Dear Portfolio Committee,
Before I started English 101, I saw myself as a below average writer. The time frame from when I started English 101 and the time I took English in high school was about 5 years. During this time, I didn’t do a lot of reading when it came to books. I did however read a lot of articles and short stories online. I also spent a lot of time in blogs talking about topics I found interesting. I learned a lot during my time away from school, but I was still nervous when I decided to go back to school. Reason being is that I didn’t do well in English back in high school, so my expectation of how well I was going to do was low. Expecting to do poorly is one of my weaknesses not just as a writer, but as an individual. I had to overcome this weakness before I started because I knew it would affect my work. It was very difficult for me to change my thought process. But when I did my first assignment, I saw how easy it was for me to write. The assignment had me read an article titled, “10 Ways To Think About Writing.” The article changed the way I viewed writing and helped me improve my writing. As I took the course, I learned many things about myself, such as my weaknesses and strengths. The pieces I choose for my portfolio represent how I improved myself throughout the course.
For my first piece in my portfolio, I decided to use the first essay I completed. The memoir assignment demonstrates my skills as a writer before I learn any new skills or tips to improve my writing. The memoir explains the reason why I decided to go with food as a theme, but also showed me a weakness I have as a writer. Describing a scene using specific details is one of my weaknesses I discovered when doing this assignment. I usually use vague descriptions when it comes to describing something, so this assignment challenged my thinking process and pushed me to improve myself. The hardest part of the assignment would be the part when I was trying to describe the theme of the restaurant for my scene. I describe the restaurant fine, but I couldn’t present it as a Texas theme restaurant that I had hope for. I had the sense of writer’s block when it came to this part and it frustrated me to no ends. I done many revisions to this essay and yet I’m still not satisfied with the final draft. This assignment taught me that I need to work on my development skills when it comes to describing details. Discovering my own weakness is the first step in improving myself. It gives me a sense of direction to what I should work on as a writer.
For my second piece in my portfolio, I decided to use the text wrestling assignment because it really shows my improvements in my writing compared to the first piece in my portfolio. At first, I thought this assignment was not going to be as interesting as I hoped, but I was wrong. It was not my initial intention, but for a plain topic as broccoli, I was really into it. This assignment was one of the easier assignments for me to write because it relies on my strength in reading comprehension. This most likely has to do with the time I was out of school where I spent a lot of time reading online. I was able to focus on the assignment and write everything I found to be important to the subject. I wrote everything down in a bullet list to organize the information and then match the information that relates to each other. I then put the information in paragraphs and wrote a response for each one. This assignment demonstrates my improvements in focus, development and organization.
For my last piece in my portfolio, I decided to use the Ethnography assignment because it was the hardest assignment I did for the course. I was to research a subculture and write about it and I choose to do it on a dairy farm. Unfortunately, I struggled to attain information about the subculture because it was during Thanksgiving week that I was doing the assignment. The dairy farm was also a bakery that is very popular in Springfield, RI. I manage to get a tour of the place, but I was only able to look around for a short time. I didn’t get much out of the tour, but I did do some research online of the dairy farm. This assignment challenge both my strengths and weaknesses from my other two pieces in my portfolio. I struggle to describe the theme of the bakery but made up for it using my strength to do research online.
When I started this course, I wasn’t sure how I would do or how much I would learn. This course taught me how to focus on what I am struggling with and use my strengths to my advantage. Discovering my weaknesses and strengths helped me focus on what I lacked in my writing. I hope to use this lesson in real life situations such as work or relationships. There is a lot I still need to learn. I know I need to work on my verb agreements and structure of my essays. Hopefully, I will continue to improve in my next English course. Thank you for your time for reading my work.
Sincerely,
Mikey Phimmasene