engl-portfolio essay- final draft

7/30/2019 ENGL-Portfolio Essay- Final Draft

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Portfolio Essay

My portfolio that I have created on my Weebly site demonstrates my effort that I

have put forth in this English course, and it also showcases some of my best work along

with examples and evidence of how my writing has grown throughout the course of this

semester. Having the experience of being in this English class, I have had the

opportunity to change my thinking about writing and how it should be done. It exposed

me to different types of genres and made me feel more comfortable in the manner in

which I compose my writing. The way in which I have organized my course portfolio

reflects the process that I went through when writing the multiple drafts of each of my

essays, and it also shows the activities and feedback that really influenced my thinking

about my writing and how I created the final polished drafts of each of my major

assignments. First of all, I placed all of the final drafts of all of my pieces under one of

the tabs so that my final, edited, and finished work could all be displayed in one place.

The rest of my work is organized basically by each essay that I completed along with all

of the artifacts which have supplemented my writing process to produce my final copies

of the pieces.

Although the WILTBY essay was one of the required pieces of the portfolio, I also

used this essay as a part of my Process Work along with several other items in

different areas which are related to the WILTBY essay and my process of creating a

final draft of this piece. The draft that I used in the process work section is my

handwritten first draft with comments from my group members and also from myself

after reading my essay over again during the group workshop. I feel like that I received


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very helpful feedback particularly on this first essay. The questions that I wrote for

revision while reading over my essay aided me in the process of revising to give more

detail in what I was saying to my audience, and they helped me get more of a readers

view on my own paper. The feedback from my group members was also very helpful

when it came to my revision process because they also posed questions that I had not

even considered before. They gave me a reader so that I would know if my writing was

effective or if I needed to head in a different direction with my voice. On this particular

essay, my group members helped me by letting me know that the approach that I was

attempting to take was not having the effect on the reader that I was hoping it was going

to. I was attempting to let the reader see how I thought by listing things in a very long

list, such as the things I am made of, but the comments that I received made me see

that I needed to break them up a bit and talk more about each element that I had listed.

I had not had a reader for my writing except for teachers who just edited the papers for

punctuation and sentence structures and things such as this. This brings me to another

section of the portfolio that is represented, the Responses category. I placed the

WILTBY essay responses that I gave and received in this portion of the portfolio

because I felt that they were very important components which contributed to my growth

in my writing and in the course as a whole. The comments helped me add things to my

essay in order to help my reader really understand what it is like to be me in my life right

at this time. Some specific comments which greatly aided in the final writing of this

essay are, I am not following this sentence, consider rewording, and How could you

slow down in a few places and really explain? My WILTBY essay was also

supplemented in part by the visit by David Siedel to our classroom. While we were


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my research question. It also made the process of writing my research paper easier

because I had somewhere to refer to while I was tying in my opinions and thoughts with

the voices of the other sources I had found. Looking through the sources, while

deciding which of them I would actually be using in my research essay or to form my

own opinion, I gained a more clear understanding of the sources and of what the

conversation was that was going on already before I entered it. The sources just listed

on a page helps a little when writing a paper, but when there are annotations that go

along with the sources, it is easier to decide which information will go in which part of

the essay. Also, when it is going to be a while before you start something that you will

use the sources for, such as the research paper in our class, it is best to leave yourself

notes so that you do not completely forget everything that you have learned about the

subject. The annotated bibliography assignment was a very beneficial to the research

portion of my process of completing the argumentative research essay on my topic of

government and food regulation. Although this assignment was not one of the most

major ones that we completed during the course, it still played a major role in my writing

process.

I have set aside a separate page just to show what I have learned throughout the

course and how I have learned those things along the way. This page consists of the

Daily Entries portion of the portfolio requirements and the Artifact portion as well.

The fish activity that we completed for a warm-up activity along with the free writing

activity based on the question, What is good writing? opened my eyes in a way to a

new kind of writing. After we discussed the meaning of these two assignments, I had a

better understanding of how writing is in the real world compared to how I was taught to


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write when I was in high school and even in lower grades. I learned from these

activities that there is not really a set form or a correct way to write something as I had

previously been made to believe so that I could write the right way in order to get a

good grade on a paper or on a test. From these I gained insight into more of the art

form of writing rather than writing in a uniform fashion just so that I can pass an exam to

get a grade and then never think again about the piece that I wrote. I have learned that

good writers have readers and that it is important for me to also read my own writing

myself so that I can change things that I did not notice before. I learned that with a

reader, I get useful feedback from the very ones who I am trying to convince in my

writing, and I need to know how I am coming across to them and if I am being effective

or not. The blogger assignment is also under this category. The blogger was a very

new thing for me, and I really enjoyed using it to reflect on my work and also to think

about what my next move would be in regards to the course. While completing these

assignments, I often found that if I did have a question about my writing or about my

topic or anything of the sort, I would end up answering my own questions before I was

finished with the blog post. It was a very helpful tool in reflecting on what I was doing in

the different pieces we were working on because the questions that had to be answered

made me actually think about what I was doing and also think about why I was doing it.

The final section that I have organized in the portfolio is centered on the 3-Sided

assignment. The 3-Sided essay is in the portion, Process Work in the portfolio. I have

to say that this assignment was the most helpful in preparing to write the first draft of my

argumentative research essay. The 3-Sided essay helped me to organize the three

groups that I was going to use for the conversation that was going on in the professional


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world. It made it much easier to decide upon what my voice would be in regards to the

subject and how I would enter into the conversation that was already going on. The

visual aid was also a part of the 3-Sided assignment requirements, and it is under the

Responses portion of the portfolio. I chose to use this piece because at first, I took the

wrong approach to the assignment. I created pictures to go along with the groups that I

had chosen to use in my research essay. When we were work-shopping those

assignments in class, Shane made a comment on my paper about how I needed to not

just make fun of the groups with the pictures, but rather share the viewpoint of the

group. This response really helped me on the visual and in my writing because it

helped me to realize that I needed to rearrange some things so that I was actually giving

viewpoints and not criticizing people.

Overall, I have learned a lot in this class from learning when and when not to add

my voice into an essay to giving feedback to other people that will help to make their

writing better as well. I feel like this course has been very beneficial to me in so many

different ways. I believe that I deserve about a B in this course because most of the

time, I have had my work in by the due date and I have effectively work-shopped as well

as taken the feedback I am given and revise my works to make them better; however, I

have gotten papers in late once or twice and have been absent several times. Overall, I

feel that I have performed slightly above average in the class.

engl-portfolio essay- final draft

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