Tania Dorado
English 2150, Dr. Blankenship
May 24, 2016
Paper 4: Portfolio Reflection
Through out this Spring semester I believe I have improved as a writer. In the beginning of our hybrid class I didn’t think I was going to change my ways of writing. But when we started out with writing down our response to our weekly readings that’s when I knew it was going to be different for me. I usually have a hard time giving back a response to readings. Its as if I’m afraid to write down what I actually think because I might not know how to explain myself correctly. I am good at taking notes or highlighting important parts or sections of a story or readings but afterwards I have trouble analyzing it. In my mind I know what I want to say but when it’s time to write it down, I have issues with it. But every week I got the chance to practice at analyzing these stories we were given. My classmates also had to give feedback on our thoughts. At first I wouldn’t really say too much, either I would disagree or agree and then give a reason. But after the second reading and giving feedback I think I realized I had to explain myself even more on their thoughts because that would help me personally try to be open and analyze responses, which was something I wasn’t doing too well. In the end I have pushed myself to not be too afraid to explain myself even if I don’t think I’m making sense, there are others who can help me out. Professor Lisa Blankenship is an example, she made sure to hear me out and try to see where I was going with my thoughts. I may not have left this class being an expert at analyzing but I do leave this class with not being afraid to explaining myself.
When it came to writing our first project, the rhetorical analysis of a cultural artifact, I wasn’t too completely sure what exactly I had to do. I did go to the professor’s office hours and got help. I think I deserved to get that certain grade because as I went back to my piece I did see the mistakes. I don’t remember writing a writer’s letter in high school so that was new to me because I never really thought of going back to my work and talking about what I just wrote and how I organized it and what issues I had with writing my pieces. But at the same I was glad to see that when it came to writing the writers letter I had to include what I was happy with my piece. Typically when I give in a final paper I think of all the mistakes I made or what I should’ve done better after handing it in but with the writers letter, you take a second back and see the good in your paper. Another important piece that came with the writers letter was that I had to see and write the “so what” in every paragraphs. Sometimes I may add in a new paragraph but when it came to revising it, I have to see if I needed it or it was something I had take out even if I liked, the paragraph might not be very useful to my main points. Every paragraph needs a function and “does.” Following that I used those tips to write my second project, research-based argument. The second assignment was my favorite piece to write.
The research-based argument paper was my favorite project because I knew most of what I was talking about. I did have to research more on this topic and I learned even more about my issue that I was arguing. One of the many things that I took away from my English class in high school was this abbreviation that I still use to help me get started in my writings. We used T.E.E.A.C. which meant we used a topic sentence, explain what we were going to present, elaborate on it, analysis our paragraphs with facts depending on the project and finally the conclusion sentence. I mostly used this method while writing the first project there were times where I had a brain freeze and didn’t know how to continue writing. But for this project I didn’t really use that method. In my mind I already had an idea of what I wanted to write about and how to organize it. Sometime I do tend to repeat myself in paragraph as I did in my first draft of the narrative argument. I repeat my paragraphs or thoughts but in different words. In this class and in any other future writing classes I have to make sure that even though I might think that I’m repeating my words sometimes the help of others can see that my work might be the opposite. If I am repeating the same thoughts perhaps I can just elaborate it and use different facts and points to make my point across.
Looking back at the syllabus and the goals that we had to reach for our major projects, I did hit those goals because not only did I work hard but I was challenged to think outside of the box for my projects. As I said before I had to analysis more in my readings and to me that is hard. For any revisions that we had to do, to me it was important to fix what I know think are minor things to focus on such as spelling and grammar that we can later do. Professor Lisa Blankenship gave an interesting class about revisions, which I don’t any of my teachers gone in depth and gave a hand-out called, “Revising Attitudes” by Brock Dethier. It made me realize that there are other things that we can do to help each other in our writings. When it comes to my writing I don’t want people to sugar-coat what they really think of my work. It is nice to hear some compliments on my work but that’s not going to really help me in the future or with my writing. What I really want them is to give me constructive criticism mostly on what they don’t understand.
Since English isn’t my first language sometimes it is hard for me to be a better writer but I do enjoy English classes. They say that to improve your writing or the way to speak properly, you have to read a lot. I truly believe it might help me in the long run. Every once in awhile I read the Wall Street journal or New York Times because those newspapers do challenge me in learning new words. I sometimes read books just to see how authors write and it might help me with my writing.