Scott 1 Tyrika Scott Professor Ingram English 1101-049 October 27, 2013 Portfolio Essay Organization The way

I decided to organize my e-portfolio was to show how the entire course was given to us. From the first assignments of the class, to the very last, along with feedback, writers notebook, and process work artifacts. I added the wild card at the very end in case you may want to take a look at what went on in the course as a whole. To me, the structure of the course was thoughtfully shaped and really made sense. The more we went along to other assignments, the more I took from the past ones and made reference to them in different pieces of my writings. Overall Course When we first began this course, we were told that the main concept that we would be reviewing was inquiry. I didnt really know what the word inquiry meant, so I couldnt understand how that would tie in to this course. The class definition of inquiry was a question. So when you used to word inquiry with almost every single assignment, I was confused on how I was supposed to come up with a question about a reading or to an author, if I already understood the reading. In the very first blog post I wrote titled, My Inquiries, I wrote, Does risk-taking mean to write about things you aren't

Scott 2 comfortable with? I later understood this inquiry that I made, which will be discussed under the Literacy Narrative section. Throughout the course, I realized that inquiry was not only questioning, but analyzing as well. Now that were coming closer to the end of the course, I also think that inquiring a reading to some degree gives room to further understand and connect with the intended purpose. Key Concepts During this semester, I have engaged in most of the key concepts from this course. I wasnt sure at first how the key concepts would tie into this course. Then I saw that the course theme was high school vs. college, and I realized how they would. I think looking at the differences between high school and college was a great idea. It shows us how much weve grown, and recognize which writing skills we obtained during high school had progressed. The key concepts that I have really connected with are: critical thinking, risk-taking, the writing process and revision, and intellectual growth and maturity. Notebook Artifact 1 The one reading that I think the class had the best discussion about was, The Five-Paragraph Essay and the Deficit Model of Education, by Lil Brannon et al. The five-paragraph essay was something we all knew well about. It practically held us all hostage, not allowing us to branch out and have our own writing style. I feel that high school English did not prepare us for college English. Students who spend their primary, middle, and secondary school years rehearsing the five-paragraph essay and end up blaming themselves for not getting it right, or hating writing, or believing they

Scott 3 arent measuring up (19). At the beginning of the year, I thought that I was going to do every assignment in the five-paragraph format. Throughout this course, I began to see my intellectual growth and maturity becoming more apparent. Im doing much better with my writing process, which I will discuss further on. Ive learned that every writer can have their own unique writing style, and a good paper can be written in many different ways. Literacy Narrative- Process work artifact 1 & feedback artifact 2 The first big assignment was the Literacy Narrative, so I put this first on my eportfolio. Writing this narrative was pretty easy, but at first I didnt know what exactly to write. In class, we were given some time to brainstorm about literacy means, and the different types. At first I wrote, Literacy= reading and writing. Then, Narrative=1st person, written story. So I thought maybe we were telling a story about how or when we learned to read and write or maybe how well we are with reading and writing. By brainstorming, I learned that literacy can be interpreted in so many ways, such as, street literacy, social literacy, and emotional literacy. You will be able to view my brainstorming on the Literacy Narrative page. The first key concept that I engaged with was risk-taking. While writing the literacy narrative, I took a risk and wrote about something that was very personal. I dont normally write about personal issues, whether its about me, my family, or friends. You will read this next on the Literacy Narrative page, but here is a small snippet:
It shocked all of us at the table because we wouldve never thought that something so brutal was going on in her life Goose bumps start to form all over me. Everyones mouth dropped.

Scott 4 Hopefully, this makes your mind wonder about what the story is about and more eager to read it. Even though I knew it was a personal matter, I decided to write about it because it was a story that needed to be told to others. In this class, Ive learned that with writing, authors have to be able to take risks in order to gain new audiences. This includes writing about things that you arent comfortable with, exploring new ideas or writing styles, and narrative strategies. You could use this to see where I was in terms of my writing skills while coming in as a freshman student. I also took risks by adding dialogue into my paper. The last time I included dialogue in a paper was probably middle school. Crazy right? Its sadly true. When I did add dialogue, it wasnt as much as I added in this paper. Heres an example from the story:
Brittany started to cry out, Why her! Why us! What did we ever do to him? I whispered to her, Everything will be okay, just pray.

Something that was also helpful to me was my feedback from you and my peers. As we learned in, RespondingReally Respondingto Other Students Writing by Richard Straub, providing real feedback is not correcting grammatical or punctuation errors, but addressing the main idea or concept of the writing. Telling the author where they went wrong and how well they did in different areas. Here is some feedback from two of my peers:
-The detail in the draft was good, as it made me feel as if I was there.

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-It will capture even more emotion. You could do this in thoughts like, I couldnt imagine the suffering, and heartache she felt.

One peer gave me a compliment, the other gave me advice. Both feedbacks were useful. On your feedback, you wrote, As a reader, I felt rushed in 2 places I marked with a star... and then gave me some suggestions on how I could slow those paragraphs down a little. You can check this by going to this page and reviewing my final draft.

Midterm- feedback artifact 1 Next was the Midterm assignment. This assignment was fairly easy because we had to basically answer questions. I think it was a good assignment for us to get to see how much weve engaged in the course, and what weve learned. As I stated in my midterm paper, I wanted to start working on getting better at my writing process and revision. So, I decided to try and write this portfolio essay without out using my old technique (the one you hate), and just write whatever comes to mind without revising it in my head first. As I stated in my midterm paper, This class is helping me become more familiar with writing drafts. When I said writing drafts, I didnt just mean drafts of assignments, but also writing in my free time. I think that writing during my free time would enhance my writing skills, such as, being more comfortable with revising, the amount of time spent writing an assignment, and developing my own style of writing. On the feedback that you handed back you wrote, I do wonder, though, if anyone can be really successful in something that they hate? That made me think about myself and how my attitude is towards writing. Refer back to my feedback on the

Scott 6 Midterm page, it was one of the best feedback that I had received in this class. Though, I dont think that Im a bad writer, it made me feel proud about what I had written and gave great advice. I never like to write about things that arent interesting to me. I think that if I was a writer I would only write about my life, my views, beliefs, or other topics that are easy for me to talk about or spill out of me. However, thats not the way things are right now; I am told topics to write about. The point that I am trying to reach is that if I continue to tell myself that I dont like writing, then it will seriously affect my performance as a writer. The midterm assignment made me realize how much I am growing and that I could maybe come to like writing. WOW! I never thought I would say that. Lets just say Im beginning to understand or inquire what writing really is, and I dont hate it so much anymore. My Blog Now for the more hip part of my e-portfolio, I decided that the blogs would be next. The reason for this is for you to kind of stray away from the assignments and be able to read things that I REALLY think. Get to know whats going on with me, and better topics. I liked the blog post assignments because for me it felt more natural, or authentic, as Henry Doss would say, to write about my ideas or thoughts in a blog than in a research paper. I didnt have to be too serious. There is a difference in style and technique between the two genres. Not saying that I cant say what I truly feel in a more formal genre, it just flows or comes more natural. Here is an excerpt from Halloween Time! below:
-My favorite movies are the Disney Channel Halloween movies like, "Hocus Pocus," and "Halloweentown." I absolutely love these! I've been watching them since I was a kid.

Scott 7 Here is an excerpt from Evaluate and Reflect! below:

-This particular incident impacted my literacy, giving me a new way of dealing with certain people and situations. I plan to go into situations with a more soft approach and not judge people by their actions.

Take some time out to look at the blog post Halloween Time! and Evaluate and Reflect to sort of get a feel of how I write when the topic is casual or formal. G o through my blogs and see how my writing has progressed, or how my understanding of writing has changed. Genre Study- Process Artifact 2, 3 & Notebook Artifact 2 Last but not least is the Genre Analysis assignment, which is probably my favorite assignment from the rest. It didnt start off to be that way exactly. I thought, How could I write a three page essay with answering 8 simple questions? But, as I started to include quotes from the text, and answering the questions, it required much critical thinking and caused me to go more in depth with the context of the genre used and the intended purpose. For example, a piece from my essay reads, The schedule is also printed on a lavender sheet of paper. I think that they possibly made it this color because it is a feminine color and nursing is dominated mostly by women. This shows how I analyzed the genre, and the way I interpreted the color of the paper. While writing the genre study, I had a little trouble with either not adding enough details or adding details that didnt tie into the message. For example, in Draft 1 Part 3 I wrote,

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I think that the person or people who make these on formatting different genres are the same people whospecialize in administrative formatting or something. People who work for Microsoft, or maybe even God.

Here, you can tell that I wasnt really analyzing or inquiring the genre the correct way, instead I was sort of making up anything to say or just maybe was confused and didnt understand. When the complete Genre Study was due, we had a side-shadowing workshop activity. The side-shadowing activity made it easier for me to analyze and organize all three pieces of my Genre Study into a cohesive document. The side-shadowing activity sheet gave me step by step instructions on what to look for when reviewing, and think about what how well I present my analysis to the reader. For example, step 1 read, Identify the purpose of this paragraph Identify your topic sentence Do all the supporting sentences in you paragraph directly support the topic sentence? Identify the concluding sentence. Some of my side-shadowing comments read, Add more details here, no conclusion, and good supporting details. You will be able to view both the side-shadowing activity sheet, and some of the side-shadowing I did. A big point that I took from this assignment is why authors choose the genres that they do, and who makes the rules of the genres. To me, there are limitations and advantages to any genre, and the use of genres depends on the author. Also, the way they want the messages given to the intended audience. From reading, What is Genre and How Can it Help You? by Kathryn Evans, I learned that good writing involves adapting the way you write when using different genres. If you use particular genres often enough, and interact often with others who

Scott 9 use them, youll become increasingly confident when you read and write those genres (Evans 8). The key lesson that I took from this reading was to be a flexible writer. As my wild card, I decided to use the course syllabus because it was very essential to this class. For instance, it shows me the course description, the course theme, and other topics. Other important information it provided was how I will evaluated and what it consisted of, and the grading scale for the portfolio. Not to mention it helps me keep up with what assignments are due and what will be taking place in class. It might not have been essential to my reading and writing, but it was important to me to keep up with it. Based on what Ive presented and the e-Portfolio grading scale, I believe that I deserve an A in this course. My portfolio is complete, I thoughtfully arranged and made it easily navigable to view, and completed all of my assignments to the best of my ability. I also thoroughly explained and illustrated my engagement with the key concepts, and clearly explained my growth as a writer by quoting and analyzing my writing throughout the course. I deserve an A because I actually learned in this class. Usually, English classes are all about grammar, punctuation, writing journals, and a paper or two. English 1101 teaches you what writing is and how to be able to use language to tell stories, and how to understand not only your writing and development, but others as well. Ive grown tremendously in this course, and Ive gained knowledge about writing that I didnt know before. I think that you can agree with me from reviewing each piece Ive posted on my Weebly. Ive been able to relate some readings to the class and to life. My poor attitude towards writing before this class has changed to being okay with it.