Guillermo Cabrera

Prof. McLaughlin
Multimedia Writing and Rhetoric
December 6, 2016
Portfolio Narrative Reflection
How does this portfolio demonstrate your understanding of writing as a process? Where are
your process-oriented composition skills evident? To what extent has your writing process
evolved throughout the term, and how is that evolution reflected in this portfolio?
This portfolio shows my understanding of writing as a process in a variety of ways. Of the 4
assignments we had to complete, 3 of them (narrative essay, rhetorical analysis, research paper)
show a progress and an improvement between the first and the final draft if you want to call it.
Additionally, every assignment we had to do consisted of different phases, so every phase was
equally as important as the final phase, which was creating the final essay or product. In my first
assignment, the happiness narrative essay, my first draft was on the right track with a clear
significant moment described by myself but the focus and elaboration of the purpose behind that
moment was not clearly established. That is why on my second revision I changed a good portion
of it, taking away some of the chronological order and worrying more about what the audience
was going to take away as a message instead of mainly focusing on telling the story step by step.
I needed to focus on nationalism and the idea of how representing ones own country is
incredible since not everyone has the opportunity to do that. Although I did a good job in my
second revision with those aspects, there were still some aspects I could make better like I did in
the narrative included in my portfolio. I had done a good job on focusing more on nationalism,
but now needed to elaborate upon what for me where the important values that shape a Peruvian

identity and work more on my feelings of Peruvian identity and not necessarily generalize
nationalism as a whole. With that said and focusing more on the clarity and not stumbling that
much in my delivery, I think I have done a good job in the narrative included here in the
portfolio. My happiness narrative essay was one of the assignments that clearly evidenced an
improvement and a progress in my process-oriented skills. With my rhetorical analysis, I as the
first assignment had a decent first revision draft but was again lacking some key points that were
essential in the assignment specifically. Again as in the first assignment had not focus the
purpose in a good way and the paper seemed to lack a sustained controlling purpose. I had to
connect my points more to the thesis to make it clear enough. With the known feedback, I went
and changed big chunks of my essay trying always to link every statement I did with the clear
thesis and purpose of my paper. I tried to discard parts were the essay seemed more like a
summary of the film so the audience could be more engaged about what I really had as a goal
since the beginning of the paper. I was successfully able to produce a much better cohesive and
centered paper that allowed me to include smooth transitions and improve the papers clarity.
Again my revision was really good and I felt really proud of it. This assignment along with the
first one clearly showed how I progressed in establishing my purpose and making it a clear focus
all along the paper and the narrative. With these two assignments out of the way I knew I had to
produce a good first draft for the research paper since I knew what I had to improve and I was
confident that would be the case in the research paper. Just as I thought, I created a solid first
draft in my research paper about Facebook and how it invited a narcissistic behavior. Here I did
not have a problem with my thesis and purpose since in every paragraph and every statement I
included there was some link back to the thesis. I learned my lesson and that was not going to
happen again. What I had to improve here was that I needed to talk more about the context and

how Facebook and narcissism could be reflected in other social medias as well. Also I had to
work on eliminating some parts of my essay were it seemed as if everyone who was a narcissist
thought of itself as a narcissist since that is not always true. With that in mind I was able to
improve my well-developed research paper. I included more contexts in the intro and concluding
paragraphs that made my topic relevant to basically all social media and talked more about how
Facebook can invite a narcissistic behavior even when one is not aware of it. These 3
assignments clearly show a progress and improvement of my process-oriented skills, but they
show an evolution of myself as a writer as well. I was able to go from decent first drafts at the
beginning of the year, to solid first drafts and good corrections of my essays, which really made
me feel happy.
How does this portfolio demonstrate your understanding of rhetoric and argumentation?
Where does this portfolio demonstrate your ability to identify and analyze rhetorical concepts?
Where are the principles of rhetoric and argumentation most evident in your writing? How does
this portfolio demonstrate your awareness of audience and context? Of rhetorical situations? Of
persuasive appeals?
I think the portfolio demonstrates my understanding of rhetoric and argumentation in all 4
assignments. The narrative for example has as a purpose invite the audience to explore
nationalism and I intended for them to feel more connected to their identity after listening to my
narrative. The rhetorical analysis is all about how a film uses rhetoric and its arguments to
persuade a specific audience. My analysis is really profound in that paper and the points I attack
are some that are not clearly shown by the movie which shows how my understanding goes
beyond what is simply visible to the eye. The research paper is all about defending my thesis in a
way that the audience will be able to clearly connect to what I am stating after reading the paper.

I am totally certain that it is the case with the research paper because of the evidence I included
and of course because of the fact that I am targeting an audience that uses Facebook 24/7 and is
totally aware of what I am talking about. Last with the mini documentary, my group and I
decided to focus on a topic that is really controversial here at Notre Dame and at most schools in
the US which is student-athletes and the stereotypes built upon them. My documentary aims to
show how those stereotypes are many times inaccurate and how they can affect a student-athlete.
Within interviews and good shooting my group and I were successfully able to promote a
different perspective, hopefully.
My rhetorical analysis indeed is the paper that best shows my ability to identify and analyze
rhetorical concepts. I think that in this paper I was successfully able to explain how a topic like
poverty, which is not totally clear when watching the movie, connects to rhetoric and
argumentation within several examples included in the film. I was able to talk about aspects that
when watching the movie with no clear purpose is definitely not clear to the eye. That means that
my understanding of rhetoric and my ability to analyze several aspects is solid and that is why I
consider this paper the best reflection of my abilities to identify and analyze rhetorical concepts.
I think that my portfolio as a whole demonstrates my awareness of audience and context in every
paper and assignment. For example in my research paper, it was clear that I was targeting young
adults with access to Facebook because of the fact that teens and young adults are the range of
ages that show higher Facebook usage making it obvious that if I was to target them, then my
paper would show much more effect on them than if I was to target a different age scope. I used
some terms commonly reflected in Facebook that they would indeed understand whereas some
users with different ages that show less usage may not necessarily connect to those terms as the
audience I chose would. On the other hand my mini documentary was targeted to college

students and that is clear because of the fact that my mini documentary talks about studentathletes in US colleges. These two assignments are two examples of how I used my awareness of
audience and context to specifically target an audience that would be more impacted by my
product.
When talking about persuasive appeals, I think there is no better reflection of it than my
rhetorical analysis. That analysis specifically targets persuasive appeals used by the film Happy.
Within this paper, I talk mainly about how the film uses several examples in a way that they can
persuade the audience to think the way they want them to think. This many times is shown in an
indirect way and as mentioned above, I was able to successfully identify points in the movie
were persuasive appeals were used but were not clear at all. For example the fact that the film
uses examples of people suffering to promote happiness has a clear purpose behind it. That
purpose is to target the emotional appeals of the audience in a way that they can persuade them
because of pity maybe, to think as the film wants the viewers to think and digest the information.
Overall each of my assignments shows my understanding of the basic concepts of rhetoric talked
about during class this semester.
How does this portfolio demonstrate your critical research, reading, and thinking skills?
What was the role of research, reading, and discussion in your development as a writer this
semester?
My portfolio demonstrates my critical research, reading and thinking skills in a progressive way
in most parts. Research first of all was fundamental basically in my research paper. I think that
the base of my paper here is the research I conducted and the good sources I was able to found.
The sources basically defined my outline, and with a well-defined outline then the rest is easy.
After conducting my research for this project, I was able to narrow my scope to 3 specific key

points and that made it all easy for me to be successful in this project. So again research was
fundamental in my research paper. Reading, thinking and discussion were really important in
my rhetorical analysis of the film Happy. All the reading we did and the discussion of the
readings in class were really important for me since they added new knowledge to my idea of
rhetoric and I was then able to put it in practice when analyzing persuasive appeals during the
film. Additionally some of the cinematographic techniques talked about in some readings and
discussions in class were reflected in the film, which created reliability among every reading.
Moreover that was also visible in the production of my mini documentary. Here my group and I
included some cinematographic techniques that were also talked about in some of the readings
like panning and close-ups because as the readings said, it would have a purpose and would
persuade the audience to think a certain way which was exactly what my group and I were
looking for with the documentary.
Every reading and every research done contributed in some way to the 4 assignments we had so
completing them in a thorough way was really helpful.
How does this portfolio demonstrate your understanding of the practical conventions of
academic writing? Where do you demonstrate knowledge of an academic citation style? Of
working with source material? Of genre-based formatting conventions?
MLA citation was used in basically 3 of the 4 assignments. The rhetorical analysis, the research
paper and the written resume for mi mini documentary all included MLA citation along with in
text citations. The research paper was indeed the assignment that included the most use of
sources which is reflected all along the paper with the significant amount of in text citations that
are appreciated. Every in text citation along with the MLA citation at the end of the paper reflect
a perfect use of that style of citation. Under the same assignment tab, there is also a document

included called Annotated Bibliography. That document is the perfect evidence of my work
with sources. It demonstrates a thorough analysis of why a specific source could be of important
use for my paper and describes everything that I need to know about each specific source. It was
indeed really valuable for putting together the research paper. As for genre-based formatting
conventions, I was able to work with a variety of different type of sources like scholarly articles,
books and a film and that knowledge and understanding taken from each of them is reflected in
my rhetorical analysis and my research paper mostly. Moreover the mini documentary was in
charge of making all of the guys and girls in my group join their knowledge of cinematographic
techniques and the film genre to put together a successful mini documentary that conveys an idea
behind and I am most certain that it did.
What role has multimedia literacy played in the development of your reading, writing, rhetoric,
and research skills this semester? Where does this portfolio demonstrate your awareness of the
connections between medium and message? Of you ability to analyze and produce multimedia
arguments?
Basically 3 of the 4 assignments directly connect to multimedia literacy. Those are the narrative
essay, the rhetorical analysis and the mini documentary. The role that multimedia literacy played
in the development of these assignments was important. There were many readings that talked
about how multimedia worked and how it was structured so that it could effectively establish its
point. The discussions in class about using garage band for example or recording the narrative
along with some lessons were crucial for the successfulness of each assignment. As for the
happiness narrative essay, which needed to be recorded, knowing where to record the soundtrack
and what application to use along with the how were really important for the transmission of my
message. As for the rhetorical analysis, understanding how the techniques employed by the film

had an effect on the audience and the viewer was fundamental for the analysis. All the readings
about cinematographic techniques and the discussions about several topics involving TED talks
or short clips were the base for a successful analysis of the film. Finally the mini documentary
involved the gathering of information of both the happiness narrative and the rhetorical analysis
for a creation of a video that was able to prove a point. With that said multimedia literacy was as
shown valuable for most of the assignments.
Which project(s) in this portfolio are you most proud of? Why? How does this work highlight
your strengths and growth as a writer?
I think definitely the project in my portfolio that I am most proud of is the research paper. That is
because of the fact that unlike the first two assignments, I was able to produce a solid first draft. I
was able to tackle the things that had gone not so good in my first two assignments and produce
a well-focused research paper. I think it was the paper that showed most of my progress as a
writer. Additionally it was also the project that I most liked and the project, which I enjoyed the
most. I do not know if it was the topic which was really interesting or what, but producing a 10
page paper had never been that enjoyable as it was in this research paper about Facebook and
narcissism. As I mentioned this paper shows my strengths and growth as a writer since I was able
to produce a well developed first draft from the beginning whereas in my first and second
assignment I had created a decent first draft but not solid enough. I strongly feel that I have
progressed so much as a writer that I am really proud of myself and grateful with Professor
McLaughlin that has helped my peers and I so much all along the semester.
*Note: My happiness narrative has 2 revisions and the one included is the third revision. As for
the rhetorical analysis I included the second revision as well as for the research paper.