Midterm

Assignment
Mackenzie Belton
Ms. Ingram UWRT 1102-047


This semester, as far as writing class, has been a little more challenging personally than
last semesters class was. This semester I feel like I am struggling and Im not sure if it is because
I am not comfortable with research or if I dont have enough confidence in what I am doing
with my writing. However, the key concepts that I feel that I have done well with so far are
independent inquiry & curiosity, and getting out of my comfort zone.
I think I have done well with independent inquiry & curiosity because researching is a
big part of that. You have to pick a topic you want to research (being curious) and
independently researching and find out information all on your own. I have surprised myself a
little because I havent really wrote a research paper like this, ever, and I think I am doing good
so far but I am unsure a little. In particular, with the research I had to conduct, I had to talk
about who would be at my roundtable and I did a lot of independent inquiry and wrote about it
in my blog. The psychologist and psychiatrist think that institutionalizing them would
weaken their quality of life and not give them the proper treatment needed to care for their
disorder. The nurses think that hospitals can give them the right form of treatment and in the
most productive way.

Getting out of my comfort zone was easy for me, in a lot of ways. Since I knew my
professor and some of the people in my class before hand, it makes the process a little easier.
Not only was I getting out of my comfort zone with talking and participating in class more but
also I was getting out of my comfort zone in my writing. My first inquiry question that I
originally was going to go with was What are the pros and cons of having a job while in
college? I felt like I was playing it safe and kind of straightforward and simple; I wanted to
challenge myself a little more and get out of my comfort zone. So my next inquiry question that
I finally landed on was Should individuals with psychological disorders be institutionalized?
This to me is not a simple, straightforward question and it challenges me as a writer, researcher
a little more and it allows me to step outside of my comfort zone.

The two key concepts that I feel that I am struggling with so far is providing & receiving
feedback and rhetorical awareness.
Providing and receiving feedback from last semesters 1101 class is totally different than
this semester. I feel like my group members arent able to tell me what I could change or do
better with like I am use to and that frustrates me as a writer. I am not saying my group
members arent good at giving feedback, its just the feedback that I am getting back is not what
I am use to and it isnt as helpful as it should. One of my group members stated in the first peer
workshop we did that Your sources connect and make sense in the order they are in. I didnt
think my sources flowed very well at first; I think I would have liked a suggestion of how to do it
differently, and maybe that is something I need to communicate to my group.
As far as multi-modality of print & digital text goes I know what it is and I know how to
rhetorically analyze works but I am not sure that I am putting that into my own writing. In the
syllabus, it has the 5 modes of communication in a wheel chart and describes each one below.
Linguistic Mode: word choice; the delivery of spoken or written text; the organization of

writing or speech into phrases, sentences, paragraphs, etc.; the development and coherence
of individual words and ideas.
Visual Mode: color, layout, style, size, and perspective.
Aural Mode: music; sound effects; ambient noise/sounds; silence; tone of voice in spoken
language; volume of sound; emphasis on accent.
Gestural Mode: facial expressions; hand gestures; body language; interaction between
people.
Spatial Mode: arrangement; organization; proximity between people or objects. I dont think
I am using all of the modes of communication in my visual bibliography because it is tricky to
put an aural mode in something that is purely research text. Going forward into the next half of
the semester maybe I can add pictures or different styles of text to ensure I am using multi-
modality.