Portfolio

Cover Letter            

           Throughout this year in English we have written three major papers, numerous amounts of blog posts, and quite a few free writing at the beginning of class, which all in some have helped me in the long run to improve my writing, from what it was last year. Although some of the writing we had accomplished I hated with all my might, I still finished and learned something from it.

            I have decided to revise my literacy narrative for the essay revision assignment, because when I had turned in my paper and later received comments, I learned I could do much better to revise and expand on my ideas I had put into my narrative. To enhance my essay, improvement in organization and voice is essential to create the best new outcome. I have chosen these writing traits to improve my writing, due to the comments Dr. deGravelles gave me on my final draft.

            For the next project, the writing remix, we must complete a new way to transform another piece of writing we have done this year. Since we have just read Nervous Conditions and have talked a lot about if the book should be in the freshman curriculum next year, I decided to do the blog post discussing this topic. In my blog post I expressed my opinion of my argument to keep Nervous Conditions in the lesson plan next year, as it works perfectly with the classroom question, ho do community and culture shape who we are? However in my writing remix, I will show both sides of the argument over Nervous Conditions and present my ideas for and against the book in a magazine article format.

            Finally, the last project is the hits and misses of our overall writing this year. Hits are the writing we enjoyed and misses is the writing we did not enjoy. For my two misses I chose the literacy narrative and the literary analysis. I came to the decision to choose these two works because I do not think it is interesting to write about writing in an essay, which is basically what we did in both. As for my hits, I chose my research paper about blood doping in sports and the lengthy blog post about Nervous Conditions next year. I loved writing both of these compositions because they let me voice my opinion and I could simply have more room for me to write what I desire.

            As a writer now I see myself not the best writer, but I have definitely improved from my skill level last year and at the beginning of this school year. My major struggle is certainly sentence fluency and voice. Sometimes I just can’t get the best sentence structure or my ideas that I want to portray out on the page, however overtime I will soon develop these skills and better my writing techniques. In contrast, I have also enhanced my skills of writing throughout the course of Dr. deGravelles class. I believe I have improved significantly in creating clear arguments and I have picked up on a lot more vocabulary words that I knew before. Also I have learned how to create a strong thesis for an argument, embed quotes in paragraphs, citing my sources of information used, and many more necessary writing devices that will keep me advancing in creating improved paper, essays, and blog posts, not in this class, but in all of my classes and throughout my student career.

Revised Literacy Narrative: 

The Battle with The Hunger Games

            All of my life as a student, I never had a passion for reading, like all of the other kids in classes, turning through the pages of book after book.  As a reader, I never branched out to anything. I read the same old series and authors every week for assigned reading. Picking up anything from the mystery or fantasy genre was unlikely. This habit stayed with me until I got into middle school.

            In sixth grade, in Mrs. Guarisco’s class at the beginning of the year, I was on the same series of books, The Clique. These books are simple chick lits that sparked my interest in reading. This was the same year when The Hunger Games was at its peak of popularity for readers. Almost all of my friends had read the book. My friends would say things like, “Read The Hunger Games, it’s so good!”“I’m team Peta!” or “It’s the best book ever!” So I decided there was no harm in giving it a try.

            It was the worst book I have ever read, not to mention I didn't even finish the first chapter. I thought it was boring, difficult to read, and there didn't seem like there was a point in reading it. The rest of the year I stuck to The Clique drama and other books of that genre.

            Seventh grade year, I moved on from The Clique to the Pretty Little Liars series, which was not a big change. My sister, Taylor, then got into The Hunger Games series and tried to convince me to read it, again. “Come on Brittnee! Just read it. After you get through the first chapter, it’s amazing!”, Taylor said with alacrity as she now held the second book of the series in her hand. I didn’t give in and went back to flipping the thick pages of the Pretty Liars book, trying to gather evidence to figure out the mystery of the novel.

            By eighth grade, I had wiped out the entire Pretty Little Liars series and started to read books that I thought would be interesting, got through a quarter, and stopped reading it. Over time I got dreadfully uninterested in reading and didn't even read altogether.

            As I got to about the middle of my eighth grade year, when the season was turning into spring, news of The Hunger Games becoming a movie was everywhere. You couldn't watch TV without seeing previews or even get through a conversation without mocking jay and Katniss Everdeen being mentioned. My sister and all my friends were so pumped to see it and I soon felt out of the loop. I wanted to try to read the book one more time.

            This time as I slowly picked up the flimsy paperback book and stared bluntly at the cover, I started to read as I sat on the soft cushion of my bed. I read through the first chapter and soon the next and the next and the next. I was hooked. I couldn't put the book down and it was the only thing I thought about when I went to sleep and when I woke up the next day. During the day, all I wanted to do was sit around and read until I was done. Every thought I had was about what was going to happen next and how it would all end. The suspense of it all was killing me. Everything about it was jaw dropping. I read every single chance I had. I think I understood and liked it more the second time around because I was older and my reading skills and attention span had become more developed, so it became easier for me to read. So much for the worst book ever, now The Hunger Games was one of my all time favorite books.

            Towards the end of that year, I then started the next book in the trilogy and saw the most magnificent movie in theaters with all my friends. It was enjoyable to share an interest of the story with so many people. It’s hard to think that when I first started reading the book that I couldn't even finish the first chapter and now it was my obsession. This experience made me think twice about any book when I first start it. Some books may be really boring in the beginning, but if I keep reading and push through it, I just might fall in love. From now on I will be careful how I judge books in the very beginning. Sometimes, you just have to give it a chance and it all will have been worth it.

Writing Center Reflection:

            When our class was told we were required to go to the writing center to manage our paper revisions, I was totally hesitant to make an appointment, I did not want to go at all and I thought that it wouldn't even help me, so what was the point. As I reviewed my paper with one of the writing fellows, Ellery, I became more comfortable with sharing my paper with her and I enjoyed her ideas and feedback that she gave to me, in order to revise my paper to meet the needs of the assignment. I told her from the start that I was focusing on improving the organization and developing more vivid ideas in my literacy narrative. From the start she gave me knowledgeable feedback and I had great motivation to start improving my previously written literacy narrative.

            During my visit to the writing center Ellery told me, once I had reread my essay and discussed what I was hoping to change, that I should change up the structure of the paragraphs and have a variety of length in the sentences to better improve the organization trait in my writing. For the ideas enhancement Ellery suggested I add more detail in the seventh and eighth grade years, develop more on the first paragraph, explain my interest in books, and the experience of the Hunger Games. She also told me to make a few revisions on the repeated words like “really” and “it” that I use a lot in my writing.

            In revising my literacy narrative I took into account all of the feedback people gave me to perfect my paper, which is from your comments, Ellery’s writing fellow suggestions, and my own knowledge I have gained and now know. Now with my paper now finish I think that I have met the requirements for revision and learned a lot along the way.

Hits and Misses:

Hits:

·         Research paper- For my research question I chose, how does blood doping affect endurance athletes? I enjoyed writing this piece because I finally got to write about something I enjoy doing, running, and I also had a sense of freedom in my writing.

·         Blog post on Nervous Condition- I liked this blog post because it allowed me to voice my opinion of the topic and I could argue either way on the book we read.

Misses-

·         Literacy narrative- The literacy narrative is what I also chose to do my revision on, however writing this piece was not fun for me. I really haven’t had an, “Oh my gosh, I love reading/writing”, moment, so I didn’t really know what to write about, and what I did write, I couldn’t find any good ideas or vivid details in my memory.

·         Literary analysis- This was the far worst writing experience I have ever had. First off, I didn’t really understand what I was doing and it was hard for me to chose a short story, because none of them really stood out to me. Also once I got started I had no ideas and I had no clue what to write.

Writing Remix:

Nervous Conditions: For or Against

Students at Episcopal High School, in Dr. deGravelles English I class have been reading the Nervous Conditions book by Tsitsi Dangarembga. As an assignment the students were posed with question of whether they thought Nervous Conditions should be taught the following year and these are the results found. Should they read Nervous Conditions, and have a better understanding of the class question or should student have the opportunity to expand their horizons and read something new?

For:

·         -How do community and culture shape who we are? This is our overall course question throughout the year and has something to do with everything we learn or read. Reading this book is crucial, if you keep this same question and guide in class.

·        Leaving this story out of the curriculum would make the research question more difficult for students to answer without knowledge and experiences they gained from reading Nervous Conditions.

·         The other books we have read, Nation and Lord of the Flies, fit in the same category with this book.

Against:

   Students are getting tired and bored of the same question and topic of community and culture in each book and discussions, if we have a different question or maybe another book that can fit in this category then everything would work without Nervous Conditions.

Some students did not really enjoy Nervous Conditions at all. They wanted to read something intriguing and thought provoking, but Nervous Conditions was too slow moving and it took a while to get to the “good” stuff.

Recommendations:

·         Find a brand new book.

·         Read the Alchemist, the book Mrs. Edwards’ class has read instead.

·         Create new questions, along with new books.

·         Keep reading Nervous Conditions.

Writing Remix - Analysis of Rhetorical Situation:

For my writing remix, I chose to change my blog post about Nervous Conditions in next year’s curriculum and see both sides of the argument in a for and against format. The audience for my writing remix is mainly pushing towards the teachers of the English department, including Dr. deGravelles, to help them decide what the plan is for next year’s English curriculum. In my blog post the audience was to students in our grade to show them my outlook on the book and why I thought it was important to include next year, but in the remix I included other classmates’ ideas with my ideas to show opinions on each side of the argument.

Teachers should have either read, or have reliable knowledge of Nervous Conditions, and they also should know or have access to the other book mentioned, The Alchemist, in order for them to make a decision on what books are essential to growth and development of knowledge of the students next year. I am communicating with the teachers because I have obtained experience from reading Nervous Conditions and learning thence on using the question of the class, how do community and culture shape who we are? I also want to share a student’s point of view to the teachers. I hope that I will give enough information from both sides, to keep reading the book or move on to another book, to the teachers, so they are able to come to a decision that will benefit the education of the rising ninth graders.

My approach to the composition of my piece is unbiased, because I show reasons to keep reading Nervous Conditions and the benefits of it, and the reasons the book is holding students back from reading other books out there, that will nourish their reading and learning skills. In my blog posts, I was all about keeping Nervous Conditions in the curriculum for next year, I had nothing against the book at all, and I included many reasons the book was superior for students. Now, in my remixed version of the blog post I show not only my ideas I had previously written on my blog, but also the new ideas I had thought about before and other ideas that others had commented about or written on their own blogs.

In my new genre of writing I have used more sufficient terms and written from a different point of view, third person. By doing this I am trying to show that the information is not from my opinion and thoughts only, in order that the audience, teachers, will not think that this is from one source of knowledge only, but from many individuals. Since my writing of information is composed by for and against, I decided to split the paper down the middle by having for on one side, against on the other, and recommendations in the middle, which has changed from my original blog post completely, shaking my writing up into a new piece, with a new audience, purpose, stance, genre, and design.