Emilee Ruhland

Assessment Committee North Dakota State University Dear Assessment Committee:

12 December 2012 Emilee.Ruhland@my.ndsu.edu

This portfolio is a culmination of my years as an undergraduate at North Dakota State University. Since my first English class in 2010, my writing skills and knowledge have improved dramatically due to the core and upper-level writing courses I have taken. In my Spring 2010 class, English 271: Literary Analysis, we were to write a final project that showed our understanding of the theories we had learned over the semester. My paper, The Exploration of a Dream: Heart of Darkness and the Journey Through the Congo was the culmination of this project. Outcome 5 of the English department states that graduates should be familiar with a variety of theoretical lenses. Throughout this class I had many opportunities to practice writing with lenses, and I chose to use both Marxism and psychoanalysis to analyze Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness. I use these theories to show how Conrad uses Marlows trip through the Congoa journey that I liken to a dream by using psychoanalysisas a means to find his and Marlows true self and a classlessand therefore idealisticsociety. This paper showed what I had learned that semester, but my literary theory paper for English 358: Writing in the Humanities and Social Sciences showed that I was able to apply this knowledge to different classes, books, and theories. After reading Dorothy Allisons Bastard out of Carolina, we were given the option of choosing any theoretical lens with which to analyze Allisons novel. My essay, A Feminist Approach to Boatwright Women: Aunt Raylene and Mama as Mother Figures in Bastard out of Carolina, uses feminism to critique Mama as a mother figure, and to argue that Aunt Raylene becomes the ideal and realistic mother figure for Bone by the end of the book. My final project for English 467: Capstone Experience also uses feminism, applying Elaine Showalters three stages of feminism to the texts and characterizations of Morgan le Fay. Both of these pieces provide ample evidence of my knowledge and application of Outcome 5. My English 358 paper also provides an example of my development of professionalism exhibited in such qualities as self-direction, cooperation, civility, reliability, and care in editing and presenting the final product, as outlined in departmental Outcome 7. A Feminist Approach to Boatwright Women is written formally and professionally, exhibiting a sense of self-direction and editing and presentation. In researching for this project, I was required to direct the fluid change of the paper as my research provided

Ruhland 2 new insights. An article I found spoke about the honky-tonk angel, and gave me the idea to write about the pre-female phase ideal of the angel in the house that many men expected from their wives. It is presented in such a way that employs the most effective argument and is easy to follow. I have been able to use the skills learned in English 358 while in my English 423: Creative Writing Studio this semester. Monster in the Closet is a short story that took many different forms and extremely different drafts before it became the final product. This story was written for a final chapbook that is printed professionally and given to Professor Nichols at the end of the semester. As the highest creative writing class an undergraduate can take, the chapbook produced should show some of the finest work produced. I spent many hours editing and content-design in order to make the story at its finest before printing it in the chapbook. This short story, written about a mental illness and in a chapbook with a theme of struggling for control over the self, is the work I am most proud of, due to the care in which I redrafted and redrafted the piece and the time I took to create a careful presentation. The format seen here is the final format, font, and design used in the chapbook. In English 275: Introduction to Writing Studies, I wrote a paper entitled Writing in the Classroom. This project required quite a bit of research that was very varied. To complete my research, I found articles, books, and definitions on University websites that gave a backbone to my paper. After that, I conducted personal research, looking at projects from specific classes and interviewing high school professors. This project is still in progress, and I have been conducting interviews with University professors to add to my research from high school teachers. This project exemplifies the goals stated in Outcomes 3 and 4: Outcome 3 states that students will be able to conduct research effectively, and Outcome 4 states that they will be able to manage sophisticated work within time and constraints of the project. I was able to do research of academic work, and also my own personal research, completing the project well within the time frame given and with the constraints of my resources. My capstone paper, How Feminism has Transformed the Character of Morgan le Fay: A Literary and Media Analysis, required intensive research in order to complete the project and present it both orally and in written format. The project required fifteen solid sources. My paper uses over seven texts written from 1136 to 2012, Elaine Showalters A Literature of Their Own as the book providing the theoretical lens, and six to eight articles providing evidence of my argument. I read over eleven articles about Morgan le Fay and Arthurian literature, working my way down to the most efficient articles that benefited and added to my argument that Morgan le Fay is a character whose development has followed the development of feminism. This paper shows my development and understanding of Outcomes 3 and 4. I was required to effectively conduct research with a variety of research strategies and sources, document my sources efficiently, and manage sophisticated writing by planning, documenting, completing and assessing my work before presenting it at my oral presentation and the final paper due date. Thank you for your time. In the following pages, the work I spoke of above, as well as a Capstone Proposal, Capstone Progress Report, and a Resume are displayed.