In my portfolio, I plan to reflect on what I have learned over the course of the semester. I believe this course will benefit me in my future career especially because I was able to develop my critical thinking, literacy, rhetorical knowledge, and research skills while getting an educational outlook on my prospective career as a teacher.

For both peer reviews, I did not submit a complete draft, but feel like my peers still gave me great feedback on where my draft was strong, but also parts where I needed to elaborate more. I think what I got the most out of it was collaborating with my peers and getting to see their first drafts and what they were writing about.

I believe I had a good foundation in critical thinking, reading, and researching from previous learning, but I feel like I was able to expand on them during this course. I feel more confident in my ability to deconstruct text and understand the messages the author is trying to convey while getting better at researching accurate information and sources that will support my claims.

I used the CRAAP test and the notes I took in MLA/APA format to help me during my research process. If I was going to use a source I would check if it was credible, whether through the website it was hosted on like a scholarly database, or the authors and their credentials. I used APA, it will be useful for me later on because APA is the format used for the education field.

Padlets were very helpful during my learning process and creating them helped me visualize my content. Collaborative Google Docs or texts that gave examples of argumentative strategies impacted how I approached my work with more confidence.

The most important thing I learned in this course was the planning and structure of a culminating essay or project. I had written an annotated bibliography before, but it was not as extensive as WP#2. I have also written large essays, but usually never had a significant amount of time to plan, research, and write. Now I can effectively plan my research and writing process throughout my college career and life and have more structured, cohesive arguments in papers.