Ben Shrewsbury

English 2010 Final Assignment

Reflection

Introduction

My final project is a correlation of the effect and issues the pollution, we are creating, has hurt our planet and all life that lives on it. The main focus of this piece is to introduce the pollution we are causing and the effects it is having on our planet. I named my piece “Restoring Our Planet”, because I believe we are destroying it. We need to start giving back and replacing what we use. I choose this particular issue, because I don’t think it is being taken as serious as it should be. I feel people don’t truly understand the issues they cause on a daily basis. While doing this project I gained a stronger understanding of the effects pollution is having on our society and the importance of solving the problem. We need to stop our increased use of air pollutant causing machines. As well as our irresponsible disposal of our trash, that ends up polluting our oceans and forests. This project has definitely gave me a better appreciation for this planet and all that it does for us.

My Experience (Memoir)

While writing my draft for this piece I feel like I was leaving out a lot of detail. I started telling more than showing, which didn’t involve the audience like I hoped. In my revision I put more detail into the piece and tried to make it a more involved kind of feel. I placed a few images in as well, in hopes to showcase that which I couldn’t explain. I followed that up with a few facts to give some meaning to the piece and create a more realistic and urgent feel to the matter.

Our Waste (Profile)

Now this piece was a total miss the first go round and ended up coming across as more of a report instead of the intended profile. So when rewriting for my revision I decided to just start all over and make my profile of the Midway Atoll. This definitely took up a lot more time since I was pretty much starting over, but it was worth it. I was able to gain a better understanding of how a profile should be written and the effect it could have on the audience. My medium for this piece was mainly picture based with a brief interpretation of the image.

Over-Consumption (Information Effect)

My draft for this piece I put too much emotion into the piece which took away from the main purpose, which is to present the facts. Per directed by Ms. Bailey I changed my mainly text based medium into a slideshow, which I feel gave it a more user friendly feel. I then added facts and a few more images to really present the issue. I really wanted to showcase the devastating we are causing by our overwhelming desire to consume.

What Can We Do (Persuasion Effect)

The first paragraph of my draft was a bit choppy and needed some work. I fixed all the fragmented sentences and tried to cut out all the fluff I had added. Next I thought I would make it a little bit more presentable by creating a wix page. This gave it a better flow and I think it gave the piece more life. I then added some more images and did a bit more research on solution. I really wanted to give as much information possible and hopefully influence the audience into understanding the issue and the steps they could take to help solve it.

Conclusion

This semester has truly been an amazing experience and I have learned a lot. To be honest I really hadn’t done this kind of writing and website work before. So it was a complete learning experience for me, which was a good challenge. I’m excited to see how much my school work improves now that I know better ways to present my ideas. Not only that improvements it will have on my school work, but I am sure it will be a big plus when I enter my career. The ability to do research and then present it in such a way that it captures the audience is vital. I feel like knowing what I do now gives me confidence in writing and gives me a better understanding of how to create a piece that grabs the audience. I still have a lot of work to do to strengthen my writing ability, but I know I have a stable base now that I can continue to grow.