Vitaly OConnor

Olivia Rines
UWRT-1101

Final Reflection
In the begging Note 1: (Beginning)I was full of doubt, not exactly confident.
Never gave writing much thought.The Note 2: (Add a space) complexity competes with
me at a rate that often leaves me wondering if I should indeed leave this to the
professionals. I want to master elements of writing I do not yet understand. But if I ever
dare to try to express myself in reality, I realize that the cluster caused in the moment of
expression is far to Note 3: (too)great to ever keep a clear head on what is important.
However like everything else, practice makes perfect.
When this first class stared, I told myself that there wouldnt be a time of weakness. That
I would not fall, but a series of unfortunate events has caused the opposite. I know within
that I have what it takes to write a piece that may hold some value to someone other than
myself.
In this paper ill Note 4: (Ill)be going through a brief description that will sum up
everything Ive experienced and learned in this class. The daily notebookis Note 5: (space
between words) a unique way to express, train and open up the mind. It allows me to
express myself in anyway Note 6: (any way) I wish, and at the same time sets me on a
path with enough structure to accomplish the needed task. I never thought a random topic
written about daily could have influence in my overall perspective of writing. Its like
warm up before a soccer game. It got me in the writing zone, motivated me to express

myself more often, in a writing form. So every class we would get to pick a random topic.
It was always a question and the question was; what if. Being that the topics would
have this question, it made the writing options very wide open. Freedom in writing is
what I chose to focus on. There was no structure other then how the information fit the
topic. It was a benefit because I had the freedom to wake up my mind in anyway Note 8:
(any way) I chose fit. (Always with a form of guidance) My development in writing has
taken a better turn; I tend to express myself more freely. I understand things I havent for
a long time, the online activities are very fun, forced interaction with other students
writings are brilliant. I love the diverse views all my classmates have. Not exactly all of
them. Havent read all the writings posted.
Id like to break down a few things Ive learned, beginning with a genre and how
it breaks down. As the artist I am to accurately use information, break down, accumulate,
regenerate and express.A Note 9: (add a space) genre is understood as a concept, that is
the most basic of thought. Examples would be: opera, mad hatters tea party, grocery
store, etc. Those concepts break down into schemas and mental models. Schemas are
known as clusters of information that helps better understand ones concept. They break
down into three types. The first is worldknowledge; Note 10: (instead of adding a comma,
add such as) all the knowledge found within the world that one might use as advantage in
understanding a concept. Back to opera, an individual may think of music, or fancy
clothes, whine vs. beer etc. If an individual is given the genre of a grocery store, meat,
fruit, pie, milk etc. my come to mind to better understand the genre. The second;
understand the text. Taking the genre grocery store for example, to better understand the
genre, understanding texts that may answer questions like what? Where? How? Why?

Etc. Now the third is found within the self-experience one has in this world,helping them
better understand the world around. Ex: if an individual has self-experience of a grocery
store visited previously, they may remember that the coco roasted almonds are in isle
eight not six. Because understanding a concept helps one understand the world
surrounding. The trails of concepts that build up ones perspective are known as
mentalmodels, these mentalmodels are interconnected concepts that act as a building Note
11: (if these words are correct add dash to separate the two words out while signifying
they are one word)blocks. Ive also learned how text plays into genres. Genres tend to be
ideal and texts play as actual manifestations of genres. For example one may think of
movie that would be classified as the genre. Note 12: (kind of hard to understand what
your saying here)The text further and better explains the genre. For example: I want to
watch an action movie The information saved and further used in the further is known as
genre knowledge. This is thought of as all the information accumulated and saved over
the years about a certain genre. Anything that helps one better understand and better
comprehend a genre is known as genre knowledge. Intertextuality is textual information
passed on from one text to another, play as a very important role in explaining or bringing
a genre to life. There are two types of intertextuality.Referencing would be known as the
information accumulated that is already existent. And genremixing is regenerated
descriptions that are self-thought. Modes with no specific social function are knows as
discourse modes.Before Note 13: (watch your spacing)I get to discourse modes, genres
come with a communicative purpose, and that purpose gives genres a form of guidance,
functions intended to fulfill.

DiscourseModesdiffer from genres because they do not have a specific social

function in themselves; instead they are building blocks which we can draw on in many
different genres and then use in actual texts in flexible ways for a range of purposes
(Bax 63). There are 7 different discourse models. They are

Narrative

Description

Report

Information

Argument

Instruction

Interaction

For example if I were mad I would use an argumentative discourse mode. And so on,
understanding a genre isnt exactly complex if one wants and has the curiosity needed.
Being that we deal with so many different genres daily, we understand genres without
even thinking about understanding them. If the world knowledge isnt used accurately,
and the self regenerated information isnt depicted properly. Then jeopardy of
fullycomprehending that genre occurs. The world around us is constructed by the
discourses we use (Bax 30) Ive thought on a better way to explain how the discourses
we use, play as an important role in social constructionism, but Bax gives a perfect
description: We need to be constantly aware of how language can be used in the
construction of viewpoint and ideology, set of ideas which if they are prevalent and
widespread might be treated as commonsense, but which in fact could hide aspects of
power and justice (Bax 33)

An interesting piece Ive worked on was a Micro-Ethnography on RAs (Residential Advisors) at

UNCC. Note 14 add THE before RAs to signify that you did the RAs on UNCC's campus. To
me it sounds like you did a project at UNCC about RAs as a whole)And what makes this
community a discourse community according to Swales six characteristics. Looking back at
genres, the RA community would be my genre, and the six characteristics followed would be the
world knowledge used to better understand my self-perspective of the genre. In this project, I
focused on how RAs fit the characteristics of a discourse community according to Swales six
characteristics. The amount of information gained in this assignment fascinated me. I chose to do
something Id never think of. At first it came of as the worst mistake Ive ever made. The more I
searched for one purpose (role of a discourse community within), the more I got drawn in the
community. It left me arguing many points within my head that I previously opposed. Digging
deeper gave me facts of the truth and reality of certain cases. Ive thought of the main project to use
in my final portfolio and all but this one skipped my thought. Ive learned the most in doing this
project, and I feel as if Ive put the most work in this project. The combination of social and
nonsocial patterns required for the completion of this project was thrilling. In this case I felt like I
had something t write about, a purpose within a purpose. I actually truly enjoyed writing about this
project. In my final portfolio ill be including a series of documents created in this class, from
daybook entries to my genre analysis also my micro-ethnography and discussion forums. It will
show my progress in this course from the begging to the end. However I will only include the
work that best fits, my stronger work.

Vitaly OConnor

Solid start to your paper. It flowed really well and you had good transitions going from
one point to another. One thing that I'd watch out for is that there are easy spelling
mistakes and missing punctuation marks. I noticed there seemed to be numerous spacing
errors as well. I also marked a couple places where I thought a word or two could be
taken out or added in to make the sentence more understandable. Most of the errors that I
marked down were trivial things like