Course Reflection

Consolidated Reflection:

Crafting Meaning Across Media

Over the many projects of course ENC 1102, my understanding of writing and rhetorical practice has expanded far beyond conventional formats. By engaging with different modes, platforms, and rhetorical situations, as captured throughout my portfolio at edufuturetrends.com, I’ve developed a clearer, more flexible sense of how writing operates both as communication and as a form of critical thinking. Each genre I explored and each learning outcome I addressed contributed to that evolution. What follows is a reflection across outcomes and artifacts, mapping how they interact and build a cohesive picture of my growth as a writer.

Rhetorical Knowledge

This was learned by focusing on understanding and responding to different rhetorical situations, and it was at the core of my genre remix work. The Deadpool & Wolverine satirical movie review was a direct attempt to meet a specific audience with a specific purpose. By mimicking Deadpool’s irreverent, chaotic tone, I intentionally disrupted traditional movie review formats. In the post, I wrote, “This isn’t just a superhero movie. It’s a violent TED Talk on genre deconstruction.” That line wasn’t just a joke, it was my way of signaling that I understood the genre expectations and was purposefully undermining them to make a rhetorical point about how humor reframes violence. This remix pushed me to adapt my tone, structure, and voice to match the absurdity of the content while still making meaningful arguments.

Critical Thinking, Reading, and Composing

Throughout the course, I engaged critically with the subject of humor in film, particularly as analyzed in my research paper on Deadpool, and carried that lens into each piece. For example, in the Instagram genre remix, I simplified complex academic ideas (like Potter and Warren’s “humor as camouflage for violence”) into humorous, visually engaging slide posts (or at least I attempted to). One of tiktoks reads: “Blood + Jokes = Emotional Stability,” directly paraphrasing the research findings while reformatting them for a visual audience. That act of translation required deep critical engagement, not just copying content, but reshaping it for a new rhetorical context. I learned that simplifying doesn't mean dumbing down, it often means rethinking and reimagining with precision.

Processes

My reflection in the TikTok genre remix clearly illustrates how much my process has evolved. I stated, “I thought short meant simple. I was wrong.” In planning the TikToks, I realized how much goes into the timing, pacing, and visual design of even a 30-second clip. I drafted and redrafted scripts, tested voiceover ideas, and storyboarded scenes. The process was iterative and difficult, something I hadn't experienced in academic writing before. Moreover, adapting the research-based rhetorical rationale into a TikTok-ready joke or ranking required constant revision. I also noted in my TikTok reflection that “the visuals weren’t just for decoration, they became the joke, the message, and the evidence all at once.” That’s the clearest sign of my evolving understanding of writing as a recursive, multimodal process.

Knowledge of Conventions

Each genre remix challenged me to understand not only how writing works but where it works. On Instagram, I had to design for a scroll-happy audience that expects quick, punchy content. In the genre remix titled “Superheroes Ranked by Trauma & Sass,” I used the visual convention of tier lists and bright blue comic-style imagery to signal humor and critique. Similarly, my TikTok planning relied on platform-specific conventions like meme logic, jump cuts, and exaggerated tone. This helped me learn that genre conventions aren’t rules, they’re shared signals between writer and reader, or creator and viewer. Leaning into them made my work legible and funny; bending them made it unique.

Digital Technologies

This was probably the steepest learning curve. Before this course, I hadn’t seriously engaged with platforms like Canva, Predis.ai, or TikTok planning tools in a rhetorical way. But when I designed my Instagram posts, I had to choose fonts, colors, layouts, and captions that aligned with the voice of Deadpool and the visual language of Instagram culture, and this may have fallen flat, but it was one of my first attempts at Instagram. I noted in the rhetorical rationale: “These visuals weren’t just decorative, they extended the blog’s rhetorical position by recreating the tonal dissonance the research paper had, making the violence feel less serious.” Similarly, designing video ideas taught me how TikTok rewards pacing and persona. I came to see digital tools not just as delivery mechanisms, but as rhetorical devices themselves.

Reflection and Transfer

This final outcome feels like the glue that holds everything together. The Rhetorical Rationale page and reflections across outcomes helped me recognize what I’d actually learned, not just how to complete assignments, but how to make meaning across modes. In Outcome 4, I wrote, “My biggest realization was that I could be playful and still be persuasive.” That realization carried through every piece I created. From the Deadpool review to the TikTok jokes, I was applying my understanding of rhetorical effectiveness in new and often challenging ways. Perhaps most importantly, I learned to value remix as a way of thinking. Writing doesn’t have to start over every time, it can evolve, shift, and adapt to context, audience, and medium.

Connecting the Artifacts

Every piece on the site is interconnected, like a portfolio-wide remix of the original research paper. The blog post is the comedic academic heart of the project. The Instagram series visually reframes academic arguments for mobile audiences. The TikToks dramatize theory as entertainment. Each artifact maps onto multiple learning outcomes, but also onto each other. The site doesn’t just show my learning, it performs it.

The rhetorical rationale pulls this all together with the line: “Whether it’s a sarcastic blog, an infographic about murder psychology, or a TikTok with fake academic theories, each format taught me how to make the message louder, messier, and more engaging.” That sentence sums up the learning that took place across platforms, across drafts, and across outcomes.

Final Thoughts

This portfolio isn’t just a collection of assignments, it’s evidence of transformation. It shows how I moved from analyzing texts in isolation to composing across media, platforms, and audiences. Each genre remix, reflection, and rationale reveals how rhetorical awareness isn’t confined to essays, it lives in memes, captions, scripts, and satire. And while I still feel like a rookie in many of these formats, I now see writing not just as a task, but as a toolbox. A way to build connections, challenge expectations, and maybe even make someone laugh while learning something new.

Thank you for reading!