Final Portfolio Essay

HOME PAGE
When starting the organization of my e-Portfolio, I wanted to make sure that my
home page was organized to represent me as a writer. I wanted to make the visual
mode of communication easy to understand by making the layout simple and the colors
very basic. I am a very relaxed person and wanted my Weebly page to express the
same feeling. At the very top I have pictures of uptown Charlotte because I enjoy living
here and getting used to the big city. Next to the picture I have written an introduction to
my audience so they feel welcome to look at my site where I said I am really excited
about other people reading my blogs and other assignments. Below the picture and
introduction I have included my Final Portfolio Essay. Throughout my essay I have been
able to explain and analyze the purpose of my Weebly and the reasons I have included
what I have. The pictures below my essay is of my best friend, Anna and me. They are
shown because she has been part of my literacy knowledge for 18 years. I have always
been able to go to her for anything, including writing and ways I need to improve. When
giving me new ideas about my essays she said, Try to elaborate and dont be so
original with your writing. The couple pictures I used represent a gestural mode
because my best friend and I are happy to have been friends with each other so long
and have such an impact on each others lives. Being in the same writing class has
helped us become better at helping each other in writing conflicts that come up. I can
always depend on her for helpful hints and ideas to add to my writing.

BLOG/MIDTERM PAGE

For my Blog/Midterm page I have included six blogs where I have shared my
opinions on topics we have been assigned to talk about. Throughout each blog I have
been able to see myself improve as a writer. I have enjoyed being able to go back and
reread everything I have written to see how much I have come out of my comfort zone.
In the very first blog post I said Academics in college will be much harder than they
were in high school and I am slightly nervous that I may not be completely prepared for
it. I must say that I feel like I have adjusted very well and am very proud of myself for
the successes I have accomplished in my Freshman year. In the same tab I also
included my Midterm paper to conclude everything I learned for the first half of the
semester. I enjoyed writing my midterm because I was able to recognize that I am the
only person responsible for my own learning. As I was writing my Midterm paper I stated
that the only way to become a successful writer is to get out of my comfort zone and try
something new when writing. I enjoyed my BLOG/MIDTERM tab because it shows who
I am as a writer and how much I have improved over the semester.

LITERACY NARRATIVE PAGE

My Literacy Narrative tab shows intellectual growth and maturity. At the top of my
page is my final draft, which is most important to my audience because it is the outcome
of what I have written. Once you begin scrolling down the page I have included a few
processes to completing this assignment. I have set up this page in a way to make it
easy for the reader to understand. I used two separate slide shows to incorporate easy
access to my draft papers for my audience. This paper shows how my literacy author in
high school, Mrs. Clark helped me become part of who I am today. In my Literacy

Narrative I said, Even though I wasnt confident that I could make an A on this test, she
continued to encourage me to take it anyways. It it amazing how the encouragement of
a teacher can help me become a better person.

PORTRAIT OF A WRITER PAGE

Continuing right along the tabs, I have included the Portrait of A Writer page. This
starts off with the final draft of my essay, just as my Literacy Narrative page. I also
include a couple other processes to help the reader understand how I went about
writing this paper. Each of these processes helped me learn what I needed to include or
what not to include in my final draft. Geena gave me great advice by rewriting my
introduction and conclusion paragraphs. Even though I didnt use everything she
changed, I used a great amount of it. Something she wrote that I added to my
introduction was, Though I am mathematically minded, writing can still be interesting
and fun especially when I enjoy the topic. As I read the sentence Geena had helped me
with, I used part of it in my final draft. I reworded it a little to say, I am mathematically
minded, but writing can still be interesting when I enjoy the topic I am writing about. I
enjoyed having Geena as a peer to help me out and complete my final draft to
perfection.

WRITERS NOTEBOOK PAGE

I organized a tab for my Writers Notebook information so that the reader could
see types of writing that I included in my notebook throughout the semester. Even
though I wasn't able to include everything, I included what was most important to me. I

set this page up to make it simple for the reader to pick up on and understand as they
were scrolling through my page. In one of my Reader Response Letters, I was able to
take in new information that I would have otherwise never thought of. I said I have
never thought about the word recursive and what it means when writing an essay. I
was able to take the word recursive and keep it in mind as I wrote this paper so that it all
related and made sense no matter where the reader begins to read from.

MISCELLANEOUS PAGE
I also included a Miscellaneous tab where I could include other writing artifacts
that helped me think critically and outside of the box through other classes. I took
writings from other courses and was able to connect them to my writing course. I
organized this piece to genuinely impress my readers that I was able to make
connections to this class, outside of the class itself. A statement I made in my Out of
Class Experience essay for my UCOL class says As I work hard to be a leader, I need
to realize that it is okay to fail at something, but learning from failures is the best way to
move forward. When learning new content in my Writing 1101 class, I learned that I
would only succeed if I tried something new. I took my learned information and took it to
other classes with me and used my strategy to success.

Each piece of my writing has been placed into my Weebly because it has specific
meaning to me and the process of learning I have experienced this semester. First of all
what you are reading is my Final Portfolio Essay. The purpose of this piece of writing is
to help you understand my entire webpage without even looking at it. I feel that this is

the most important piece of writing I have written thus far because I am taking all of my
knowledge from the semester and using that to write a paper. As for my second tab I
have included so much useful information because it is where my semester actually
began. Each and every BLOG post shows how I have transitioned over the semester
and how I have improved as an individual writer. As you read my blog post from past to
present, you will see that I have learned better ways to write and explain myself from
topic to topic. One of my blogs I actually rewrote because the first answer I included
didn't seem correct based on the question that was asked by Ms. Ingram. She said,
This statement was less about students conforming to the English language; rather, it
was more about students conforming to the academic dialect of "standard" American
English. How does that change your assessment? Even though I realized I made a
mistake, I was able to rewrite my answer because of the great feedback I got during the
semester. My MIDTERM paper is also embedded in my blog post page because it
shows what I think about my progress half way through the semester. It is awesome to
be able to read a paper and see what I think about myself then and how I have changed
in a matter of weeks. Writing for me has not always been the easiest subject, but I have
been able to discuss my flaws through wiring which has helped me actually improve.
I have included my LITERACY NARRATIVE because it was a major assignment
we had to write about. This piece of writing was the first paper I wrote in college
therefore I started out struggling to get out of bad habits I had in high school. Draft
number one, which is part of the work process I included was very important for me.
This is where I started writing with no help from anyone. In high school I always
depended on my teacher to help get me started with my writings so that I knew I was

perfectly on track. This wasn't the case for my first draft in college. It was time to turn
into a young adult and write my own paper. Even though this draft wasn't my best, I was
able to get helpful feedback from a couple of my peers. For my paper, it was important
to show details both before and after taking my math exam. My second draft was a
brainstorming piece where I closed my eyes and used my five senses to figure out the
specific details I left out and needed to include in my paper. This process of work was
more important than any other process used throughout working on my Literacy
Narrative. The brainstorming activity actually made a difference in my final draft. I
enjoyed being able to take this draft and include it into the next draft I wrote. My draft
three was almost perfect! After adding an extreme amount of detail I was able to get just
a few more ideas from my peers and teacher. Even though this was only ideas and hints
to making a few changes, it helped me think of better ways to explain my ideas and
finish my paper off to perfection. One of my peers, Kiran Koirala gave good advice to
me and said, It would be great if you used transition from before and after the test to
describe the way you felt during both of those times. I was able to take his advice and
use it in my final draft because I agreed with his statement. Getting feedback from other
people is important to me and my process of writing.
Writing the PORTRAIT OF A WRITER essay was the most difficult piece for me
this semester. It took so much thought and effort to think and write about who I am when
it comes to writing. Even though it was difficult for me to write, I enjoyed writing it
because I like challenges. Not only was this piece a challenge to me, but it was also a
challenge to my peers to help give feedback. When getting my paper edited, Geena
said, I am worried that my editing isnt going to help you out because I dont know who

you are as a writer. Even though Geena was worried about the feedback she was
giving me, her advice turned out much more helpful than she expected. Having a peer
to take ideas from helped me tremendously in this essay. My final draft turned out better
than I assumed it would and I cant wait for you to read it and enjoy what I have came
up with. My favorite part about the process was getting a feedback artifact from my
peers. I enjoyed them completely rewriting my introduction and conclusion part of my
essay. It gave me a different view point that I would have otherwise not been able to add
to my final draft. This piece has been important to me because not only did my peers
give great feedback, but they helped me start and finish my paper also.
Something else I enjoyed when editing the PORTRAIT OF A WRTIER essay was
getting taking the time to edit the paper myself. I took time to look at my own mistakes
and be more crucial to myself than my peers would probably be. I was hard on myself
when editing my own paper because I was determined to make corrections. When
giving myself a hard time editing, it made it easy to fix my errors and complete my final
draft perfectly. In my editing process I wrote information such as, this needs to be
reworded and conclude this paragraph so peers understand how I transitioned. I was
able to take my new ideas and apply them to my final draft, which was rewarding to me
when I read through my essay.
My WRITERS NOTEBOOK has been very helpful throughout this class. I have
been able to go back and look over the information I have learned to help me when
writing my papers. First, I included one of my Reader Response Letters because it
shows how I have improved on articulating reading and learned to respond on how I felt
about what I read. I think that it is important to have my own opinion on other peoples

writings because everyone has their own ideas. I also included one more important
notebook artifact that I feel was important to me. Notes on comma splices and run-on
sentences helped me understand how to use punctuation correctly in my writing. In my
notes I wrote about comma splices and run-on sentences which helped me understand
better when it was time to write an essay. Even though I learned information like such in
high school, it has become easy to forget. It was good for me to review the concept.
In my MISCELLANEOUS tab I have included one more important feedback
artifact. A comment from a blog post helped me realize that one of my post was not
answered correctly. If it wasn't for this comment I wouldn't have known to reread the
question and submit a better answer. Thankfully feedback has been a great piece of
information when writing.
In my Freshman Orientation class (UCOL)I have had to write a few papers and
journal entries for assignments. I specifically included a journal entry because it shows
explanation and the process or writing I have learned in my writing class. I enjoy the fact
that I can take learned information from this class into other classes I am taking. I
specifically talked about my future leadership role and how I need to focus on being a
leader now, so that I will be a great leader in the future. In this writing I was excited to
talk about myself and show how I planned to become a successful leader.
In the same Freshman Orientation class I also had to write a few papers on an
Out of Class Experience. This specific paper was based on the International Coffee
Hour. I can relate this to writing because I used information that I learned in class to
write a paper for my UCOL class. I like being able relate my writing styles to other
classes besides writing class.

Over the semester I feel that my writing has grown. I enjoy having access to my
drafts and prewritings, unlike I was in high school. I like being able to look at my past
progress and see what I have improved on. At the very beginning of the class I wrote in
my very first blog post, Academics in college will be much harder then they were in
high school and I am slightly nervous that I may not be completely prepared for it. As I
have been through the course I have realized that even though it has been tougher than
high school, Writing 1101 has been much more helpful. In my sixth blog post I said, As
I have written blog post over the time of this semester, I have seen quite an
enhancement of my work. I have been able to describe what I am trying to say better
than I was when I first started this class. When I think about what I am writing, I have
learned better techniques to figuring out what to say. I am very proud of the
improvements I have made throughout this class. The progress I have made has been
much more superior than the work I did in high school.
As I look back through my Weebly and re-read my Final Portfolio Essay, I feel
that I deserve an A. I have done my best to explain all artifacts in details so my reader
can understand the reason for everything I have included. I have been able to show the
growth and maturity I have succeeded in through the artifacts I selected to put on my
Weebly. Quotes from other peers and my teacher has been included to show how their
ideas helped better my writing. I have also quoted and analyzed pieces of my articles in
my Final Portfolio Essay to prove my growth in this course. It has been a great
experience learning new material and applying it to the essays I write.