Dishner 1 Lindsey Dishner Professor Ingram English 1101 11/2/13 Portfolio Essay Wow, Ive just completed my first

semester of college! It was very different from high school, but in a good way. College has proven to be more challenging than high school and requires much more effort. I have many challenging classes in which I have learned new things, and English 1101 is one of these classes. In this English class, students not only gain knowledge about English, they learn about college in general and life itself! In this particular English class, students learn how to write a Literacy Narrative, how to write a Midterm, and how to write blogs. They also learn how to give proper feedback to other students regarding their work, and learn things like Rhetorical Triangle. The key component of this class is an e-portfolio. The organization of the e-portfolio is very simple. Each page of the e-portfolio has a picture at the top that relates to the topic of that page. I organized my portfolio this way because it seems logical. It seems logical because it starts off with a page about me, the home page. It has pictures of my family and I. In a quick glimpse, the home page describes most of my life. To navigate through the e-portfolio, simply click on the links near the top of the home page. When deciding which piece of work should come after the home page, I chose the Portfolio Essay. The Portfolio Essay must be next because it states the organization of the e-

Dishner 2 portfolio and how each piece has contributed to learning. The Portfolio Essay has helped me realize how much I have actually learned this semester and how much I have grown as a writer. Next is the Literacy Narrative because it is the first large essay that was written. In my opinion, the Literacy Narrative was the most enjoyable essay. It was something from my past that I could write about well. It helped me learn that adding sensory details and quotes is very important. Adding details and quotes helps the reader visualize and hear what is occurring. For example, I said, It was a beautiful two story brick building with gorgeous landscaping. Following the Literacy Narrative is a page for the Midterm. The Midterm assignment served as a reflection on the semester. We were asked to answer one of our inquiries from the beginning of the semester, tell the difference between high school competency and college success, and state what advice we would give to a high school senior. We were also asked to explain what key concepts we were engaging in, a key concept we were struggling with, and to state any questions remaining. On the Midterm page, I included the first draft of my midterm and then the final draft. The final draft shows how I changed the prompt to MLA Format and that several other grammatical changes were made. One sentence that I added to the Midterm is, Advice to a high school senior would be to take some Advanced Placement classes, if they have not already done so. These classes will more closely resemble those in college. The Midterm helped me understand what I was doing well and what I need to improve on. For example, I said, One of the key concepts that I am struggling with is giving feedback. After that, is the Genre Analysis. I chose this piece of work to be next because it was an essay that was written towards the end of the semester. The Genre Analysis taught me that everything we do can fall into a different genre. I analyzed the Five Paragraph Essay and Reader Response Letters. Although they are very different, they also have many similarities. A

Dishner 3 statement I made about similarities between these two genres is, Both the five paragraph essay and the Reader Response Letters are similar because they are both written assignments that develop from a reading assignment. Blogs are something we did over the entire semester. We did a total of six blogs and blog post number one was the first blog I had ever done in my life! Each blog post was required to have a minimum number of words, and was required to be published by a certain date and time. The minimum amount of words increased with each blog post, but they still were not difficult. The directions for blog post number one was to make inquiries about the syllabus, make inquiries about writing, and describe college. One of the inquiries I made was, How do you take risks in an English class? I now know the answer to this question as it means to write outside the box; do something different with your writing and make it exciting. I went back and added a picture to blog number four and made some grammatical changes in several blogs; this is why my blogs are not in sequential order. After blogs, I added the Artifacts. First, I created a page for Writers Notebook Writing Artifacts which contains the first Reader Response Letter and the Rhetorical Triangle. The Reader Response Letter was entitled Shitty First Drafts. This article teaches that multiple rough drafts must be written before accomplishing a piece of work that is worth sharing. It also teaches that it is acceptable if the first draft is poorly written. Anne said, The first draft is the childs draft, where you let it all pour out and romp all over the place. The Rhetorical Triangle helped me learn because it stayed in the forefront of my mind every time I wrote an essay. It reminded me of the purpose and the audience. It also helped me to give the reader exactly what they needed to know.

Dishner 4 Next, there is a page for Process Work Artifacts. The Process Work Artifacts page consists of the fast draft of the portfolio essay, the time for the Literacy Narrative and the sie shadowing for the Genre Analysis. The fast draft of the Portfolio essay, which is part of Process Work Artifacts, was a good start. I simply wrote for thirty minutes to see what ideas I could get on paper and then I had to figure out where to go from there. Brainstorming is something we have always been taught to do and is very important when writing. It is simply a way of getting your mind warmed up. Brainstorming also helps to develop topics and supporting details. So the next part of Process Work Artifacts is a copy of the timeline from high school. This timeline was a huge part of brainstorming for the Literacy Narrative. It was created to help choose a topic for the Literacy Narrative. The last part of Process Work Artifacts is the side shadowing I did in the Genre Analysis. This technique was extremely helpful and I have used it for all of my essays since then. This technique allowed me to use a yellow highlighter to show the purpose of the paragraph. I used an orange highlighter to show the supporting details and a blue highlighter to show the conclusion sentence for that paragraph. After that, I was able to organize my paper by deciding what should come after that paragraph. Feedback Artifacts comes after that. This includes two pieces of feedback I received from peers. I chose this page to be next because it shows was happened after the essays were written. Feedback from peers helped to understand the readers point of view and what they thought would help make the essays more relatable and exciting. Cassandra said, Take out some of the reflection on your experience and add more examples; this greatly improved the essay. Ms. Ingram recommended adding a twist to the end of the Literacy Narrative. I was a little confused at first about what that meant, but I finally discovered how to make the conclusion better fit the essay.

Dishner 5 Lastly, is the Wild Card page which contains a couple pages from the reading assignment called Responding-Really Responding- to Other Students Writing. The Wild Card helped me learn because it helped me understand how to properly give feedback. Giving feedback was a real challenge for me at first, but I learned that if done properly, it can be very beneficial for the writer. For example, the author said, Focus on the organization and details of the paper, and less on grammar and punctuation. This reminds me of Key Concepts! As a class, we were provided a list of key concepts that we were required to participate in. There are a couple key concepts that became obvious to me right away, independent inquiry and critical thinking. The writing process and revision was also very important. Independent inquiry is an important part of this class because I learned to question myself. From this point forward, I will always question myself when writing. Asking questions when writing has definitely helped me to become a better writer. The writer should always consider the purpose and the audience. Also, a good writer will always determine what information the reader really needs to know. As I stated earlier, this can be remembered as the Rhetorical Triangle. The Rhetorical Triangle was drawn on the board every day for several weeks in an attempt to force students to remember the information. The strategy definitely worked! Also, writers need to be sure they have added enough sensory detail for the reader to be able to visualize the scene. Critical thinking is something I had trouble understanding at first. I could not understand how it connected to English, but now I know! In college, the professor does not assign a topic; they just provide a basic idea of what the writing should relate to. An example is when we wrote our Literacy Narrative about high school. At first I did not understand what my essay was supposed to be about. After nearly a week of analytically thinking about it, I came to a

Dishner 6 conclusion literacy meant learning and our essay was about a learning experience we had during our time in high school. So I wrote about senior year when I worked as a Nurse Assistant and learned to deal with Dementia patients. Another example of critical thinking is our Genre Study. We were asked to write about a high school and college genre. We used critical thinking in the third part of the essay because we had to figure out how to relate the high school and college genres. For example in my essay I stated, Both the five paragraph essay and Reader Response Letters are similar because they are both written assignments that develop from a reading assignment. The writing process and revision was a huge part of this English class. As you know, several lengthy essays are written throughout the semester. First, a rough draft is written, and then revised by peers. Peer revising involves so much more than just grammar corrections; the feedback should make the writer think. The essay may sound good, but during peer revising, students are still asked to find something to say that would make the essay even better. After peer revisions, the writer makes changes based on the feedback received. Finally, the essays are reviewed by the professor and additional changes are made based upon feedback. The feedback that is provided should help the writers point become more clear and will help to make the essay more entertaining. I believe this class has greatly improved my writing. Reading articles from authors about inquiry, the writing process, revising, and feedback have been beneficial. These articles have helped me learn to question myself in an effort to improve my writing, and have taught me how to give positive feedback to others forcing the other writers to make inquiries about their own writing. For example, I told a peer, try analyzing a specific outline of the five paragraph essay; you may find it useful and get more information. When writing the Literacy Narrative, reading

Dishner 7 articles about adding details was very helpful. Details in writing are meant to help the reader visualize what is occurring in the essay. Some helpful feedback I received about details was, What faces did the old man make in the mirror? Then the reader also left a comment saying, Try to focus more on examples about your experience and less on knowledge about Dementia. I have worked diligently trying to learn to become a better writer, especially when it comes to dialogue. In my first draft I made a statement about the residents eating dinner, but in my final draft I said, We handed out hot plates which consisted of turkey, a roll, green beans and smooth mashed potatoes. Also, reading work from other authors about the importance of appropriate feedback helped me to learn that giving feedback is not an opportunity to criticize someones work, but rather an opportunity to help the writer grow. As I read each article throughout the semester, I was able to use information from previous articles to help me write essays. We read about Five Paragraph Essays, writing many first drafts before getting to the final draft, giving meaningful feedback, genre, and about general writing tips. Each article I read improved my next essay because the things I was learning kept popping into my head like popcorn kernels in a microwave! Reading articles about writing is something that I had never done before; however, I believe it has helped me to become a better writer. In college students have more freedom to write about what they want so I believe this will lead to better grades on future writing assignments. In the chapter Dont Tell Me What to Write, Joe says, Personal expressive writing requires you to think and to ask questions by expressing your own ideas. I agree with this statement. My experience in Freshman English will also help me to be successful in all college classes, and will also help me to attain success in my chosen career field and life in general.

Dishner 8 I believe the grade I deserve is an A. My e-portfolio is easily navigable and all of the assignments are completed to the best of my ability. I added quotes from authors, my peers and my professor. I tried to clearly explain my engagement with key concepts, and I now know exactly what each concept means! I also tried to plainly describe how I have grown as a writer. English 1101 has challenged me. Ive been accustomed to teachers saying, Here is your topic and this is how long it needs to be. I knew exactly what to do in order to receive an A; however, this class was different. Students were allowed to write as much as they wanted and had more freedom to write what they wanted to say. I have learned many things about inquiry, writing, revising and feedback through this course, and I know I will continue to use those things in the future, both inside and outside the classroom.