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Xochitl Weiss

Mrs. Reed

American Lit., 2nd Hour

27 April 2017

Introduction

Whenever I am asked to tell someone about myself or to share an important fact about

me, the first, and most important, fact I tell them is that I come from a family of nine children. I

feel that my family is a significant part of who I am and has impacted me greatly by shaping my

personality and values. My brothers, sisters and I have always been a close knit group that

spends a lot of time together. In fact, I grew up constantly surrounded by my eight siblings and

most of my fondest memories have been created with them. My family has always been my top

priority and I put them above all else. Because of the importance of family in my life and my

extensive experiences surrounding my sisters, brothers, and parents, I decided to choose family

as my topic for my literary portfolio. I was able to use my extensive knowledge of the topic,

from coming from such a large family, to add depth to my analysis of the text and use my time

spent with them to draw connections with the writing I read from American culture.

Over the past school year, I worked hard on the each and every essay that I turned in and

was able to learn a lot about the writing process. Working on this portfolio taught me a lot about

the revision process and specific aspects of American literature especially. For example, I learned

about how to read my own writing to check for sophisticated diction and to make sure I used a

sufficient amount of sentence variation to make my writing flow. Another example is, my new

knowledge of how literary movements affect American authors. While reading and watching

American works for this project, I was able to see how movements such as romanticism and
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realism affected American literature. Additionally, the writing analysis essays taught me about

how to analyze different forms of literary work that I have never analyzed before. I worked

specifically on analyzing a childrens movie and song which are two types of text I have never

worked this closely with before. They also taught me about how to look specifically for ties to

American culture, when those ties are not obvious.

Another important aspect of American culture that we explored throughout the school

year was what it means to be an American. When I think of being an American, freedom is the

first idea that comes to mind. Freedom has been an essential aspect of our country since the

beginning and continues to be a well known characteristic of America. Our belief that everyone

has basic given rights, and that everyone can make their own choices, is what defines us as

Americans. During the time our Constitution was written, the idea that everyone should possess

certain basic rights was not as common as it is today. America is known around the world for

writing freedom into our Constitution and freedom is something people everywhere associate

with our country.