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Keylee Brown
Ingram
UWRT 1101
11/24/14
Final Portfolio Essay
I have to say throughout my first semester of college I have seen my writing
change drastically. When I was in high school, I use to just please the teacher and
not me as the writer. The essays in high school I did not have any interest in and I
dreaded writing my papers. I remember one paper being about Beowulf and that
was the worst to write because that type of literature did not interest me. As I have
been in this writing class this semester, I am free to write about whatever I please as
long as it fits to the essay. Being able to write about whatever I please has allowed
me to realize that a strength I have is working with inner and spoken dialogue
which I did not know I was good at until now. Throughout this paper I will explain
my e-Portfolio and the essays it contains.
FPE

I put this essay first because it will explain the rest of my e-portfolio more in

depth. On this page would be my first draft of my final portfolio essay, the finished
product of my final portfolio essay, and a picture of a butterfly. This essay explains
the work I have done this semester and why it is included in my e-Portfolio. I
thought I would I would include the first draft of this essay as a process piece to
show the change that happened from my first draft to my final product. In my first
draft, I really just got all my thoughts down. It was in the order that I thought that I
would sound best and it just really all need to be re-written.

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In my final draft I found it much more organized and easier to follow by
adding subtitles. I did not quite realize how much subtitles could really help with the
flow of a paper until reading another paper with subtitles. I separated each of my
pages throughout my paper so that my reader could focus on what page I am
referring to. I found this paper to be a huge undertaking of having to reflect on the
whole semester. I find the difference between the first draft to the final to be like a
caterpillar turning into a butterfly. I found the quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupryl
that says, Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become
acquainted with the butterflies. to fit my paper. If I want my paper to be a great I
have to go through a not so pretty drafts. I also included a picture of a butterfly as
symbolism and as a visual mode that the change that happened throughout this
essay and that something not so pretty can become beautiful.
Though this essay and others throughout the semester, I have got out of my
comfort zone. I am one that hates to write about myself because in my mind I can
never find anything good to say. That is another reason that this paper was such a
challenge to write because I had to write good things about my writing. I never
thought and still sometimes think that my writing isnt great. This class however,
has made me more comfortable writing about myself and has made it not the
challenge I thought it was before.
Literacy Narrative
Since this was the second essay that we done this semester, I decided to talk
about it next. I have to say that the Literacy Narrative was a fun essay to write and it
is where I found my strengths in writing. On this page, I included the first draft, third

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draft, my final, and a picture of the project I wrote my essay about. I included my
first draft as a process piece because for the first draft we wrote about all the ways
that we were literate. This made me really think since I have not really thought
about what I was literate in other than just reading. This was the first paper in years
that I was free to pick what to include in my paper and make it my own.
I decided to include the third draft as a process and feedback artifact because
this is when we had to narrow down the topic to one time that I was literate and the
feedback I got back from Alexis and Ms. Ingram to be very helpful. I decided to write
about a project that I had never done in art because it was fun and a challenge so I
really learned a lot with this project. During this essay, I learned I have a strength in
inner and spoken dialogue. Many of my peers and Ms. Ingram found them wanting
more dialogue throughout. I found that it made the essay more personal and
interesting. If I would have just wrote I wondered what paper quilling was instead of
What the heck is paper quilling? It would not have allowed my reader to see what I
was thinking at that moment. Through the spoken dialogue it allowed my reader to
see the relationship between the people and me in my art class. I could have simply
said Mr. Noles rolled over in his chair and asked why I had not start, but that doesnt
show our relationship. By me writing `Mr. Noles rolls over in his chair like he always
does, it shows that I have known him for longer than I had the class and also adds a
personal touch.
Before this essay, I had never really used my own inner and outer dialogue. I
wrote papers about pieces of literature, but when I get to make it personal I will
definitely include my inner and outer dialogue. I also learned that I needed to

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explain things better to people who may not know as much about art based off Ms.
Ingrams comment, I had to look up because I couldnt envision it based off your
descriptions. This let me know that some of the wording and adding pictures to
help the description. This shows me using the key concept of using that received
feedback to better my paper.
My final essay shows what the final product was after all the editing and
tweaking that had been done. I also included a picture of my final project so that
people could see the project that I actually had done. By adding picture to my page, I
gave my readers a visual to look at and all my drafts would be making this page
linguistic. Out of all the papers this paper made me really find myself as a writer.
Portrait of a Writer
I have to say that my portrait of a writer paper had to be the one that I
enjoyed writing the most and take most pride in. In this page I included pictures of
me riding, some of my favorite horse quotes, my first draft, my third draft, Laurens
introduction and conclusion, and my final draft. I spent a lot of time of this page and
paper because this I can relate the most to this paper as I have done horseback
riding since I was a little kid. Like most activities that people enjoy doing actually
have aspects that are also in writing and mine happen to be writing and horseback
riding. I wanted to add pictures so that people can see why I wrote a piece about
writing and horseback riding which gave my page a visual mode.
In my first draft, which I added as a process work I made sure I answered all
the questions that need to be answered, but the structure of the paragraphs, were
jumpy since I went from horseback riding in one sentence to writing in another. I

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knew it needed to be organized better so I kept the paragraphs the same, but moved
sentences around so that it would be easier to follow. In the paragraph about our
writing rituals I had in my first draft Once you get your writing assignment, you
have to come up with your main idea of your paper. You have to put the saddle pad
on the horse before the rest of the saddle can go on your horse. That is how the rest
of the paragraph went transitioning and it just did not flow well. In my final draft I
wrote When you go to saddle a horse you get all the things you need such as the
saddle pad, saddle, and the girth and finished talking about saddle a horse then
transitioned into how it related to write by saying, When I go to write a paper, I like
to get all the information together before I start writing and finished talking about
my writing process. This made my paragraphs flow much better and made it easier
to read.
I included my last draft as a feedback piece as I found this feedback to be very
helpful and let me not leave my readers with questions while they read my paper.
One question that I did not answer that I answered better after receiving feedback
was the question Ms. Ingram asked about what I needed to write a paper. In that
paragraph on page four I addressed it indirectly by saying, you have to think of all
the research or information that you need when I should have said I have to think
of all the research or information I need. As a wildcard, I had to choose to include
Laurens introduction and conclusion. If it was not for her clever title Horseback
Writing I would have never thought to name my paper this. I also like the way
Lauren said things in her conclusion like, Every rider and every writer have their

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own unique ways of riding a horse and writing a paper which is why I included it in
my paper.
In my final and all throughout my drafts, I was able to complete one of the
key concepts of our class by making a connection between horseback riding and
writing. I never would have thought to even do this before reading a sample
portfolio where they compared them as a writer to basketball. Also by adding all the
drafts and quotes to the page, it allows my page to have a linguistic mode. But like
Katie Purdent says. To Ride a horse well, You have to know It as well as your best
friend. Just like a paper, you have to know a subject well to write about it.
Midterm
On my midterm page I just put my midterm because I did not really know
what else should be included on this page but my midterm. Our midterm could be
kind of be considered a half way through the semester essay based off the questions
Ms. Ingrams asked us. This also allowed us to prepare to write reflectively on the
semester so that we could be somewhat prepared to write this paper. Out of all the
questions I find that the favorite revision had to be the on I like the best and the one
I done well on for Ms. Ingram to refer people to it that so they can rewrite theirs.
Blog
I found the blogs kind of helpful to an extent. There are some of blogs that I
did not see as very helpful. However, by writing blogs we were able to able to write
casually about a subject. The blog I found the most helpful would be our last blog
post that we done about our e-portfolio. I found that this let me get everything that I
had done with my e-portfolio down and what there is still to be done.

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Other Artifacts
On this page I put artifacts that did not really have to do with anything in
particular with the major essays. I found the wildcard, Peer Review Dos and Donts,
artifact helpful since before this semester I had not really known how to peer
workshop a paper. In high school, we just turned them into the teacher because our
teachers knew we would not really edit each other papers. This let me know what
and what not to do while I was reviewing a peers paper this semester and I can take
this on with me even if my teachers do not require us to peer edit, but a peer wants
a second pair of eyes.
Another thing that I found help this semester was the rhetorical awareness
that I put in my e-Portfolio from my writers notebook. In high school, my teachers
hardly ever touched on this because we were so busy reading literature or writing
papers about that literature and did not exactly have time to go over rhetorical
devices. It was really nice to finally actually learn rhetorical devices so that I can use
them later on in my college career.
I found the Reader Response Letter Number four dealing with Writing tips
and tips for writing for college success to be very helpful and interesting. A few of
the tips that Dam Melzer wrote about figuring out the genre and looking at the
rubric I have done for years so that I way I know for sure that I am hitting all the of
the points that my teacher wants me hit. Something I had never heard of that
Nathan Timm gives about writing for college success would be to give yourself an
hour to get an assignment done. This made me focus more on the assignment, but it

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also made me feel rushed to get it done. I may do if I am short for time with a lot to
do, but I will not make it a habit.
Conclusion
Based on what I have in my e-portfolio and the effort I have put into this class
I think I deserve an A. I find my page to be arranged thoughtfully and is easy to
navigate through while being pleasing to the eye. I also think by reading this paper
compared to my first paper you can just tell the growth in my writing and the work
that still need to be done. I also think that my e-portfolio does not leave any
unanswered questions about my work. I have learned a lot this semester about
writing and made me not dread writing papers as much anymore. It has made me
actually enjoy writing papers now since I am able to put my own spin on my
assignments.