Over this semester, I’ve had to do plenty of assignments for this FIQWS class. The number of assignments I had to do in just 90 days rivaled those of STEM classes I’ve taken in the past (Maybe it’s preparation for future classes? Probably). The number of steps I had to do for each big essay (Historiography and Learning Analysis) was more than what I normally do (I didn’t do intricate outlines before this course, nor did I do peer reviews). Navigating these pages, you’ve seen a few artifacts of my assignments. This page is more of a reflection on those artifacts and the course as a whole. But here is a TLDR table below.

Artifact	Struggles/Growth	What tools/strategies I acquired or practiced
Semi-Weekly Reflection	I gained a deeper understanding of the benefits of keeping track of my progress over multiple steps of the writing process by analyzing my rhetorical situations, research sources, and assignment plans. Before, I didn’t really care about tracking my progress but after doing the reflections, I realized that doing so was actually good for making sure I knew where I was.	I aquired the tool of analyzing a variety of rhetorical situations via the reflections as multiple prompts had me analyzing the rhetorical situations of assignments like the LA Essay, Historiography, and the MMT and comparing them. These analyses helped me better understand how rhetorical situations can vary across multiple types of media and how I used them to know what my audience and purpose is in doing these assignments.
Vignettes	I learned how to condense longer stories with a lesson into a short paragraph format by trimming unneccessary parts and making effective use of vocabulary to balance practicality and imagery. Doing this assignment, I had to make a one paragraph story which had me crunching words so that my stories weren’t too long when helped me learn how to condense words	I explored the vignette genre and rhetorical situation by going through the process of writing three separate vignettes that all share a common theme about learning. By actually writing vignettes, I saw firsthand and understood what a vignette is and what it should be.
Peer Review of LA Draft	Previously, I hated peer reviews because I never got much out of it besides a “Good job, keeping going,” or “Yeah you have solid work so far.” Doing this peer review, I actually got a lot more comments than I normally do which greatly helped me understand the value of peer reviews since the comments revealed points I never considered.	I developed a strategy for collaborating as the peer review had me collaborating with another classmate to analyze our work and give critiques and pointers on what to include/exclude from our final essays and some food for thought. By analyzing each others’ works, it ensured that both sides benefitted from putting effort into collaborating to review our drafts so far.
LA Outline	Helped me organize the main talking points oDoing the LA Outline taught me the important of making an outline to organize my work. Before, I never did outlines since I never felt the need to and my essays always turned out fine. But after doing the LA Outline, I realized it was really better to have a ‘trail’ to follow beforehand so that I know what I’m going to put into my final essay and when which made the future essay easier to write.	I developed a strategy for revising as the outline allowed me to organize all the information I wanted to include and to keep the general structure of the essay in mind in my revisions. It also helped me trim the unnecessary words and talking that were present in my original draft. I used the critiques from my draft to form my outline and put my talking points down plain and simple and to save the fluff for the final essay.
LA Essay	I gained a deeper understanding of how to write an essay with a common theme that connects three distinct, yet interconnected stories. Before the essay, I had no idea how to connect my three vignettes, but as I wrote the final essay with the help of previous assignments, I realized there were common themes between all three vignettes to write about	I practiced composing a text that integrates a stance and using analyses and summaries by summarizing and forming connections between three different stories to the common theme of how I learn best. Composing the LA Essay had me summarizing three stories while also cramming in an analysis of those stories and how they relate to how I learn. By doing this, I learned how to best go about summarizing and analyzing in a way that had good flow and didn’t sound repetitive by changing up how I phrased myself in each paragraph to hide the fact that my essay had a linear structure.
Annotated Bibliography	I learned how to extract and organize important information done in research as the AB had me putting the information I’ll use for the bigger essay under its respective source. Before, I never bothered to do such a thing but I found it useful for citations, footnotes, and keeping track of what information I’ll use and when as the AB gave me a reference sheet to refer to.	I acquired the strategy of locating research sources using Google Scholar and evaluated them for their credibility by fact checking every claim made with other articles and sources. While doing research, I mostly used Google Scholar and skimmed through the sources for any useful information and looked at previous sources or looked for new ones to see if they matched up with the new information or supported the source’s claims. This helped me in acquiring the strategy of locating research sources and checking them for credibility as I had to use an academic resource search engine and fact check a lot of claims for the first time
Research Outline	I gained a deeper understanding of how to outline a longer essay. Before, I had little experience outlining an eight-page research-backed essay. By following the outline format, I organized the important information and main talking points of each section easily. This made me understand the process of making an outline for a big research-backed essay.	I developed a strategy in drafting essays through the outline as I changed up contents in the outline to improve flow and transitioning between periods. By outlining the important sections of my essay, I realized my transition from the early 1900s to late 1900s was choppy. But, doing the outline and seeing my main points made me realize I can connect both points by changing when I talk about politics’ influence in Chinatown by talking about politics near the end of the early 1900s section and then speaking about politics in the late 1900s so that it doesn’t seem like I’m randomly switching topics and that my essay has smoother transitions.
Historiography	I gained a deeper understanding of how to write a long research-backed essay through writing an eight page research-backed account of Chinatown’s development through a lens. Before this, I wouldn’t have ever known how to write an academic essay like this one, but now having gone through the Historiography-related assignments and writing the final essay gave me a better understanding of the tone, style, and complexities of a research0-backed Historiography.	I practiced the tool of composing texts that integrate a stance with sources and using strategies like analyses to relate Chinatown’s community development over time with the influence of discrimination and politics. I analyzed the situation of Chinatown’s community over time and related those conditions as being caused by discrimination and politics to support a stance that Chinatown’s community changes over time were influenced by politics and discrimination. This practice was more advanced as I had to use plenty of sources and take a stance and back it up by analyzing the community of Chinatown and its changes over 200 years and relating significant changes to politics and discrimination.
MMT	I gained a deeper understanding of how to translate a written research backed essay into a shorter and easily digestable format in order to attract other audiences as I made a short visual essay as my MMT. Before this, I wouldn’t have ever known how to expand my essay’s reach, but seeing the different options for the MMT from my classmates made me realize there are a wide variety of ways to translate an essay into other mediums.	I acquired the strategy of using digital technologies to address a wide range of audiences. Before the MMT, I ignored any audience that wouldn’t read my essay since I found it hard to get people interested. But doing the MMT made me realize that you can use technology like videos to make an essay’s contents more palatable to other audiences who wouldn’t want to read an eight-page essay on a few streets in New York. And from personal experience, I feel as if the video is way better than the essay as you can watch it or have it play in the background and still get the main points of the essay without having to sit down and read through all of it and the general lesson/takeaways

And here is my final reflection essay. I kept it short and sweet:

My final thoughts on this class are that even though it was a lot of work, it all turned out well in the end. Writing this, after going through all of this writing and pressure, I feel contemplative and free. I can’t believe the days went by this fast and that weeks ago I was still writing my Learning Analysis. Now, I can look back at this portfolio as I put in the finishing touches and rest knowing I am finished. I’m probably just tired from this first semester and getting used to college, so excuse my rambling. Here’s to the end of this leg of my academic journey.