Midcap 1 MaKenzi Midcap Mr. Harrell English Comp.

1 6 December 2013 Portfolio Analysis As my first college semester comes to a close I would like to reflect on the things I have been taught, specifically in English. These past fifteen weeks have flew by and now five essays and about twenty homework assignments later, I have realized that I am a much better writer than I was at the start of the semester. Everything that I have written this semester has made me grow into a writer that much more. Each essay has allowed me to think of something in a different way and taught me something new. I would say that my top three favorite essays to write were: the personal essay, the analytical essay, and the profile essay. I have learned many new skills and concepts by writing these essays that include: drafting, revising, structure of paragraphs, writing a thesis statement, audience awareness, along with so many others and here is the evidence. I have learned how to draft, revise, edit, and proofread by the way Mr. Harrell leaves comments on our final drafts of essays. After he leaves comments we had the opportunity to read through our essays again and figure out how we could improve the overall quality of the essay, as well as correct grammatical and punctuation errors. I took advantage of this opportunity will all of my essays but especially with the profile essay. The first time I wrote the profile essay I received an 84 out of 100. When I went back through my essay and corrected all of the revisions that Mr. Harrell suggested, I

Midcap 2 improved my entire paper and received an 84 on my revision. My essay was raised almost half of a letter grade just by me going back and taking the time to revise. The structure of an essay determines how the audience perceives the entire paper. If the structure of an essay doesnt flow, then the entire essay can seem confusing and dull. The introduction of an essay needs to grab the audiences attention but also have a strong thesis statement so that the rest of the essay flows. An example of this would come from my personal essay. This is my girl. Those were the last words that I heard before my entire life changed forever, this a short attention-getter but also hints at what the rest of my essay is going to talk about. The way I develop my paragraphs and manage the transitions are also very important to writing an essay. This is where I want to hit all of the main points in my thesis as well as effectively transition to each idea between paragraphs. The conclusion is where I discuss everything in the essay to wrap it up. I always make sure that nothing is left for the audience to question and it all comes together into one effective conclusion. The most important thing that I think about when writing and reviewing my essays are the audience. If there was no audience to read and respond to what I write then there is no purpose to write. When my group was writing the group research essay it was important to us to keep in mind why we were writing this. We had no intention of writing our 15-page essay to sound smart or just to get a good grade. Our goal was for the audience to take something away from that essay that would help them in whatever area of math they were struggling with. Throughout our entire essay we kept our audience in mind and even produced a fun and light-hearted multi-media project that we enjoyed making and the audience enjoyed watching.

Midcap 3 It is also necessary for a thesis to start off strong in the beginning and continue to be clear through the entire essay. An example of a strong thesis statement is in my Analytical Essay about The Unlikely Disciple. Ultimately, this led to Kevin realizing that the students, the lifestyle, and the relationship with Jerry Falwell at Liberty University would change his life forever, in my thesis I brought three main point to the forefront of my paper and didnt stray away from my three main points in my entire essay. In my analytical essay I used a lot of paraphrasing and direct quotations from the text of The Unlikely Disciple. I wanted to make sure that whenever I did use quotations or paraphrasing it didnt seem like they were just thrown into my essay. Every time I did this I made sure that the sentences around the quotes flowed and that I only paraphrased when I felt a quote or idea was too long, so I would paraphrase to elaborate on something that I wanted to discuss. I also learned how to use block quotes in a paper. Beforehand, I never knew that there were specific rules when using block quotes but Ive learned that actual quotations are not used in a block quote and the entire block needs to be indented. I also now know that any quote that is longer than four lines needs to be a block quote. I engaged in critical reading when my class read The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinners Semester at Americas Holiest University. I also used analytical writing throughout the entire book as well as at the end when everything was put together in my analytical essay. Analytical writing helped me understand the book better then I would have if I had just read it. I realized that when I actually wrote about the book I thought more about what was actually going on and I asked myself why Roose wrote about what he did. The fact that this book took place at an Evangelical university brought up a lot of

Midcap 4 underlying issues that Roose did not discuss in the book. When I analyzed the book it helped me better understand different ideas. Whenever I had question about grammar or punctuation or the specific way that MLA writing is set up, I relied on my teacher, Mr. Harrell, as well as the Purdue website. Utilizing and learning from my resources helped me set up my papers the correct way in MLA format and this will help me for many years to come. In conclusion, this semester I have learned so many things from this class. It has helped me improve the way I write as well as expose me to different versions of writing. Each paper that I have written has helped me learn a little bit more about myself and what I am the strongest at in writing and what I struggle with. After taking this class I know what I am capable of when it comes to writing.

Midcap 5 Works Cited

Roose, Kevin. The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinners Semester at Americas Holiest University. New York: Grand Central, 2009. Print.