To think about what we have read and analysed in English 112 what comes to mind is the Martin Luther King readings early in the semester. I personally read the "I Have A Dream" speech and his letters from the Birmingham City Jail. We started class with analysing the speech. It took me back in time to an era that was completely different then mine. Dr. Steve witnessed some of the civil rights movement first hand. It amazed me to start to understand how different life was back then. Dr. King was a master rhetorician. He had to ability to captivate his audience with his words. He delivered that speech in front of thousands that day in Washington D.C. Understand that Dr. King and all the african american population had been taken advantage of for too long. It was time for the civil rights movement to be seen by everyone. Just months before the speech Dr. King had been imprisoned in Birmingham Jail for marches in that city. He took his time to write letters to his fellow clergymen. Its amazing to think of Dr. King wanting the civil rights movement to be nonviolent he knew it was the only way it would work. If I was in the situiation I would be very angry. It would have been hard to hold that anger back. Dr. King had a different perspective and he tried to used his mastery of rhetoric and a brilliant mind to get what he needed. Instead of complaining about being wrongfully imprisoned he wrote a fairly long letter to the clergy explaining his movement and his dissappointment of some pastors speaking out against him. The letter goes on to give examples of how the african american population were treated unjustly. Segregatation laws were determined by elected officials. The African American people had no right to vote so there was no way their thoughts could be heard. We spent a good amount of class time discussing these two documents. We got into groups and held conversation about it. It was great to learn the whole story. It also made you understand how powerful words could be.
As for evaluating and synthesizing information from multiple sources. We evaluated Dr. King's speech and letters. The argument analysis we did was a great example of evaluation. Taking from a website we got information on a topic. We then synthesized information by writing a paper breaking down the argument into sections. What occurs in that process is a better understanding of a topic. The goal of learning is to know more about a topic than what you started with. Next we learned some life lessons by reading Ben Franklin's Autobiography. We learned about Franklin's time management schedule and adapted some of these to our lives by making a schedule. Franklin also kept track of his virtues to become a better person. We were asked to think about some virtues that were important to us. After evaluating my virtues it was important for me to maintain them. I keep a mental log of this and some of my virtues are a daily thought. Others have been forgotten. But learning this has made me more aware of what is important to my quality of life. A final evaluation and synthesizing information as what this portfolio letter is about. I have to evaluate my learning with evidence then analyse this evidence to synthesize a portfolio cover letter.
Determining the extent of information needed for constructing arguments and research papers is a daunting task. This portfolio is a prime example. It is both an argument and research paper. The amount of information I need is massive to show that I have done some work in this class. When arguing for a good grade I need to show excellent work. I have to post many documents to my blog as evidence. For it to be a research paper I have to cite my work with links to my evidence on the blog. All this information is combined into a cover letter for my portfolio. I have analyzed my course objectives. Then I determined what information I need to argue for an A. To finish I have written a letter to you with evidence of learning and evaluation of my learning. The extent of information determines my letter grade in the class.
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