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Miranda Ortiz
Professor Jessica Alzen
ENG123-DE Intermediate Composition
28 February 2016
Reflective Essay
Growing up, writing was not quite my academic strength in school. However, this course
has provided me with a better understanding of how to write properly. As a psychology major,
faith integration has introduced into former learning experiences at California Baptist University.
In this course the students were able to integrate their faith in order to help their argument of why
a certain issue carried importance, and why it should matter to Christians. The knowledge gained
from the assignments in this English course will be useful to carry into future courses. Due to the
fact that my relationship with Christ is such a center point of my life, I found it beneficial and
insightful to have the aspect of faith integration throughout this course.
This course takes a positive approach by providing students with the opportunity of
learning how mass incarceration is an issue of importance. Unless this prompt was provided,
most people might not even think to research and learn about this topic. Although it carries great
importance, it isn't necessarily a common topic which makes the likelihood of it coming up in
daily conversation slim to none. The information learned through this course has given students
the proper knowledge of how to advocate for important issues in today's society. In order to be
able to handle situations with the best possible outcome in mind, it is important to be equipped
with the proper knowledge on the topic. As students in this course, we were able to do exactly

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that. This courses has been intriguing because of the research aspect of writing that has been one
of the main focuses. Through this course several important skills in writing were taught. Some
examples of those skills are the understanding of how rhetoric works, learning what a
multimodal project was, and how to differentiate reliable sources versus unreliable sources.
These are skills that will be helpful with future academic courses, and potentially future career
assignments.
The assignments for this course have been thoroughly laid out for students with the
intention of using each aspect to improve the final project. In the beginning of this course the
first assignment is for students to learn how to properly utilize university resources. The second
assignment is to write an annotated bibliography. This annotated bibliography is useful to the
final assignment because it teaches students how to collect reliable sources, and how to properly
cite those sources. It is the foundation of the research that is used for the final portfolio. The third
assignment was about learning how to write a literature review. This essay contributes to the
final project because the course introduced in-text citation in this assignment. It is important to
understand how to properly cite information to avoid plagiarism.
The fourth assignment was to create a proposal for the final research project. This was
useful for gathering more information to incorporated into the final assignment. Research
gathered from this assignment helped students convey to the professor what issue they would be
arguing in their final essay. The feedback on this assignment was necessary for learning what
aspects of the main focus needed to be made clearer. For the fifth assignment, the students
needed to write the first of three drafts for the research project. This essay served as the
foundation for the final essay. It has been an important factor for this course to read the feedback

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from the professor, and also from the Smarthinking tutor in order to make improves to these
drafts. Part of the research project assignment was to create a draft of the multimodal portion.
For the multimodal section students could create a website to provide research from the final
project. The same process of feedback used to correct the essay drafts had also been applied to
the website drafts. Feedback from the each draft was useful because the professor gave an
opinion on what should be added or revised to help improve the essay, and the website. Every
draft was important for learning what should be changed in order to get the best results.
All of the assignments in this step-by-step process were used to help the student improve
details for the last assignment. The content of the final portfolio is the annotated bibliography,
literature review, research project proposal, and research project. This is a collection of each
completed assignment to conclude the course. Due to the layout of how the assignments were
worked on and turned in students were able to build on their skill set and grow as writers. Being
able to see in writing specifics, was extremely beneficial in being able to make the appropriate
changes in hopes of writing the paper to our best abilities.
For this course students were able to personally advocate for an individual problem
within the U.S. prison system. A considerable factor when advocating for any topic is to fight for
something that carries personal importance with you. My personal faith in God has played a big
role in the topic I have chosen to write about. I grew up in an environment where the Christianity
was a main focus. Thus, I try to apply the word of God to every part of my life. As stated, it is
important to be equipped with knowledge. Along with that, it is just as important to be passionate
and thoughtful about the topic. This gives a person the utmost potential to succeed, when there is
passion behind anything there is a better chance someone will be able to make the most impact.

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Throughout this course, I have chosen to integrate my faith by providing scriptures that
relate to the topic. A few of the Bible scriptures that have helped shape my opinion are
Philippians 2:4, Deuteronomy 22, and 1 Timothy 1:8-10. The reason for these scriptures are
because they explain a few points being made on this topic. Philippians 2:4 says, "Let each of
you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others." This scripture
explains that God wants His people to care for one another. Thus, it is important to care about the
problems within the prison system. In Deuteronomy 22 it explains that rape is a sin, and that the
victims should not be punished for this crime committed against them. Lastly, 1 Timothy 1:8-10
explains why it is important for Christians to follow God's law, and gives detail to exact sins.
For the research portion of this project started off with the annotated bibliography. This is
something to reference back to while continuing research and the composition process. This
information is carried throughout the process of the research project. The annotated bibliography
is, simply to help teach how to cite properly and choose reliable sources which is vital in writing
a successful paper on any subject matter. The literature review was to aid in getting a better
understanding on the topic being researched. The research proposal, was to learn how to make
the topic less general in order to be able to narrow down and choose based also upon the
professor's help. The drafts were used to help start out with raw thoughts and slowly shape them
into the best possible paper, with the help of the Smarthinking center.
In the course, students learned about exactly how rhetoric works. Rhetoric has multiple
parts that contribute to the process of argumentative essays. This process can be broken down
into five parts of arrangement. The five parts are narration, division, proof, refutation, and
peroration. The narration is where a description of a topic is presented without trying to sway the

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reader's opinion. A writer gives both arguments for, and against the topic in the division section.
As for the proof, this is where the writer begins to use solid evidence to back-up their argument.
The refutation is about using both reliable evidence, and providing names of professionals who
can prove the point being argued. For the conclusion of the argument, there is peroration. For the
peroration, the strategy is to argue why the writer's opinion is greater than the opposing opinion.
This is the complete arrangement of rhetoric. There are two types of rhetoric used for the
argumentative essay. The first is judicial rhetoric, and the second is deliberative rhetoric. For
judicial rhetoric, a history supporting the argument is provided with a timeline to explain the
development of the problem. In the deliberative part of rhetoric, two solutions advocating for the
problem being argued are introduced. This is how rhetoric works in argumentative essays.
For the multimodal process, students had to put their argumentative information into a
different format than an essay. Creating a website was one of the options for this portion of the
research project. This process is where a student uses all of their information, and citations on
this topic to create an informative website. The website must contain the information from the
research project essay including in-text citations. It is important to list the works cited correctly,
so that people are easily able to locate the original journal of information. Another way to make
it easier for people to access information, is by directly providing a link to the original Web
journal. By having three drafts of this process, the professor is able to give feedback on what else
might be important to incorporate into the website. This is how the multimodal process works.
Lastly, the revision process is conducted by receiving feedback from the two sources
previously named. First, the research essay drafts are sent to a tutor on Smarthinking. Once it is
returned from the tutor, the necessary adjustments are made to improve the essay. After the

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revision process, it is then sent to the professor for grading. The professor gives her opinions on
both of the research project drafts. Then suggested adjustments are made again to better the
essay, and the multimodal section of the research project. This revision process happens from the
start of the course to the end of the course.