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Final Portfolio
Second Semester Final Reflection
Emmanuel Sharpe
Dr. Lucas
ENG 1103.21
4/24/2022
My Second Half of the Semester Reflection:
This reflection will talk about my most significant work. It will include planning, drafting, and revising my creative project/literacy narrative, drafting my research project, and lastly completing lessons four and five in the check, please: starter course. These courses have in some way benefited my development over the semester.
Planning, drafting, and revising my Creative Project was new when I first started. The purpose of this assignment was to write a literacy narrative that focuses on one of my learning experiences as a writer. So, I decided to write about a memory that represents an important moment in my development as a writer. That moment was me writing my senior portfolio as a requirement to graduate. Writing this essay was a bit difficult at first but since it was an important moment during my senior year, I was able to remember most of the things that happened. The first thing I did was talk about what was a senior portfolio and the things that followed it. That was part of the body paragraph that seemed less difficult to me than the introduction. Next was talking about the different sections that I had to show in my portfolio. This helped me identify the important things that I did during my years in high school and apply it to the portfolio. One example is when I talked about my transcript in the portfolio this is what I said “This picture is my transcript which is another example of my academic achievement. This shows that I can work hard in school and stay on task. It shows me having good grades in all the classes.” Like what it says on the analytically “Tell your readers in the text of your paper, not just citations, when you are using someone else’s words, ideas, or information; rewording someone else’s idea doesn’t make it your idea.” This says that when you are using a quote you can also already hint to the fact that it’s being used somewhere else.
Writing my research paper was difficult because two varied reasons. One reason is because of the number of words I had to type for the assignment. Then second was trying to get all the information that will be valid. But this assignment did have it’s benefits and did help me to become a better writer. The assignment taught me to find the most interesting thing in a the article and then talk about it to maximize your number of words. The purpose of this assignment was to talk about three different topics in the category of technology and ethics. My topics was about monopolies and how big tech companies are good but bad for society.
Lastly, completing Lessons Four and Five in the Check, please! Starter course taught me a lot and helped improve my writing skills and understanding. In lesson four they tell you things on how to spot fake news and to not trust everything that is being reported. In lesson five it covers how the things you on the web is not the original report or research. This assignment was useful especially since we are in an age when technology is everywhere.
Works Cited
Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen.“Integrating Quotations.” Writing Analytically, 8th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2019. pp. 231-33.
My Analysis Paper
“Blog vs. Term Papers”: Revisiting Rachel’s report on the Blog-Term paper question’
This article talks about how old literacy is becoming obsolete in the digital era. Also, a big debate between using blogs, which Cathy N. Davidson supports and then you have term papers or old literacy, which is supported by same education experts. Their also study that shows students not interested in or not doing well when it comes to term papers.
This article gives a lot of views on different opinions about how writing papers should be used and taught. Also, I think both perspectives make good arguments on the situation. The article uses things like a survey to determine how writing term papers or a blog affects the students. I like how Cathy N. Davidson defends his argument with vital details to make his argument valid. In the article is says “instead of writing a quarterly term paper, students now regularly publish 500- to 1,500-word entries on an internal class blog about the issues and readings they are studying in class, along with essays for public consumption.” This is a good point to mention because most of the students would agree that term papers are boring.
A columnist for the American School Board Journal and founder of the Leadership and Learning Center, Douglas B. Reeves says, “Writing term papers is a dying art, but those who do write them have a dramatic leg up in terms of critical thinking, argumentation and the sort of expression required not only in college, but in the job market”. He is saying that writing things like term papers is old news and we are now in a digital era and we need to adapt. But also people with those skills do have an advantage when it comes to critical thinking and argumentation. Douglas B. Reeves also goes on and say “It doesn’t mean there aren’t interesting blogs. But nobody would conflate interesting writing with premise, evidence, argument and conclusion.” This is saying that blogs are a proficient writing tool but lacks the key things that makes writing valid such as evidence and conclusion.
One person named William H. Fitzhugh who is the study’s author and founder of The Concord Review who is explaining the problem of why students are moving away from term papers says this “more broadly, educators shy away from rigorous academic writing, giving students the relative ease of writing short essays.” and he also says “that part of the problem is that teachers are asking students to read less, which means less substance — whether historical, political or literary — to focus a term paper on.” William H. Fitzhugh is saying that because of the lack of effort from teachers to have students do the necessary requirements to have a successful term paper students are not doing as good in it and not wanting to do.
In this article there are a lot of pros and cons in having a blog and having term paper. But William H. Fitzhugh has another plan in solving the issue, he proposes something called “page a year” which is something like in first grade, a one-page paper using one source: by fifth grade, five pages and five sources. He also talks about how technology brings innovative ideas to writing rather than using traditional forms. The article says this “The debate about academic writing has given rise to new terminology: “old literacy” refers to more traditional forms of discourse and training; “new literacy” stretches from the blog and tweet to multimedia presentation with PowerPoint and audio essay.” This explains that due to technology students can write something that they are familiar with and still be into it.
A person name Andrea A. Lunsford, a professor of English at Stanford made the argument that teachers are going to have to find a middle ground and figure out which “old literature” should they keep while also representing the new literature. Her thoughts on new literature were this “Students feel much more impassioned by the new literacy. They love writing for an audience, engaging with it. They feel as if they’re actually producing something personally rewarding and valuable, whereas when they write a term paper, they feel as if they do so only to produce a grade.” This gives a good example of how students feel when it comes to writing term papers and doing a blog.
Midterm Reflection
Reflection on my Midterm:
When I first came into this class, I did not know how things were going to be. But after a couple of weeks, I started to understand curtain things like keeping a journal, completing the check, please!’ assignments and playing scrabble/ collaborating with your teammates on wordplay day. I believe that the work I did for these things was most important and I have learned a lot this midterm. These three things are what I consider significant work throughout the midterm.
Keeping a journal is an interesting concept that I have not experienced in previous English classes. But it has helped me stay on top of my writing while also having reflect on what I did the last time I went to class. The things I write in the journal are mostly about what I did on wordplay day for the Scrabble game. Any other things would be talking about the assignments I have done. Doing this helps me understand what I am writing and to analyze the assignments I have done. I also got the best understanding on why writing a journal is a promising idea by the Writing Analytically book, it says “A writer’s notebook is a repository of potentially useful and inspiring things a writer has come across in their daily life.” It also says this “A writer notebook is a good place to provide a starting point for a piece of writing.” This explains that putting things down can help my writing and even produce innovative ideas. These ideas I can apply in real life.
Completing the Check, please! Assignment is also an interesting concept that I have not experienced in this class. From this assignment I have learned a lot about different topics such as the miss information from the government or how Wikipedia works. For this assignment I would have to write 2 or 3 paragraphs that give a summary of the lesson and explain your own experience with that lesson. You also must put citations because some of the lessons will direct you to an article. This assignment helps me a lot with my writing skills and my understanding. It provides information about different things that I am interested in. Also, the Writing Analytically book helps me write these paragraphs for example when they say, “Tell your readers in the text of your paper, not just in citations, when you are using someone else’s words, ideas, or information; rewording someone else’s idea doesn’t make it your idea.” This quote helps me use citations and other people’s information in the right way. The book also says this “Writing from life, from the writer’s personal experience, is sometimes seen as necessarily separate from the kind of analytical writing that students need to do in their academic courses. This explains that writing something that shows your experience can help with understanding the topic even more than you did before.
Playing Scrabble/ Collaborating with my teammates on Wordplay Day is the best thing about this midterm. You play Scrabble with three other people, one of them is on your team and you try to score as many points as possible. This game is challenging because most of the time it will take you awhile to find a word to put down while also trying to score points. Playing this game really makes you think on different levels. And their diverse ways of gaining points if you know how to play well. Also, when you play against an opponent you might even learn a word that you have not thought of. Things like that can improve my vocabulary for the long run and even working with a teammate can help by them letting you know that there is a word that you may not see. Over time, however, I would soon see a change in how I communicate for the better. As I continue playing the game throughout the month, I see myself getting better every game. I was able to better observe the task at hand and communicate a solution, making my critical thinking skills overall. My experience with this game is that I have learned and sometimes apply that to my day-to-day life.
Creative Project
The Assignment to Graduate: Reflections of Senior Year
For my first paper that was challenging, and an important moment was writing my senior portfolio. I wrote this back in high school during my early to mid-senior year. This assignment was required to graduate. This senior portfolio is about talking about past experiences in high school and outside of high school. It is also about talking about your long- and short-term goals after high school. The first time I heard about the senior portfolio my thoughts were “man this going to be difficult I have already gotten a glimpse of the portfolio when I was a senior escort my junior year.” I knew that to have a good portfolio I would have to have done some stuff during my freshman, sophomore, and junior year. The good thing is that I did a lot of things during those times such as running Track, helping at different events and being part of SGA.
Now the senior portfolio had different sections to it, one was a senior picture and a career we want to pursue, and the other were table of contents, a thank you letter for the interviewer, my resume, my college essay, my three artifacts and three letter of recommendations. The first writing piece I had to write was a thank you letter, for this one I had to state my first and last name. Then I said something like this “Also, I am ready to begin my political or my computer System Analysis career” afterwards I had to prove that I did something in high school. Since I have done some things, it was not that hard to put write some stuff down even though I had to dig a little deep in my head to remember what I did. Also, my English teacher at the time gave me some pointers on how to write this letter and one of the things he said was to brag about yourself so that the interviewer can see how good I am. So, I talked about how I was in AP US Government and that I have been awarded High Honors with a 3.8 GPA. After that I said “I am most proud of what I showcase in my academic achievement artifacts, rationale, and letter of recommendation. Thank you so much for viewing my portfolio respectfully, Emmanuel.”
After, I had to write my resume but since I already had a resume, I updated it and put it in my portfolio. Next was an essay I did to get into college, this one was a little complicated because of what they were asking for. The thing they wanted me to write about was to explain one problem I would want to solve and explain my biggest goal, also talking about myself as a person. So, I merged the two questions and just talked about that problem while also saying how that is my biggest goal in my life. I made sure to describe myself and things I like and who is my role model.
Next are my artifacts which I think are more or less difficult in this portfolio. The first artifact is the academic achievement artifact which is describing my academic achievements and how good I did in high school. I showed a picture of my transcript and then explained what the picture this what I said “This picture is my transcript which is another example of my academic achievement. This shows that I can work hard in school and stay on task. It shows me having good grades in all the classes.” I also wrote down how this relates to goal to get straight A’s and that it will help get into college. Writing this portfolio not only better my writing but also better the way I talk and present myself when someone else is looking at my writing.
Research Project
Research on Science, Technology and Ethics:
There are a lot of issues when it comes to tech and ethics. Most of these problems come from big tech companies abusing their power with money and being racially biased and mistreating minorities. Some even profit from other people’s misfortune. But although there are major problems there are also some benefits to technology and ethics interconnecting. That is what these articles are going to be talking about.
This first article reports on how black YouTube creators sues YouTube for racial discrimination. It also talks about how YouTube had other allegations that it’s software can automatically remove videos suspected of violating the company’s policies, discriminates against certain groups, such as LGBT groups. Catherine Jones, who was one of the YouTube creators said that the platform removed the channel because of alleging nudity, but none of her videos contained nudity. Other videos Catherine Jones produced were removed because of alleged hate speech that the lawsuit says is untrue. Another creator Nicole Lewis earns $6,000 to $7,000 per year, says 17 videos were removed or archived for unknown reasons, according to the lawsuit. Also, it says that YouTube uses its absolute, and unfettered control over access to approximately 95 percent of all videos content that is available to the public, the lawsuit alleges that YouTube is rigging the game by using their power to restrict and block Plaintiff and other similarly situated competitors, based on racial identity or viewpoint discrimination for profits. Moreover, another lawsuit filed cites a sworn declaration by another YouTube creator, Stephanie Frosch, who says that YouTube officials told her in 2017 that the company’s content moderation algorithm do discriminate based on race. The company was aware of the algorithm and told Frosch how it works. This is what YouTube representatives said “the company’s algorithms categorize creators based on their race, among other characteristics, that information is used when filtering and curating content and restricting access to YouTube services. The result is that the algorithm discriminates based on the identity of the creator or it’s intended restrictions for videos that run on YouTube.” This quote tells me that somehow the algorithm discriminates based on race, but I believe that if Google wanted to then they can easily fix that algorithm.
The next article explains how the big tech companies cannot be broken up easily. It also talks about how FAANG which is Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google might use their marketing power to hurt employees by paying low wages. Also, it shows that the securities and exchange commission filings show that job growth among the five-tech giants has increased job growth in the high-tech sector over the past few years. Plus, high-tech workers are paid well above those not engaged in high-tech. It also says that employees at Amazon and Google have among the lowest job tenures, indicating the job churn that characterizes a vibrant, competitive industry. Plus, it says that if the large companies were monopolizing the labor market, one would expect to see falling employment by the monopolist’s competitors such as declining wages, and increasing job tenure, since there are fewer competing job opportunities. But the data doesn’t show that is happening. Also, during the case of US V. Adobe Systems Inc., the Department of Justice prosecuted several large technology firms, including Google, Apple, Intel, Pixar, Intuit, and Adobe, and found they had unlawfully agreed to refrain from soliciting, cold calling, recruiting, or otherwise competing for each other’s computer engineers and scientists. This author’s point of view seems to support having big companies and disregarding the monopoly that is behind it. The laws of several states, including California, dictate that contractual restrictions on employee mobility (known as noncompete) are Non enforceable. But big mergers are quite infrequent in technology. Most mergers and acquisitions, instead, involve the hiring of successful startups, for example Facebook-Instagram and Apple-Shazam. Those acquisitions represent low head counts, and their astronomical valuations lean against the very idea of monopoly power. To me it is interesting to see different states putting in some type of effort in these big companies. But it wouldn’t matter if the company could just leave and go to another state that does not have these laws.
This third and last article is about how the major tech company Google says it supports diversity but through its actions it reveals that the company’s leadership may not be interested in reforms, ethical research, or any progressive initiatives that do not create profits. Gebru, one of the few Black women in a senior position at Alphabet which was Google’s parent company, had been an essential member of the company’s Ethical A.I. team, a well-regarded, diverse group of high-achieving researchers who explored issues like racial bias in facial recognition or how fairness might be defined in a machine-learning system. The team was considered an important component of Google’s effort to be an ethically engaged research institution challenging some of the orthodoxies of the field. Since the firing of Gebru more and more people have been trying to make change. Google Walkout wrote that “Google has chosen to dismantle its AI ethics work, making it clear that the company will only tolerate research that supports its bottom line.” This shows that big companies don’t really care about diversity and only want things that will bring it money. The group detailed the mistreatment of Gebru and other researchers and called for a boycott of Google by academics and Jobseekers. The group had also asked legislatures to strengthen whistleblower protections. I agree with the action of giving more protection to whistleblowers because it’s the only thing that keeps big companies such as Google in check and giving power to the employees. Also, the fact that people try to Google to court, and they still lose, says a lot about the power that these companies have. Plus, the limited protection on whistleblowers makes it even harder for people to win since they don’t have enough evidence.
Overall, everybody has their own opinion when it comes to how big companies are managed and whether they should be limited. Many people have heard or have had their own experiences with big companies and tell an interesting story. But some also give good reasons that these companies make people’s lives better and they should be credited as such. But I think what this concludes is having these big companies can have its pros but also its cons but it’s up to the people to make sure they don’t get taken advantage of for the benefit of others. Me personally I’m on the side of the authors that doesn’t support monopolies and want big companies to have consequences for their actions or at least be more open to diversity instead of treating it as a money grab.
Works Cited
Albergotti Reed. “Black creators sue YouTube, alleging racial discrimination.” The Washington Post, June 18, 2020. Black creators sue YouTube, alleging racial discrimination – Document – Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints
Sousa Richard, Petit Nicolas. “You Could Google It: Economic analysis makes it clear: the efforts to break up big tech companies just don’t compute.” Hoover Digest, Fall 2018. You Could Google It: Economic analysis makes it clear: the efforts to break up big tech companies just don’t compute – Document – Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints
Silverman Jacob. “The Sad Implosion of Google’s Ethical A.I.” Gale Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, 2021.The Sad Implosion of Google’s Ethical A.I. – Document – Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints
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Creative Project
Emmanuel Sharpe
Dr. Lucas
ENG 1103.21
3/16/2022
The Assignment to Graduate: Reflections of Senior Year
For my first paper that was challenging, and an important moment was writing my senior portfolio. I wrote this back in high school during my early to mid-senior year. This assignment was required to graduate. This senior portfolio is about talking about past experiences in high school and outside of high school. It is also about talking about your long- and short-term goals after high school. The first time I heard about the senior portfolio my thoughts were “man this going to be difficult I have already gotten a glimpse of the portfolio when I was a senior escort my junior year.” I knew that to have a good portfolio I would have to have done some stuff during my freshman, sophomore, and junior year. The good thing is that I did a lot of things during those times such as running Track, helping at different events and being part of SGA. Now the senior portfolio had different sections to it, one was a senior picture and a career we want to pursue, and the other were table of contents, a thank you letter for the interviewer, my resume, my college essay, my three artifacts and three letter of recommendations. The first writing piece I had to write was a thank you letter, for this one I had to state my first and last name. Then I said something like this “Also, I am ready to begin my political or my computer System Analysis career” afterwards I had to prove that I did something in high school. Since I have done some things, it was not that hard to put write some stuff down even though I had to dig a little deep in my head to remember what I did. Also, my English teacher at the time gave me some pointers on how to write this letter and one of the things he said was to brag about yourself so that the interviewer can see how good I am. So, I talked about how I was in AP US Government and that I have been awarded High Honors with a 3.8 GPA.
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My Midterm Reflection
Emmanuel Sharpe
Dr. Lucas
ENG 1103.21
23 February 2022
Reflection on my Midterm:
When I first came into this class, I did not know how things were going to be. But after a couple of weeks, I started to understand curtain things like keeping a journal, completing the check, please!’ assignments and playing scrabble/ collaborating with your teammates on wordplay day. I believe that the work I did for these things was most important and I have learned a lot this midterm. These three things are what I consider significant work throughout the midterm.
Keeping a journal is an interesting concept that I have not experienced in previous English classes. But it has helped me stay on top of my writing while also having reflect on what I did the last time I went to class. The things I write in the journal are mostly about what I did on wordplay day for the Scrabble game. Any other things would be talking about the assignments I have done. Doing this helps me understand what I am writing and to analyze the assignments I have done. I also got the best understanding on why writing a journal is a promising idea by the Writing Analytically book, it says “A writer’s notebook is a repository of potentially useful and inspiring things a writer has come across in their daily life.” It also says this “A writer notebook is a good place to provide a starting point for a piece of writing.” This explains that putting things down can help my writing and even produce innovative ideas. These ideas I can apply in real life.
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Stuff about my life
One interest of my life is when I started running track in high school. It was a first-time experience from playing a sport in school to playing a sport that I’ve never played before. It was a good experience I’ve made a lot of friends who I am still cool with till this day. I did indoor Track and outdoor Track throughout my high school years. I ran a 55, 200, 400, 300, 4 by 2 and 4 by 4 relay. The runs can be hard especially the 400s but if you like running it’s not that bad. Having this experience helped me in high school and the events we have as a team is nice such as parties.
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