Core Value 1. My work demonstrates that I used a variety of social and interactive practices that involve recursive stages of exploration, discovery, conceptualization, and development.

I believe that I have achieved core value 1 throughout my “Open Strong” assignment. When I had first submitted the “Open Strong” assignment, I can admit that it was mediocre work and it wasn’t the writing that would keep the interest of anybody reading it. Professor Hodges saw the writing and gave me constructive criticism that gave me a different perspective on how to improve how to say what I wanted to say. I went back and deleted the entire first draft of both paragraphs and changed them completely, adding the feedback that Professor Hoghes gave me. After drastically enhancing the quality of my writing, it is now a piece of writing that catches and keeps the reader’s attention, while also stating what my writing is going to be about.

Core Value 2. My work demonstrates that I read critically, and that I placed texts into conversation with one another to create meaning by synthesizing ideas from various discourse communities. 

Core value 2 is best illustrated throughout my “Rebuttal Rewrite.” Professor Hogdes assigned us to find the different counterarguments to our hypothesis and to counter it. For this to happen, we would need to thoroughly read different sources and to twist/ counter what they say so that our argument continues to stand tall. I synthesized the different ideas and found the cracks in them to call them out on. Of course, we would have to also add our own thoughts in our writing for us to keep our argument as something that couldn’t be argued against. These characteristics are all revealed through my “Rebuttal Rewrite.”

Core Value 3. My work demonstrates that I rhetorically analyzed the purpose, audience, and contexts of my own writing and other texts and visual arguments.

I exemplified core value 3 through my “Visual Rewrite” assignment. To complete this assignment, Professor Hodges made us watch a short 30-second video without sound to create our own visual argument. I defined what I believed the video was about before being able to listen to it with the sound being turned on. For this to be done, I had to analyze what each scene was trying to tell the audience with each passing second. After carefully evaluating what each scene was trying to display, I was able to use the context of the video to best construe the meaning of the ad. We were able to turn the sound on after giving our explanation on what we believed each scene’s meaning was. Professor Hodges then assigned us to watch the video with the sound on and create our argument with better context of what the ad was actually trying to tell us.

Core Value 4: My work demonstrates that I have met the expectations of academic writing by locating, evaluating, and incorporating illustrations and evidence to support my own ideas and interpretations.

My “Causal Rewrite” best represents core value 4. When writing this assignment, it was a necessity to input evidence from different researchers so that the audience would know that I’m not just creating statistics from thin air. Adding evidence for everything that I stated would allow my readers/ audience to put their trust into what I am stating and not allow others to discredit what I am saying either. The evidence that I used to support my own ideas would all state different causes and reasons for my hypothesis, despite all having the same base and end result. Allowing me to strengthen my argument, I would then evaluate upon these different pieces of evidence. It would help me explain why the evidence is there and not just some random state that doesn’t support anything being stated. 

Core Value 5. My work demonstrates that I respect my ethical responsibility to represent complex ideas fairly and to the sources of my information with appropriate citation. 

Core value 5 was my main focus when writing out every assignment that was handed to me. My “Causal Rewrite” would be the assignment that has integrated this core value the most. While searching for evidence to back up my ideas, we can see the many people that have put their effort into creating these writings and studies. To not be able to give these people their credit would be morally and ethically fallacious. I made sure to display their hard work by citing those people and allowing others to see their research for themselves. I would do this by putting quotation marks before and after everything they stated in their website, stating the title and authors of the website, and adding the links to the bottom of the writing so that others can follow the link.