Dominique Taylor Ms.

Suzanne Ingram English 1103-36 27 November, 2012 Portfolio Essay D2 My most important work in the class has to be the Whats it like to Be You? essay. It is the one paper that I connected with the most and enjoyed challenging myself as a writer. Although I am a blunt person it is hard for me to be honest and vulnerable about myself on paper. My first draft was written without electronics, which was much easier said than done. I couldnt seem to get my draft to come out in a fluent way. My life was displayed in a very negative and gloomy way. I sounded like an overworked, miserable person. This made me realize that I was actually viewing my life this way. So for my second draft I decided to take a look some pictures from my childhood to remember the good times in my life. I also did some brainstorming in my writers notebook to help get ideas flowing for the second draft. I used the first draft as sort of a brainstorm. For the second draft I added poems, went into more detail, and the paper the as a whole was more of a complete thought. I was very happy with the tone of my second draft. The appreciation for my life really came through in this draft and I felt as if it was complete. Ms. Ingram told me that I needed to talk more about my life as a freshman. At the time I could not speak on my life as a freshman because it had only been a few weeks into school. Now with a semester under my belt, I got to talk about my experience of juggling classes and opening myself to new experiences in my final draft. I feel as if talking about my first semester in college really brought the paper full circle. As a writer

I always want to connect to my audience because I cannot connect with them in my personal life. And writing the WILTBY essay helped me achieve this goal through my peers connecting through workshops. I have really grown close with my group members and I felt like the WILTBY essay was a big part of this. Another paper I put a lot of work into was the final research paper. I view it as more formal than the WILTBY essay because it has a more sophisticated tone (for lack of a better word). I would present the WILTBY essay to me friends and use the research essay in a presentation for another class. I evaluated and synthesized my array of sources to the best of my ability. The outline that I did helped me organized my thoughts, and has an exact idea on where I wanted to go with the paper. My biggest problems with this paper were time management, and getting the proper sources to support my paper. I wasted a lot of time with books that were of no help at all. That took of a lot of my time which put me behind on the three sided essay and the research essay. In hindsight, I probably should have picked a different topic Process work such as the article, Why Eating is Elitist helped me put my conclusion at the end of my research paper. Cover Letters helped me reflect on my WILTBY and portfolio essay. I had to think critically about the direction of my paper, be honest with myself and seek help from my group members that I may not have thought about otherwise. Warm-up entries in my writers notebook helped me open up and think differently about the writing process. The warm-ups about inquiry helped me brainstorm and be inquisitive and I took the skills to my annotated bib. I also used the warm-up defining good writing on October 18 to create my own definition of good writing. After that, I asked myself if my writings lived up to my own definition of good writing as well

as my sources writings. When my writings failed to meet my standards, I knew my paper was incomplete and needed to be revised. When an authors worked failed my expectations, I did not use their work in my research. As far as revisions go, I feel that I made good revisions to my papers, although the last two papers I had to revise on my own because I did not complete them in time to do peer editing. My group members were definitely an asset to revision process. When I would get writers block I would look back at their comments of what I should add to my papers. Overall I am proud of my final drafts. I feel as if they complete the requirements of the assignment and are well written. If I had to give myself a grade for revisions and final drafts, it would be a B, on because I failed to turn in the drafts of the last two papers on time. My portfolio as a whole shows my progression to my final drafts. The biggest progression is in my research essay and WILTBY essay. I did the most revisions to these drafts. I feel as if it came together very well. If you look at all my connecting works on in my portfolio you will see how hard I worked and my effort. So I would give my portfolio an overall grade of an A. As far as class participation, I would most definitely give myself an A. I talked so much in class that Ms. Ingram would have to tell me that I could not answer a question. I enjoyed giving input and participating in class discussion. My attendance was good. I believe I only missed two classes. For the most part I came to class prepared and participated whether I had complete drafts or not. So for my final grade in the class, I would definitely give myself an A (92).