GOAL 1: I used a multi-stage, recursive, and social process for my writing and took into consideration feedback from my instructor, classmates, and other readers.

After five years in the United States I am still learning the English language. A consequence of not being an English native speaker is the confusion between languages during the writing process. Most of my papers are hard to understand on the first draft; I come with fabulous ideas, but my grammatical errors and sentence structure always confuse my readers. Luckily, professor Hodges always came with helpful comments that contributed in the development of my assignments. For instance, my first assignment “Je Suis – Albert,” which was designed to find out how well the class argued and write by writing a “personal, evaluative, analytical, narrative, argumentative, persuasive, categorical, or reflective response” towards the Charlie Hebdo massacre in France. One of the comments of professor Hodges on my first draft of my Je Suis – Albert assignment was “Albert, I find your essay difficult to understand” or “I’m not being facetious when I say I truly don’t know what that means.” Moreover following the feedback from professor Hodges, like that my material was hard to understand  ” because of your attempt to “sound academic,”my work started to look “much better.”

I still face clarification problems when I write; however, with the help of feedback, I show that writing is a multi-stage process.

GOAL 2: I read source materials closely and analyzed them critically to learn how and why texts create meaning.

One of the steps to come with great ideas is being able to analyze the material closely. I had the opportunity of coming with fascinating ideas during my Visual Rhetoric, “Moving Visual – Albert“, which was a visual analysis of a 30 second public announcement. The Visual Rhetoric required me to watch an announcement in mute and come with my own version of what was going on in the 30 second clip, in order to eliminate the bias that sound could play in our judgement of the video. Then, I was required to watch the announcement with sound and come with a final analysis of the video.

I had to analyze every action because in the 30 second announcement every second was significantly important. For example, Moving Visual – Albert was based on the “Fatherhood Involvement,” but without the sound of the video I was unable to be sure that the characters in the video, “Father Involvement“, were actual fathers. For instance,  I wouldn’t be able say that one of the father, who was pretending to be a ballerina, might have been homosexual because he “started imitating a ballerina when he was with his son” and “Being part of a tea party, nail panting or even dressing as a princess are sacrifices of a father with a daughter. However, when fathers spend time with their sons behaving like a girl is unusual. Therefore, I assume that the well-dressed father might be homosexual,”without analytical thinking and close attention to detail.

GOAL 3: I wrote with a particular audience in mind, allowing my purpose to shape the language and methods I used not just to communicate information but to persuade readers.

The purpose of having a class on an online blog facilitated not only my professor to see my work, but anyone who had access to the blog. Therefore, I had to be able to communicate my ideas in a clear way, which helped my readers understand and at the same time believe in my ideas. For instance, in my Causal Argument, “Causal Argument- Albert“, I started with a clear and concise sentence that informed my readers of my position; in addition, the clarity of the work helped my readers to believe my position, as professor Hodges commented, because I ” “get down to business” in your first paragraph, Albert. You waste no time naming the cause (a single sentence in a law) . . . That’s a lot to accomplish in a short paragraph, and you do it well,” when I initiated my argument by explaining that “With a single sentence in the law TC 168-13, the Dominican Republic has taken away the nationality of Dominicans of undocumented parents, depriving thousands of Haitians of citizenship.”

GOAL 4: I demonstrated my information literacy by synthesizing my own experience with new insights and information from a range of outside sources to produce new material.

During the course of the class I was able to incorporate life experience examples and use outside sources in order to support my ideas. Being born and raised in the Caribbean cooperates in my knowledge of lower economies, different to the United States, and different cultural  ideals. For instance, during my assignment “Stone Money- Albert“, which was a reflective statement about the concept of money, I used some of my personal experience to support how Brazil has one of the best economies in the world after having a 80% inflation. Using a fake money with higher value called URV helped the Brazilians to feel with the power of the economy; I came with such an idea because I knew that “in some countries people might not pay the same price calculated in dollars for an item, nonetheless, having the same value in dollars would make people buy such items because the dollar has more value than their money.” Another life experience I provided was the difference of groups in the United States compared to some other countries. For instance, in my “Definition Essay- Albert” , I compared how in the United States Blacks are mostly called African- Americans because the ancestors of the majority of Blacks come from Africa. However, even though Cubans”, which mostly are composed of people of ancestry from Europe and Africa” are not called “Cubans of African decent or Cubans of European decent, but Cubans.”

Additionally, I provided support from outside sources in order to support my ideas. As an illustration, I can use one example from “Stone Money- Albert” where “The uselessness of a fie [a limestone stone that with a round shape and a hole in the center is the monetary symbol of the Yaps from the Yap island] made acceptable the idea of not needing to have the possession of the fie.” In order to support my idea I used Milton Friedman article “Stone Money” to saying that after ” “a violent storm arose, and the party, to save their lives, were obligated to cut the raft adrift, and the stone [fie] sank out of sight,” there was any problem accepting the owner’s power of the unseen fie because “it was all chipped out in proper form”.” 

GOAL 5: My writing is ethical. Writing about meaningful topics, I have engaged responsibly with them and represented my ideas and the ideas of others honestly, fairly, and logically.

I believe that I have to respect the ideas of others as I like my ideas to be respected. In every argument there is more than one point of view, which most of the time contradict each other. Nonetheless, I have been able to respect the perception of other writers even if I am not in agreement. For example, in my Rebuttal Argument- Albert, I acknowledge Fabian Del Orbe opinion that ” “ ignoring an existing law, does not free the duty and obligation to fulfill it.”;” however, I also justify that “the government is responsible that the constitution is not being neglected.”

Another important way to respect the work of others is to acknowledge their work by quoting, paraphrasing, and citing their ideas. I accomplished the goal of academic integrity by writing a work cited after my assignments and making sure that every opinion from someone else was pointed to not be mine. For instance, in my Causal Rewrite- Albert , I quoted the statement given by the director of migration of the Dominican Republic, Jose Ricardo Taveras, regarding the deportation process in the Dominican Republic. Taveras stated that, “First the foreigners of other nationality in the country to leave voluntarily; then, who does not leave voluntarily, through various mechanisms established by law, will be referred to their country of origin.”