Parrish 1 Savannah Parrish April 15th, 2014 English 1102 Portfolio Essay

Portfolio Essay
As this semester is coming to a close, I cannot believe how fast it went by. I remember wandering around clueless my first day of classes, and now I am so close to being a sophomore in college. I am very satisfied with my success as a first year college student and I hope to continue to succeed in my further endeavors. When entering English 1102, I was very close-minded about the course. Being a freshman, I had to take general education classes and did not have much of a choice on what I could take. When hearing at the beginning of the semester that everything we did in the class would lead up to one big research project, I was not a happy camper. When I think about research projects for English, I think about a ten-page paper, MLA format, with lots of works cited annotations and pages. As the course continued, I soon learned that we would write a paper about our particular passions. This really sparked interest in me because I love learning and writing about things that I have an interest in. I choose to do my assignment on my passion for children; being around them, teaching them, and how they impact me as a person. Learning that our final big project would be on what we are passionate about threw away my first initial impression. Choosing to research specific teaching strategies for students with learning disabilities was not only because it is what I am passionate about, but also it better prepared me for my future. I learned so many new things while researching and completing the multi-genre

[Type the document title] 2 project and I actually found myself having fun. I bring this forth because it represents the growth I have shown throughout the semester. I went from being close-minded, unhappy, and dreading the assignments in the course to open-minded, enthusiastic, and realized how much potential I had to grow and learn. My growth in my work and assignments is further shown in my ePortfolio. The organization of my e-portfolio is overall pretty simple. The design and color scheme of my website shows a little bit of my personality. I believe that visually my website really catches the eye of the viewer. I have incorporated pictures on every page and have chose a color scheme that is keen to the eye. On each individual tab/page, I have included a quote or a picture of a quote. Although this has nothing to do with the actual work presented on my website, they are uplifting and send good vibes to those who read them. On the banner at the top of my page, there are three main tabs, with several sub tabs under them leading to my work. I felt that spatially this was the best way to set up my site so I did not have an overflowing amount of tabs displayed. Under the final drafts tabs, I embedded every document like we were told to do so in the directions. This is an easy way to keep each page organized, neat, and easy to navigate. Throughout my website, I chose not to include many words, but mainly titles because I believe that this paper will explain everything that is included in this website. Under the tab named Process Work, I have attached images on every page displaying my work by scanning them through my computer. This was a good tool used because you can view my rough drafts, peer editing, and commentary from Ms. Ingram. If there are several pages included in one assignment, I set it up so that you can scroll through them instead of then all being displayed at once. I believe that my website has many appealing visual and spatial aspects and is well organized.

Parrish 3 The first tab on my website is the Home page. This page includes a picture of an inspirational quote, and this paper, which is my portfolio essay. This essay is a reflection of all the work I have competed over the semester. By analyzing and explaining my work, I can further show the growth and improvement I have been able to make throughout the course of the semester. Exploratory Essay The second tab on my portfolio is labeled Final Drafts. This includes four embedded documents of my best work in English 1102. The first document that is included under this tab is my Exploratory Essay. This was my favorite paper to complete in this course since it was about my passion and desire to teach little kids and the words came easy to me. I included pictures to conclude my essay because I believed it added more of a personal touch, because you could see and envision what I was discussing through out my paper. During one of the warm-ups at the beginning of class, Ms. Ingram asked a question that changed my paper completely. She stated, Would it make your paper better if you switched the introduction paragraph, and the conclusion paragraph? When closely analyzing this decision, I decided to follow through and completely switched those two paragraphs for my final draft of my Exploratory Essay and I believe that it improved my paper greatly. Midterm The next document included in my e-Portfolio is my Midterm paper. This was written halfway through the semester, and discusses things such as progress on my e-Portfolio, examining and analyzing another students final e-Portfolio, and key concepts we have grasped so far in the course. Looking back, I have made a tremendous amount of progress when developing and putting together my portfolio and have improved my writing. As stated in my

[Type the document title] 4 paper, Another key concept that Ive had to grasp in the duration of this course is providing and receiving feedback. I still find this to be very true. It has even strengthened since our midterm because we have continued to complete peer workshops to further better our work as individuals. I have become very open-minded to my peers opinions and suggestions and it has made me a better writer. Annotated Bibliography Following my midterm is my Annotated Bibliography for the multi-genre project. This was one of the more lengthy assignments and it was my least favorite by far. It includes the top six sources that I used to complete my multi-genre assignment. While researching, I learned a lot about my topic and could not complete a good quality project without my annotated bibliography. When originally turning in a hard copy of my paper in class, I only had five source and I have gone back and added a sixth source discussing statistics about children in the education system with learning disabilities. Multi-Genre Project The final tab under final drafts is my Multi-Genre Project. This is the longest and most time consuming project we have completed in class, and most other assignments helped us in the end complete our project. As I have previously stated, when first hearing about the research project I was very unhappy and not thrilled to complete this assignment. To my surprise, I thoroughly enjoyed completing this project and have learned many things that will further help me in my future endeavors to become an elementary school teacher. My project includes an educational website about specific teaching strategies for students with disabilities, a lesson plan incorporating these acquired skills, and a reflection paper explaining and analyzing my work. In the reflection paper, I have taken suggestions from my classmates and Ms. Ingram and have gone

Parrish 5 back and added more content about the five modes of communication and Aristotles appeals. Blog Posts The third and final tab you will find at the top of the page is labeled Process Work. This tab includes multitudes of my work in the process of editing and revising to reach a final draft. The first tab under this page on the drop down box is Blog Posts. Over the course of the semester, we have completed several blog posts to discuss with Ms. Ingram and our classmates our progress on assignments and different questions or concerns we may have about anything. One of my favorite blog post to look back on is our first post about the beginning of the year. I discussed my expectations for English 1102 and talked about my passion that further turned into my multi-genre project. I also stated in this blog post that I love that one of the key concepts is responsibility for ones own learning. I still feel this way because not only have I done so in this course, but I have done so in my first year of college because I have managed to get really good grades and am satisfied with my educational achievements. I also added a couple of sentences to my blog post #4 to meet the minimum word requirement. 3 Process Work Artifacts The next tab under process work is 3 Process Work Artifacts. This includes work that I was drafting and got edited by my peers and Ms. Ingram. I believe that without these drafts, my final copies of my papers would not have reached their full potential. First is a draft of my Exploratory Essay. Since this was the first draft, there are many marks and corrections to grammar structure and sentences. This was also when I began to think about a particular inquiry question that could be used to conduct research for my multi-genre project. The next draft is my first copy of my annotated bibliography. Included are my initial four sources and their citations. Since then, I have not changed much about those sources, except add more and organized it into

[Type the document title] 6 alphabetical order. The final draft on this page is another draft of my Exploratory Essay. This is the last draft before my finished final paper and lead to many changes in my essay. After taking suggestions from my classmates and Ms. Ingram, for example Introducing us to Mrs. Hawkins opens some great looks for you to add detail, I added details to my paper and switched my introduction and conclusion paragraph. All of the work under Process Work was completed in peer workshops and self-editing, and helped me make the necessary changes to write successful final drafts. 2 Feedback Artifacts Next under the tab of process work is 2 Feedback Artifacts. This includes things that I believe have genuinely helped me through out the semester. The first thing displayed on this page is the handout about the five modes of communication. I chose to include this in my ePortfolio because I have referred back to this worksheet multiple times to incorporate these elements into my papers. Also written on the worksheet is the rhetorical triad, which I also used when writing and considering certain audiences and purposes. I even used the five modes of communication while considering the format and organization of my e-Portfolio. The second assignment on the page is a reader response letter. I included this because it also talks about the three tools and establishes how to write a proper essay. This was also one of the first times I had received feedback from my classmates which was practicing a key concept of the course. 2 Writers Notebook Artifacts The assignments under this particular tab, 2 Writers Notebook Artifact, are random assignments that I completed that helped me through the semester. The first assignment is a worksheet completed by my first group and I talking about the syllabus and giving our opinions on it. We discussed what we would learn in the course, what we thought was important, and the

Parrish 7 key concepts. One of the things we all believed would be a hard concept to grasp was critical thinking and I believe that this semester I have dug deep and grown in that area of learning. The second assignment is the first reader response letter we completed. Unlike some of my classmates, I had never written a reader response letter before. After completing the first one, I learned how to go about writing them and got great feedback from Ms. Ingram. 2 Wildcards These two assignments were randomly chosen and were completed during class this semester. Almost every class, we would start by writing a warm up in our writers notebook and I have included two of them in this section of my e-Portfolio. One part of my response says I think my project is coming along really well and this makes me happy because I still believe that and am satisfied with my growth and development over the semester. My second sheet is also another warm up. This warm up is discussing what happened in my first group workshop and my thoughts on the experience. Group workshops really helped me draft and edit my papers and this class would not have been the same without them. After concluding the course and reflecting on all the work completed this semester, I believe that I should receive an A in the class and on this assignment. I have completed all assignments on time and have reached the attendance policy to receive an A. My e-Portfolio is organized in a way that is easily navigable for the viewer and was well thought out. When looking at my drafts of my papers, and then comparing them to the final copies, you can see the time and effort that was made and the growth in my writing. I have thoroughly discussed key concepts and have displayed them in other assignments as well. I have completed all assignments to the best of my ability and believe that looking at my work and growth in the

[Type the document title] 8 course, you will also agree with me that I deserve an A. I have really enjoyed this course and having Ms. Ingram as a teacher was the cherry on top.