Anda di halaman 1dari 4

Dear Malcolm,

As I prepare my e-portfolio, I find it interesting to see where I was at the beginning of the semester and where I am now. Our first assignment, the letter to Malcolm, was practically the same who am I letter I have given every one of my English teachers up to this point. I covered all of the important things I could think of and produced the final work mindlessly. I had no clue what I was in for this semester. I got the paper back, and was disappointed in my grade. I knew I could have done better, but I didnt think it would show as much as it did. I realized then that I had been going through the motions for far too long. No longer were my papers interesting to read because they lacked thought. I was in a routine. Teacher wants paper, student gives teacher paper, student gets grade. Breaking this habit was not going to be an easy one but I had a feeling that my success in this class depended on it. Our second writing assignment was the topic proposal. For a little while, I was really stressing about the whole thing. I was picking out a subject to research for the whole semester, not to mention the fact that it would account for a huge part of my grade. I have several interests but none that I thought I could write seven plus pages about. What helped me out a lot was all of the free writes we did in class. I went through my lists of topics I had written down in a previous free write and decided to go with the healthcare crisis. A few free writes later, I found myself in a never-ending circle of questions that I couldnt answer and didnt want to bother trying. The topic proposal was the most challenging assignment of the semester. This is due to the fact that I wasnt 100% in to my topic and lacked the interest to prepare good research. After preparing my topic proposal for the US health care crisis, I decided it would be the best to switch topics. So I referred back to my daybook. On January 21st, I wrote in my daybook, My gut reaction to a good topic is a controversial topic. I

want people to judge me for it. I dont want people to be on my side. If I could have it my way, everyone would be against me. I would present my final work, and watch the looks on everyones faces as the predisposition slowly faded away and was replaced by fact. This led me to pick my final topic. I chose to argue on the behalf of cannabis plant and why it should be made legal. This was both a controversial and relevant topic. The bias of America is basically split in half when it comes to this question. I was a bit behind since I had changed my topic, so I had a lot to do before the next assignment, the fast draft. I started out on it like any other paper. Do some research and write just go at it, no prewrite or anything. Four pages later I found myself somewhat worried. I had a lot of words written down but still wasnt accomplishing what I needed to. Of course, my grade showed. I had spent way too much talking about the history of marijuana and not enough time talking about what is happening now and what to do about it. The feedback I received was exactly the push I need in the right direction. I had a lot of work to do before our next assignment, which was the research presentation. We were required to go into depth about research and prove the credibility of a few of our sources. This helped me realize that writing has less to do with what you actually put on the paper, and was more focused upon how and why those words got there. I had been doing a lot of telling and not enough asking. It is through inquiry that we decide what to write. I asked myself several questions, answered them, and found myself asking more. Why was weed made illegal? Answer. Why is it still illegal? Answer. Why should it be legal? Answer.etc. It was my job to decide what the reader needed to know, and I had to ask myself what questions other people would ask me. Actually doing my presentation taught me another valuable piece of the research process. I learned the importance of proving a sources credibility. If you arent getting information from a reliable source, then what you have to say is also unreliable. This is critical when it comes to writing a research paper.

Preparing the actual presentation was also helpful in allowing me to get all of my thoughts together in a way similar to an outline, paving the way for the rest of my project. For my second draft I kept some of the original draft but summarized most of it. I started new and stayed more on focus than I had the first time. Still, my work seemed unfinished towards the end, and I left the reader with some questions that I would have to answer in my final revision. Along with comments from the professor, the peer review offered insight on what was unclear or missing from my paper. Feedback is critical to a writer. It is good for someone to read your paper that doesnt have the writers bias. I was able to point out grammatical errors and fix where I may have wandered off topic some. A big thing I learned was everything that had to do with MLA. Where to put parenthetical citation and how to properly construct a works cited page was always mysterious to me. Going over these things in class and in the library helped me better myself as an academic writer. For these reasons, the second draft was probably the most important assignment this year. Even though I wasnt completely finished, I found out that when you think you are done, there is always room for improvement. This is an important in my writing and in my life as a student. Just because you do something well doesnt mean you should not try to go beyond that. It is essential to always keep moving forward. When your reach your goals, you set new ones. Also it helped me pinpoint my strengths and weaknesses as a writer. I discovered I can use a lot more help at MLA. Another thing I struggle with is overdoing things. What I mean by this is that I write a lot of irrelevant things just to take up space, and make everything sound good. I need to focus more about the topic because a lot of times this draws me off the path. My strengths are intuition and sentence structure. I have a pretty good capability of taking information I have found through research and elaborating on that with my own ideology. It helps that I can put sentences together in a way that makes the paper less boring to read. With all

of the assignments leading up to the finished copy, it was easy to produce the final paper. My title and introduction were both replies to a free write topic in class. Revisions came from any mistakes I noticed going over it and the advice given by Professor Campbell and peers. I was finally done. The only thing left in my way of completing this class was the e-portfolio. The EIP as a whole was definitely a pain for the most part but looking back I can appreciate everything it has helped reinforce. I dont know if my writing has improved at a significant level but I know that my way of thinking will make it stronger. Ive learned to ask questions and never stop at what you think is good enough. I especially learned that procrastination is not at all the best way to go about things. Moral of the semester: Everyone has room to improve and I am nowhere close to being done.

Ryan Bargoil

Anda mungkin juga menyukai