My name is Matthew Novak and throughout my Com 101 course I have been writing many different essays that require you to meet the stranger in you. In this course we have used an online based website that our professor runs called Composition Flipped, and he has videos, articles, and readings on things that would help us learn throughout this course. For each major assignment that we had to do which their were five major assignments we had to connect each major assignment with something that we have read in two of the major assignments while the others were interviews, and two research projects. This course made your think about mixed media, and even social issues that we have in our society. Throughout this course I have taken hundreds of photos for these essays, and I have spent hours on end writing these essays throughout the course. Turning too face the strange
For the first assignment called the Stranger In Me I had to take a selfie of myself, and a portrait of myself. The portrait had to bring out something in me that I do not show to other people, they do not see who I am on the inside, but they see who I am on the outside. The next assignment was called Heroes/Villains and for this writing I had to interview someone who was either had or is having an impact in my life, someone who I look up to, or I had to interview someone who was a villain to me, or someone who I dislike, or have a strong hate towards to get to know them better. My third assignment I had to take a collage of pictures in a two week span of things that I go through everyday, things that are casual to me rather than what others do. When I had all of these pictures I had to pick the four to five best pictures that I could go into detail about and explain why this is significant to me, and why these pictures or places are so normal to me now. The fourth assignment called Why the Hate? I had to research a hate group that is active in the U.S weather it is a big group, or a small group. I had to take the hate group that I choose and research them and make a story of a character and write it in first person of before they joined the hater group, why and when they joined the hate group, and why and when they left the hate group. For the final assignment called Empathy Challenge I worked in a group and we created a video showing why and how it is difficult for people who have a disability such as being in a wheel chair is difficult for them mentally, physically, and socializing with other people.
All in all throughout this portfolio I was able to expand my mind and not do the simple things that a teacher would ask of you to write weather that would be a story, or a research paper. This type of writing expands your mind and opens up your mind to a whole new type of writing and writing about yourself and mixed media. I hope while reading my portfolio you gain insight not only about my life, but about the lives of others such as my interviewee, people who have disabilities and how it affects their personal lives and mental life, and about a hate group that I have researched during this portfolio. I also hope this gives you a new way of writing, and a new way to read things such as media, and looking a pictures a different way, and how you could bring out the best in a picture, and not just be basic like everybody else is basic while taking pictures. I hope that when taking pictures yourself you think about the bigger picture in each picture you take and not to take pictures just because everybody else is taking pictures, each and every picture is unique to you and your audience such as your friends and social media followers.