Page 1 Audrey Page Professor Ingram English 1101-049 December 4, 2013

Portfolio Essay When I was preparing for English 1101, I printed the syllabus out and started reading it. I understood that this course will help freshmen college students adapt to college English life. I wrote this in my very first blog post and I still apply the syllabus throughout all of my papers and blog posts. High school English had a different approach so when you enter college English classes you are blown away by how different everything is. In college, the internet, mainly Moodle, is used as in high school you would turn in hard copies to your teachers. Students have more free time but have to stay on top of when things are due, like papers and other assignments. To keep me on top of things, I checked Moodle, emails and the syllabi for all my classes to make sure I completed everything on time and followed the rules. If you complete all assignments and dont procrastinate, college English is easy and fun. So I have made sure my Weebly page shows that and the different levels of writing from the beginning of the semester to the end. I organized all my articles in importance to the audience. When you open my Weebly, the home page pops up and you get to read a little back ground on myself. On the left, there are tabs and the second tab quotes portfolio, thats first to help the audience navigate through each tab easier. Next I put the midterm we wrote October 2, 2013 because it shows how I wrote half way through the year. I then chose my genre study and my literacy narrative after that because the genre study was more a serious essay compared to the literacy narrative. After those four, I

Page 2 followed the list given; blog, process work, feedback, writers notebook and a wild card. I chose this order to help organize everything and have easy access to all my important writing through this semester. When you first pull up my website you see the title, Turn the Page. I couldnt pick a good title that reflected all my articles and essays. So I finally stuck with Turn the Page, because my last name is Page and each article you read, you will want to turn the page and keep reading it. The entire home page went through many different revisions, showing one of many key concepts we learned in English 1101. It was revised about four times because its the first thing the audiences eyes look upon so the author wants to grab the audiences attention to keep them on their website. For a long time the title was, The Page, but I thought that was to plain and wasnt interesting. So I thought of funny, creative sayings about writing and came up with Turn the Page. I also added a variety of pictures from the places Ive been, like New York City, to scenery pictures of my lake house. All the pictures, even the title pictures, were taken by me and mean something important to me. For example, theres a picture of me and a foster puppy we had for a while. The point of that picture is to show that I love helping animals and my family fosters different breeds of dogs. Im taking a risk with all the pictures on my home page because I feel like its too over crowded to look at and might scare the audience away. So thats why I moved majority of the pictures to the other tabs, so the tabs are more interesting and my home page isnt cluttered. My small backstory helps explain what my future plans are and all the photos. I also added why I chose my major and my family fostering dogs. The home page helps the audience understand why I chose to write about the things I did so it has to be easy to access and understand.

Page 3 The second, most important, tab is the portfolio page, where it helps explain where and why everything is in a certain order. As I explained before, I wanted that audience to be able to find articles easily and fast. I have thought of how I could make everything easier so I revised the overall outlook of my Weebly. I moved pictures around so that each page has something to help express myself. Having this paper will also help go into detail about each article located on my Weebly. After, my portfolio I have my midterm, which was second important, because that paper was the halfway point of Freshmen College English. Throughout the paper, I kept comparing high school to college English and how different they were. The major difference is the work load and the topics we cover. In high school, we covered a huge variety, mainly working from books and analyzing them. We read books in college but there are different types of genres, we read educational essays as in high school we read novels with characters and plots. The course theme was college vs. high school and I portrayed that in my midterm multiple times. Reader Response Letters are good example of different genres and how I grew to a better, more expressive writer. We would analyze the chapters in The Subject is Writing: Essays by Teachers and Students, then write out connections and what the author meant for the audience to understand. In high school, we would read novels and move on to another genre quickly so that they could teach everything that needed to be taught. When in high school you dont think critically, unlike English 1101. In high school, our work load was a lot more since they tried to cram so many different subjects into one class. In college we slow down and focus on one thing and after we work through it, then we move on. Theres no time in high school to stop and critically think about articles. Like I stated in my midterm, everything moves to quick to slow down and think in-depth about the novel or poem. And the meaning behind the words or phrases

Page 4 used. High school teachers have to cram so everyone does well on the final exam. While we take our time analyzing chapters and revising our papers. Writing the midterm made students really focus on the difference between high school and colleges different environments and the teaching ways. Fourthly, I put my genre study because it was stressed to analyze different types of genres. The point of this study was to show how different each prompt was and who it affected. Part one, I chose a high school prompt that helps the teachers understand where their students are in writing a major paper. The author of the prompt would be high school teachers and educators, who write writing prompts to help their education about how high school students write. Through this part in my essay, I showed who the author was and the point behind the prompt. A key concept shown through this part could be curiosity because the teachers dont know where their students are in the writing process, this makes them curious to find where their students are. For both genre two and three, I had to revise them because I didnt focus on one topic. This was before I made lists of the main topics I needed to cover so I jumped around between two different prompts. I had to rewrite them making sure they stayed on topic the second draft. With this experience, it helped me express myself better and catch all the mistakes I had. I put my literacy narrative next because it helped me learn how to express myself better through writing. This prompt let me express myself and I learned how to use dialog correctly. I had trouble choosing an event that had enough dialog so I chose how my family started fostering dogs. When I chose this experience and learned when I add dialog, it showed growth and maturity. Well have to trap them! Said my mom. And take them where? Home? We cant have seven puppies running around! They wont even let us touch them!! Yelled my dad. I had

Page 5 revised this part many times because I didnt know how to explain it to the audience. I left out, Theres puppies, because I felt like this part of our conversation was too simple. By adding the new dialog it helps the readers feel like they are in the argument. I had to change and rewrite many parts in my literacy narrative because I didnt go in-depth and make certain paragraphs more clearly to the audience. I just confused them. I needed to use more sensory images so I added them on the next draft. I had a total of five drafts because I had to keep adding dialogue and details that helped explain certain parts of this event. I then added blogs to the list of articles. The lengths of each blog are different because of the questions that were asked. Blog #1 and #3 would be the longest because in blog #1 I compared high school to college and my writing opinion. And my writing would sound terrible because I couldnt organize my thoughts while writing as well as others. This quote shows intellectual growth and maturity because this blog was the very first article written. I have learned a lot since then; like that I do really well when I write my thoughts down first then add to them as I write the paper. The list helps me stay in topic and not straying to a different topic. I also showed risk taking through all my blogs. I had never been good at writing in high school so writing something and allowing other students to read it and respond, scared me. But by the time I wrote blog #5, I understood and knew how to analyze articles and advertisements. Through writing blogs, I have learned to express myself better and show my opinions/feelings. It was tricky to choose three articles that showed processed work, and add them to process work tab. But I chose brainstorming to show my writing process. Half way through the semester, I started to make lists of what I needed to do for that day. That gave me the idea of writing a list of what I needed to write in my papers. So for my literacy narrative and the eportfolio, I made a list of what needed to say and details. While I wrote them, I added more

Page 6 details and stayed on topic. So making a list would count as responsibility for ones own learning. I took this trick and applied it to a different subject and it helped. Also for my literacy narrative we wrote a timeline of important events that happened in high school to help our memory. By doing that it made it easier to choose my topic. By making a list and timeline for my literacy narrative, I learned that it helped with my writing process. I now know for the future that I make a list and that will help organize all my thoughts. The next tab would be two feedback articles from the professor on a draft or paper. I chose my literacy narrative because I had so many drafts to make the essay sound like a college student wrote it. On my second draft, there are both peer editing and feedback from Professor Ingram. Both my fellow students and the professor helped me show more detail and express my feelings through the paper. Elizabeth wrote that I needed to clear certain parts up so the audience understood what I was trying to express. She also stated, Sensory detail? Smell? Look? Hear? By doing this she made me stop and think about the day and what was going on. So in my third draft I added important details about that morning and how it felt to wait for each puppy to go into the trap. Thanks to Elizabeth, I was provided important feedback on how to improve my literacy narrative. I was also curious to see what Professor Ingram had written on the back. As a reader, I needed you to slow down and expand some of your explanations. With this being stated I went back and picked a certain paragraph to expand on, which was the explanation of why Cindy was so important. So in draft four, that part will be thoroughly explained and the audience will understand why she was needed in rescuing the puppies. The second piece I chose was my genre study, draft #2 because Professor Ingram helped me pin point the part where I got off topic. So on my third draft I stayed focused on only one prompt. Getting feedback from both other students but mainly the teacher has helped all my papers grow into better drafts.

Page 7 The second to last tab would be writers notebook. I chose a workshops reflection and the comparison between RRL #1 to RRL #5. I liked the workshops reflection because it was hand written compared to everything being typed. I wrote about my peers and what I needed to fix in my paper. I gave feedback on how my group was, My group did well on supporting and giving feedback. We would tell each other what needed to be fixed or ideas on how to make a part better. With students at my writing level, we got to really help each other on what sounded wrong and needed to be reworded. The second article is reading response letter #1 compared to #5. I chose to compare the two because it showed the difference in my writing from the beginning of the semester to the end. RRL #1, I analyzed as best as I could, it being the first letter, the grading was lenient because we hadnt learned how to go in-depth and analyze a college level article. By RRL #5, students knew how to analyze and express in detail what the author was trying to tell his/her audience. Showing RRL #1 and RRL #5, it shows intellectual growth and maturity. The last tab is labeled wild card because we were allowed to choose anything that showed your growth in writing. So I chose my list for my e-portfolio. It shows my writing process and organization through a list of what needs to be on our Weebly. I have the list that was given to us and also added extra notes to do to my website so it looks nice and organized. I checked the articles that I had downloaded and scanned into the computer. Check List: 1.portfolio essay 2.design of website 3.more pictures on different tabs 4. Add final draft of genre study, literacy narrative, portfolio essay. With this list, I show responsibility for ones own learning because I have everything laid out, now all I have to do to finish them. I have learned this semester that students need to keep track of every task and assignment. Also while being in English 1101, I have learned how I write effectively and how to

Page 8 edit both my and others papers. Through all the hard work and time spent on all my essays, I believe I deserve an A. I didnt like writing so I have worked extremely hard in this class to express myself through my essays. I have seen an improvement in my writing so thats why I have started to enjoy writing. Since I have my writing process of writing lists of key points, going to the library, listening to my favorite music and then working until the paper is college level. Being in English 1101 has helped me with my writing and has showed me that writing can be easy and enjoyable.