. Specifically, you will consider how you would rewrite or revise particular elements of the project so that it would be better attuned to its current rhetorical situation or suited for a new one.
If given another month, would you modify your project’s thesis to make it more specific and further distinguish it from established arguments? Would you devise new strategies to persuade your audience? Would you change how your project responds to outside sources? Would you modify its voice or style? Would you reorganize it? Would you change its genre or mode? Would you rework it to further your own personal, professional, or community interests and commitments? As you begin this assignment, questions like these will provide starting points for thinking about the rhetorical situation of your chosen project and how you might revise/rewrite accordingly.
Instructions
Your essay must be three-to-four double-spaced pages, and it must examine one or two quotations or multimodal excerpts in depth. The following is a suggested format, but so long as your essay analyzes two instances from your chosen project, it can be successful.
- Introduce the project you’ve selected to your audience, which, for the purposes of this assignment, you can imagine as a professor familiar with rhetoric and writing but unfamiliar with your selected project. In an efficient paragraph or two, tell your audience what they need to know to understand the project and the aspect of its rhetorical situation that you would address in your hypothetical revision.
- The aspect of the rhetorical situation you pick can be one that the assignment entails—for example, the rhetorical situation of the academic essay typically entails a thesis. Or it can be a new one that you would choose to pursue in your hypothetical revision/rewrite—for example, transforming an academic essay into a podcast would require new considerations of audience.
- Pick a paragraph or two (or equivalent multimodal excerpts) from your project that you think exhibits a particular strength or area for growth regarding how you addressed a rhetorical situation. For example, you might choose an excerpt that you feel effectively addresses (or fails to address) your target audience or that demonstrates a style well (or poorly) suited to your intentions.
- Referencing specific details from the paragraph or two you selected, explain how over the next month you would revise or rewrite to further develop the identified strength or to address the area for growth. This section might be three-to-five paragraphs long. It should include multiple quotations or a block quotation from your selected project as you describe how you would approach your hypothetical revision.
- Feel free to quote from your peers or instructor here if their responses would guide your revision. But keep in mind, this is not a time to merely repeat your instructor’s feedback—though the perfection quotation may be useful. Emphasize what you think about your own writing. For example, if you reworked this project for a context outside of first-year writing, what strategies would you use to respond to a new rhetorical situation and address your target audience?
- End with a brief paragraph describing the specific challenges that would come with implementing your hypothetical revisions and how you would meet those challenges.
Some Tips
- Avoid clichés, especially I learned so much and I was ignorant before but now I see clearly. This assignment is about your original ideas for revision.
- Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear. Be honest and direct in your reflections.
- Write with lively and engaging prose.
Remember: The more deeply you reflect on your work, the better your craft will become.