Intertextual Reflection

My ePortfolio turned out to be way more than just a place to toss everything I did this semester. Looking at it now, it’s really a snapshot of how I’ve grown as a writer, and how much better I get design and meaning. At first, I’ll be honest, I figured this would be a quick upload-and-done thing. Just post some files and check the box. But once I started building the site, I saw how all these projects actually connected to what we read in class. Three articles really stuck with me: Yancey’s “The Value of Purposeful Design,” Craig’s “Collect, Select, Reflect,” and Porter’s “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community.” Together, they gave me a bigger picture: writing isn’t just about stringing words together. It’s about intention, reflection, and realizing that everything you write is shaped by something else. Now, when I look at my fairytale retelling, my magazine spread, and my key terms map, I catch these ideas popping up—even when I wasn’t trying.

Yancey’s “The Value of Purposeful Design” hit me right away. She talks about reflection like it’s a tool, maybe even a blueprint, that guides your work so it actually means something. She uses the term “reflective frame.” That was new to me, but it started to click. Basically, she’s saying that if you think about your audience, your purpose, and the context before you start, it shapes everything. I kept coming back to that, especially with my magazine spread. I found myself asking, Who’s going to read this? Will someone who’s never heard of Rockstar Games get what I’m saying? Does the layout make sense? That’s not how I used to approach assignments. Most of the time, I just made sure to follow the instructions and hit the word count. This project pushed me to slow down and really think about the reasons behind every choice I made.

Yancey also got me to see that design isn’t just about making things look pretty. It’s part of the meaning. Even tiny things, like title size or how you arrange columns, can change how someone reads your work. When I picked out images, fonts, and decided how to organize my spread, I wasn’t just asking if it looked cool. I was thinking, Does this match the vibe? Does it help me say what I want to say? I don’t think I would’ve thought that way without reading her article. Suddenly, it felt like I was actually designing something, not just cranking out another school project.

Craig’s “Collect, Select, Reflect” ties in, but from a different angle. He says ePortfolios aren’t just digital storage bins for old assignments—they’re active, living spaces. When he called them “live composing spaces,” I finally got what he meant once I started working on mine. I was constantly moving pages around, adding new sections, renaming stuff, and pulling ideas from everywhere. It wasn’t just uploading files. It felt like I was building a space that showed how I think and how I want people to see my work.

Craig’s whole thing about collecting and selecting really resonated too. He says portfolios let you show not just what you made, but how you got there. When I looked at the Digital Symposium samples, I wasn’t just copying. I was looking for inspiration: how did they set up their pages, use colors, organize tabs, explain their assignments? I realized that making a portfolio is a kind of storytelling. You decide what to show, what to leave out, and how to arrange everything so it makes sense to the reader.

Craig also points out that portfolios help writers figure out who they are. At first that sounded a little much, but when I saw all my projects side by side, it made sense. I noticed stuff about my own writing—how I try to be super clear, always thinking about the audience, and keeping things visually tidy. Seeing it all together showed me the kind of writer I’m turning into, which I never really noticed before. His article made me realize that the portfolio isn’t just something you make after writing—it’s part of the whole process.

Then there’s Porter’s “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community,” which took things even further. At first, his article felt pretty abstract. But the main idea stuck: originality isn’t really a thing, because everything we write comes from somewhere else. At first, that kind of bummed me out—like, what’s the point if you can’t make something new? But Porter flips it. Writing is about joining a conversation, taking pieces from other texts and ideas, and adding your own twist.

Once I got that, it changed how I looked at my own projects. My fairytale retelling? It’s not “totally original”—it comes from classic stories and characters that already exist. plus all sorts of modern influences. Same thing with my magazine spread—I wasn’t trying to invent some brand-new genre. I worked within the world of gaming magazines, following the rules and style of those professional layouts. Even the key terms map came out of what we talked about in class, videos we watched, and notes from different activities. At first, I thought relying on all these sources made my work less impressive. Porter changed my mind about that. He made me realize this is just how it works. Nothing’s completely original, but my version’s different because it comes from my own mix of influences and the choices I make.

One of the things I really like from Porter is his idea that writing is just one part of a bigger machine. My work is a piece of something much larger. That actually made me feel better about my projects. I stopped stressing so much about whether my stuff looked “too similar” to things I’d seen before. Instead, I focused more on how my ideas fit into bigger conversations—about storytelling, design, all of it.

These three texts ended up shaping the way I put together my ePortfolio, and how I see myself as a writer. Yancey got me thinking about design and reflection—how to be intentional with both. Craig pushed me to see the portfolio as a space for building my identity, not just showing off finished work. Porter helped me understand that my writing connects to everything I’ve read, watched, and experienced. When I look at my portfolio now, I can spot those influences in how I organize my pages, make design choices, and even in how I see my own creativity.

Really, my ePortfolio shows how I’ve grown—not just as a writer, but as someone who gets how design and reflection work together. All through the course, I kept circling back to the idea that writing doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s part of a network, a conversation, a messy mix of influences that all blend together. My portfolio shows that. It’s proof of how I’ve changed, what I care about, and how I’ve learned to think more deeply about audience, purpose, and meaning. Even though it’s built from ideas that came before me, it’s still mine, and it honestly shows who I am as a creator.