Whitney's Writing Portfolio

About me: I'm 20 years old and am attending GCC right now, but by next year I will be at ASU West. My major is Special Needs Education and to help me stay focused on that I volunteer in a Special Ed. class once a week. I'm also a teacher at a Sunrise Preschool.

My Assessments:

• Assessment #1: Rhetorical Analysis
• Assessment #2: Essay 1
• Assessment #3: Essay 2
• Assessment #4: Argumentative Research Paper
• Assessment #5: Essay #2 Rewrite/Peer Reviews
• Assessment #6: Personal Reflection (Posted Below)

• Personal Reflection (Assessment #6)

To me, a personal reflection is something that makes someone look back at himself or herself and see how they have improved over a period of time. I think over the course of this semester my writing has improved on different levels. When I first wrote essay 1, I didn’t totally understand the style I write in and how I needed to compromise to make it fit the style the teacher wanted. I was use to writing research papers, fact after fact, in high school, so the first essay was difficult for me. As the semester progressed, I started to understand the kind of writing college expected out of me, and yes it was never perfect on the first try, but I got better at it. By the time I wrote the final essay of the semester, I felt I knew what I needed to say and how to say it. I knew what needed to be in the paper and I feel like I did a decent job.

The one strength I continued to show in all of my essays was information from articles. Although I might have had trouble getting some of the information I wanted across at the beginning, by the last essay I think I did well at expressing the facts. In essay 2, I wrote a narrative about a college boy who compares/contrasts sugar and asphalt roads. In this essay I got most of the information across but not as well as other essays. Essay 3 and essay 4 had many strengths of mine when it came to articles I used and how it affected my paper and hopefully the reader. I used a lot of the stories from the article I used for essay 3. I think that made my paper more powerful because the stories of the murders of the transgenders gave pathos that reached out to the readers.

Just like any other writer, I still make mistakes and need room for improvement. The first essay I wrote I gave too much information. It was just fact after fact. I needed to find some way to connect everything together. By essay 4, I found how to use information from resources but still put in my opinion and connect it all together. I think I still need some help on how to add my thoughts into a paper but not over do it. I also still have trouble with limiting myself on how much information to provide in my papers. Yes, it has gotten better but I feel like I repeat myself a lot. If I was given more time to work on my essays I would have sat down with a tutor every time to help me organize my papers better, and show me how to limit myself in certain areas but then put more in others.

At the beginning of the semester, I had a hard time grasping the concept of ethos, logos, and pathos, but now I have a better understanding of them. I think in essay 1 I was all over the place; I needed the guidance of what a college paper should look like. I jumped around a lot in essay 1 and 2 and like I said before, I repeated a lot of things. I still think I repeat things but I think it’s more of getting my argument across now. Essay 4 was easy but still challenging for me. I think as a writer, a paper should always be a little challenging for us.

I wouldn’t say I’m the best writer now, but I have greatly improved, I think. I think I have come out of my high school ways and now can handle writing a college level paper. This class has helped me see where I slacked in my writing skills, but has also helped me improve them. I would say at the end of the semester, my writing deserves the grade of a “B”. I know I’m still not perfect, but I think I have learned a lot from the first essay to the last; and hopefully my writing will only get better.