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Karen Romero

Professor Beadle

English 115

08 December 2019

Final Portfolio

In this semester as a freshman, I really went into my English 115 class with the mentality

that I was going to actually show some type of improvement. As I showed to class everyday, I

saw and notice that there was a type of growth, in my writing as well as my reading abilities.

During my English 115 class, the professor always gave us ways we could improve on our word

choice, structure, grammar, or simply giving us ideas on how to start our essays. I saw many

ways of help during my english class as not only did we receive help from the professor, but as

well as from classmates. Doing peer review helped a lot has we received comments from them

that are really useful to help us improve more in our essays. When I started going to my English

115 and had to do my first essay, I thought that I did a good job, but when I received feedback

from my professor and classmates it helped me realize the things that I was lacking on when I

would do an essay. It was something that was helpful to me as it gives me an idea on how to

structure and how to use more context evidence. As well as seeing a lot of examples on our

textbooks helped us out a lot as it gives us an idea of how an essay needs to look like.

Throughout the course we have done, Project Space, Project Text, and Project Media, and

throughout these essays I have seen a little improvement on how it is supposed to be structured,

to what add and not add, as well as my word choice. When I did my first essay which was
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Project Space, I started the essay as how I was taught how to do during my high school years,

and once I turned it in and we started receiving feedback, I noticed a lot of things that I was

lacking on that I wasn’t taught during my high school years. At first it was a little confusing and

difficult, but as the professor went into more detail about it, it helped me understand more of

what he wanted us to do in our essay. Then when we started doing Project Text and Media I

started seeing improvement as my classmates would review it and give me little less feedback

and giving me a better score as it showed that I was actually improving. I saw my improvement

mostly on the structure and word choice, as from when I started I was using “slang” terms that I

thought were good but it actually wasn’t. During these Project Essays it gives me a better

understanding on how to become a better writing as well as to see how much time it goes into

writing in order for it to look well. It gives a better perspective on me as it helps me to really see

what the process is and how things are done in order for it to turn out well.

The essays helps us see more of our improvement from beginning to end as for me I saw

it change a lot. Back then I didn’t think they were bad, but as time passed and the more that I

wrote essays, I saw what I wasn’t using as well as sometimes not following what the prompt

really said. When I started these Projects, there were times were I wasn’t really understanding

the prompt much, and that was when I would just write on what I understood a bit from. As time

passed, not only did peer review helped me but as well as going to the LRC helped out a lot. In

the LRC, they helped not only on the basic things, but as well on how to understand the prompts

and how to break down the prompts in a way that are easy and understandable. As a freshman, I

think that the LRC is very helpful as there are more sources there and as well as tutors who could
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help on basically any subject. These essays show my improvements as well as ideas for the

future.