Greetings viewers and Welcome to my Portfolio!

Over the duration of my time spent in Advanced Writing Composition, I feel that I produced several pieces of work that fulfilled the intended goals of the course. In the beginning of the semester there were certain goals that Professor Brooks was hoping we as the students would achieve. Some of these goals were to have an understanding that writing for different audiences and purposes may require a variety of processes and to have the competence in being a reader and responder to the writing of others. These goals set by Professor Brooks are also closely aligned with the ESPB and NCATE outcomes. I personally achieved these goals by producing works such as the Literacy Narrative and Building a Mystery project. These two assignments, although heavily centered on the process or topic of writing, took on two completely different forms. I composed my literacy narrative in the form of typed paper and used a social media site (Facebook) to produce my mystery project. I also achieved the goal of being a reader and responder to the writing of others. There were several class periods where we were asked to get into groups and discuss our projects. It was through these discussions I had with my group members that I not only received useful opinions, ideas, and suggested revisions for my own work, but I also feel that I helped my classmates with these same elements as well. I also viewed presentations of other classmates mystery projects. This provided a great way for us as a class to view one anothers work and to also provide both positive and useful feedback. Additionally, I learned a lot of beneficial information through the viewing of the various group presentations on topics like the ability to summarize, collaborative writing skills, and the ability to learn content through writing. My process and revision techniques have also been greatly influenced by my involvement in my Advanced Writing course. The process of writing a paper, especially a research paper, has significantly changed for me. Initially, I would write an outline of what I wanted to cover in the paper, begin writing, and then insert information from sources I had found. I knew that this process never worked for me, because I wasnt ever actually interested in the project. Instead, I merely went through the motionsbrowsing through the articles and hoping that what I selected would fit into my paper. However, in the case of my mystery project, my process changed completely. I first started with a question I that I wanted to answer by using articles and essays that pertained to my question and topic. Once I conducted my research, I then began thinking about what kind of format I wanted to present my information in. Since I didnt want to write the average paper, I wanted to use some sort of media form to present my project. Thus, I ended up selecting the social medium Facebook to compose my project. The process of creating this research project was different than any other assignment Ive had to complete before. I had fun reading through the articles that pertained to my topic and I found it even more fun finding information that I knew would catch peoples attention. I also had creative freedom over my mystery project, so the process of deciding how I wanted my end product to look was entirely up to me. I feel that this process ultimately worked the best for me, because it allowed me to really delve into the content I was researching and then from there pick out what I thought would provide the best information. The process of creating my mystery project took on a seemingly backwards approach to what I was previously used to. I conducted my research, read through the material, selected information I deemed most pertinent, and then created my layout and inserted the information. Through this Building a Mystery process, I have learned more about what process best suits me and have conformed to my new way of the creating process. Ive also made significant strides in revising my work. Through the revision process, I

made numerous changes to both my mystery project and my literacy narrative. When I handed in my first draft of my literacy narrative, I thought that I had a decent product that I wasnt too concerned with revising. However, through both my fellow classmates and Professor Brooks, I realized that there were several, minor adjustments that I couldve made to make it even better. Most of my revisions were in the form of grammatical structure errors. One of my classmates noted that I tend to use a lot of commas in my sentences especially in instances where they werent necessary. I took her suggestion and went where she marked certain areas of comma usage and omitted them. Omitting some of these commas seemed like a minor, non-significant change, but it actually enhanced the overall flow of my paper. Professor Brooks also suggested that I work on revising some of the content in my paper. Not in the form of omitting certain content, but actually adding content in. He wanted me to focus on some of my transitions between thoughts so that the reader could see the connection and relation between my ideas. So, I worked on including some more detailed, supportive information into his highlighted areas and tried connecting my ideas better. I feel that working on the transitions he selected positively influenced my overall paper. Reading through my paper with the added material made me enjoy the paper more and I could visually and audibly hear the improvements. Professor Brooks also wanted me to focus on naming my paper, which proved to be a hard task for me since the beginning of the assignment. In my last revision I finally came up with a title that I felt best fit my paperSimple Roots. Although Professor Brooks suggested revisions were small and were mostly about adding content and being mindful about my grammar, I feel that it greatly helped my literacy narrative. In fact, when I compare my original literacy narrative to the product I have now, I feel much more confident and proud of my narrative. I was also given suggested revisions for my mystery project. Professor Brooks didnt have much to say in regards to what I should revise, but the two things that he did suggest were the things that I did end up revising. He posted a link under one of the comments on my projects Facebook page. He suggested that I take a look at the articles that were listed on the link to see if I found any more useful information that I wanted to include in the project. After I looked through the vast majority of the articles, I decided that I would keep the original information that I had already put on the Facebook page. I did not make this decision because I thought Professor Brooks suggested articles werent worth including, but I felt that the vast majority of the content was very similar to that of the information I had already included. I did make his suggested revisions of including an interview I forgot to include and also made sure I made another interview public so that everyone could see it. After making these changes I feel that I have a more polished and presentable mystery project. Throughout the process of completing my various assignments this semester, I noticed that I have a couple of different strengths that I didnt know previously existed. For one, I came to learn that I am good at inserting my voice into a paper. My literacy narrative is an excellent example of showing my personality through the various conventions I used. I wrote a personal story that had a lot of meaning to me and spiced it up by choosing to include some profanity and country music references. Previous to this paper, I cant recall the last time I was encouraged to write a personal and creative-based paper. This assignment taught me that Im great at connecting with an audience through the language I chose to use. I also learned that I am particularly good at being creative. My creativity and tone of voice that I used in my narrative went hand-in-hand when it came to the overall appeal of my paper. I allowed myself to write with free reign when I wrote my narrative. Meaning, I wrote without buffering what I wanted to say and allowed myself to tell my story according to how I wanted it to be told. I didnt

necessarily care about how my sentences were structured, nor did I care about being too personal when writing it. In the end, I feel that my strengths of tone and creativity made the positive difference in both my narrative and mystery project. While I do feel that I possess a couple of strengths in writing, I also feel that there are aspects of my writing that I need to work on. One thing that I know I will continually need to work on is my sentence structure and making sure that my verbs and subjects agree with one another. Meaning, I often forget if Im writing in the present tense or past tense in my papers. It was a common theme in the suggested revisions that I received that I needed to be mindful of what tense I was writing in. I know that this is something small, but it is also something that I feel I should work on so that I will have to spend less time on revising minor details such as that. Another aspect of my writing I need to work on is understanding the various genres. I havent been exposed to many genres of writing outside of the general research paper, so I struggled with knowing how to compose other written works in different genres. Throughout this semester we had to write things such as memos, proposals, narratives, and even a reflective letter. These were challenging for me, because I wasnt sure what was required and expected in each respective work. I had to spend some time investigating what elements were necessary to complete each of these works. Although I feel that I have improved in this area, I realize that I will need to know these various genres off-hand in the near future, especially in my future classroom. I plan to continuously keep updated on what each genre looks like and requires so that I can effectively teach them to future students. Outside of learning new ways to create a research paper or a literacy narrative, I learned a great deal about teaching practices that Id like to implement in my future classroom. Every course of action that Professor Brooks took in his class was based off of two characteristics: understanding and flexibility. There were a couple of times where Professor Brooks would discuss the due dates of certain projects with the entire class and would ask if what he had written down for the due dates were doable. He was always open to suggestions on changing the schedule and was understanding of the course load we had with our other courses. He regularly gave us pencil grades and allowed us to revise our work, because he wanted us to produce our best possible work. Being flexible and understanding are the two most important things I hope I can emulate in my future classroom. Without flexibility and understanding, I dont think it is possible to be an effective teacher. Students need to be given more than one chance at an assignment. There are not many individuals in the professional world who can create masterpieces or genius inventions simply off of their first try. Instead, it takes practice and multiple attempts. Individuals can learn a lot from their mistakes the first time they attempt something, because it is then that they can better improve themselves and grow from that experience to produce something even greater. It is my goal to make sure that all of my students know that I am a considerate, understanding, and flexible individual who only wants them to succeed and achieve the highest level of success they can. I hope you enjoy the pieces I selected for my portfolio. While each piece of work is different from one another, they share the commonality of my dedication, work ethic, and time that I put into each one tediously. I am proud of the amount of growth I achieved in each succeeding assignment and I hope that you enjoy and appreciate them all.

Enjoy. Kelly Hannah