portfolio essay (1) (1)

8/13/2019 Portfolio Essay (1) (1)

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TyQuan Pugh

Prof. Ingram

English 1101

November 22, 2013

The Not-So-Scary Beginning

My expectations for my first college English course were that I was going to have write

papers no shorter than 5 pages and they were going to be due every week. Also that we were

going to read books and have to research papers on all of them. So honestly I was prepared but I

wasn’t mentally prepared for all of that stress and headache. But I was totally wrong! The first

day of class when we were going over the syllabus, the first thing that came to mind was that I

was going to actually learn something in my English class this year because before the only thing

I learned was how to analyze different point of views of a book and then write an essay on what I

analyzed. On the syllabus, the key concepts caught my attention because that seemed like some

things that needed to make me a better paper writer, a better reader, and a better person in a way.

I elaborate more on that in my key concepts part of the essay. But I’m glad I had the opportunity

to have an English class like this because the class was different. Also we didn’t have any test!

My e-portfolio only has 3 main tabs. The first tab is my home page that consists of weird

pyramid pictures that shows my obsession with pyramids. Also there is a slideshow with pictures

of me during my sports career in High school. Below that is a video I used to watch before every

game in my computer class to get me hype for the game. The first tab is to let the viewer know a



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bullet. Go with the easiest bullet first and maybe that bullet might inspire you to write something

about the others. This Portfolio essay tied everything that we did in the course together.

Anything that I was unclear about went along with something else and once I started my essay

and started gathering my artifacts, I noticed that a lot of things we did in class from the first day

to the last day all go together at some point.

On the literacy narrative sub tab, the two process artifacts are the draft and the brainstorming

picture. I chose that piece of notebook paper in my notebook because throughout the whole

course that was the only evidence of brainstorming I had. That process of brainstorming actually

helped me pick a topic to write about and made the assignment a lot easier. So this made me

realize that even though I don’t l ike brainstorming, I like going right into it, that getting all my

thoughts on paper first will make everything much smoother. The rough draft helped learn that I

need to reread my papers before I turn them in because in that draft there are a lot of

grammatically errors and way more room for elaboration. My wild card is my theatre post on my

blog. This blog post was about my understanding and definition of literacy. Then I went into

explaining how I found another side of myself outside of all of the hype and popularity. This

helped with my learning because it showed me that I needed to try new things and maybe it’ll

something that I would like or enjoy. Like with weebly, after that post I started to try to

experiment with weebly more and have fun with it. I t’s all about what you are willing to do and

if you’re willing to try to have fun with whatever you’re doing. My final draft has all types of

dialogue from the plays I did unlike my first draft. This essay also taught me to actually take the

time and research because you never know what you can find. I found that play and I used that as

my quotes in my essay because before I couldn’t find any. With those quotes, I was able to

elaborate more and more ideas came to mind to help boost my essay. I went from just saying



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what the play was about to “… So I felt like this was the perfect role for me. “ Actor. ….. Like I

said my mother’s got me in her clutches, but that doesn’t stop my father from trying to snag me.

Like last weekend, for example, my father called, asking if he could see me. My mother said no,

because she’d already made other plans for us. Then, like every other time, they scream and yell,

curse each other out, and it always ends up with one of them slamming down the phone….” I

was able to give my reader a visual of what the play was about and how I could relate to it so

well.

Answering questions is pretty easy and straight forward. That’s what I did with my

midterm but it took a little more thought than usual. This assignment really taught me the big

jump between high school and college. At first it didn’t seem that much of dif ference until I

found myself drowning in work and having to stay on top of managing my time so I could get all

of my work done. My own experiences helped me write this paper. I was also able to engage

with one of the key concepts, curiosity. I took a shot at it to see if I knew what it meant because I

wasn’t really sure why it was so important. Then I thought about what the actual word curiosity

meant and I saw that in English I was somewhat curious about my next assignment, how was i

going to affect Ms.Ingram, what mood did my paper bring, and what I should write about or how

to organize my paper the correct way. After I received my feedback, I was told that I had the

right idea in mind and I was on the right track. In this class I think everyone engages with

curiosity the most because you always have to wonder what type of energy or message your

paper is going to bring to your audience. My feedback article from Ms. Ingram was very helpful

because I couldn’t figure out how to answer the last question, so I just didn’t add it into my

essay. I didn’t think about looking into my own writing to help me find my answer. That just



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tells me to be aware and use ALL of your resources, including your own work. The midterm

final essay helped me not only just in class but was a reminder to stay focused and get everything

done on time. I learned that there is a difference between high school and college. How big the

difference is depends on the person and how they take advantage of the college opportunities.

Also it opened my mind to how different English was in high school and college. How many

different ways I can approach a paper or how to expand my writing when I don’t think there is

nothing else to add.

The genre study assignment helped with research like some of the other previous essays. When

we first got the assignment, I was saying to myself that this was going to be hard because it was

3 essays combined into one. I chose to do my genre study for college on SAT Prompts and my

high school genre study on Personal Stat ements. When I first did wrote my essay I didn’t take

the time to really go deep into research on what each one meant and how they were related. I just

went off of experience and knowledge that I had already had. It wasn’t until after I had already

turned in my paper that I had found out that there was more similarities than I thought. Ms.

Ingram encouraged me to do more research on both topics because I would be able to get a lot

more information to talk about. I didn’t think that they needed that much res earch because both

topics are pretty much straight forward and easy to explain. This taught me to always do my

research, even when it’s on the simplest topic because it’ll help in the long run. I never really had

to do any type of research before, so this assignment me added another skill to my learning

abilities. Also my process work artifacts and my RRL go hand in hand because to me my first

drafts were Shitty. I didn’t really want to do the research because I already knew a lot about both

topics. But they both helped me with finding connections with past work we did in class to help

me get ideas for my papers. After my research I was able to take out “ When taking the SAT we



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always start off with the easiest part of the test, the essay. With the time given to us the SAT

Prompt is so opinionated that everyone should finish before the time is up. ” And add something

like “ When taking the SAT we always start off with the easiest part of the test, the essay.

Everyone has a different thinking process and approach situations differently. So even though

it’s the easiest part of the test, some students might have a harder time grasping the questions.” I

already knew people think differently but I didn’t incorporate that into my paper. I had to think

about how people process what they read. That came form brainstorming and a little research I

did after my first draft.

The Key concepts I engaged with the most was curiosity and providing and receiving

feedback. In the beginning, I wasn’t sure what curiosity had to do with writing papers. In my

midterm I wrote about what I thought it was about and how to identify it. I think I my guess was

a pretty good assumption of what it was. Then when I received Ms. Ingram’s feedback about

how I was on the right track told me that I should just keep going in the same thinking process

direction. As the year went on I started to be able to point when certain aspects were due to

curiosity. For example when Mr. Doss came to speak to us, I wanted to say all of this had to do

with curiosity from the start but I was afraid to say it because I didn’t want to be wrong. Then as

he was explain to us about the class being afraid to talk because they didn’t want to be wrong

made me speak up and say something. Surprisingly, by Ms. Ingram’s reaction I could tell that I

said something I was supposed to say that she had been waiting for throughout the whole class

time. In my essays and blog post I started to explore more and go deeper into my thoughts to see

what I could pull out. In my last blog post it shows that I explored weebly more and that I did

some research on the topic I talked about by all the information that was included in my post and

going off of the length of the post as well. As far as feedback, at first I was just going through the



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motions and just correcting things and telling them what I thought. But as the semester went on I

started to have a urge to help out more on certain papers. So I would give out way more ideas

than usually. I even helped a couple of my friends that weren’t in my English class with their

papers. I never would have thought that I would be helping my friends with their papers for fun.

All the feedback I get from my peers and Ms. Ingram, I spread the papers out and read all of

them one by one and see if I can combine my ideas and theirs to make my paper a better paper.

Then I would go back and revise the essay and feel so much better and confident about my paper

after I finish. The way we do the peer editing in class is really helpful and I take a lot from it and

I think almost everyone in the class does as well.

In this class I think I would deserve a B because I haven’t put in “a” work time into my

assignments. I get them done but I don’t spend as much time on them as I should. I’m pretty

good at developing and starting an essay. Once my ideas start flowing, I could be done with an

essay in 45min if my ideas are f lowing correctly. Then after I’m finished, if I wasn’t confused

about what I wrote then I’ll just print it out and go to class. If I was confused then I would skim

over it to see if I did anything wrong. In the blog post, I just now started to get really into them as

you can see in my last post. That was my longest post I had and I think it was pretty cool. I guess

I’m still kind of stuck in the high school do what you have to do to get by type of stage with a

hint of “okay you’re in college; you can actually apply yourself now”. Some of my papers were

done at the last minute because that’s when I mostly do my best work since I’ve been trying to

start early, not only do I have a lot of free time once I finish, I feel better because I got the

assignment done way beforehand. I don’t call it procrastination for me because I like gathering

all my thoughts at once instead of coming back to it. If I would have spent a little bit more time

on my essays then I think I would probably have an A in the class. I fully understood the key



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concepts and I engaged with them really well in my opinion. I also think that my portfolio is well

organized and easy to understand. So I hope that I will receive an A because everyone wants an

A but as of right now a B is what I think a deserve at this moment. Then again I have been

learning more and being engaged in class and looking more deeply into my work so I would say

that I’m getting closer to that A rank. Well closer than I was before midterms. If I keep doing

what I’m supposed to do, I will pull that A out.

portfolio essay (1) (1)

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