Samantha Duran

CW R1A

Becky Hsu

5 December 2019

Introduction: My Journey as a Writer

This semester has been a period of growth for me as a writer as well as an individual. At

the beginning of the year, I struggled with putting my thoughts into coherent words on paper, and

an enormous amount of anxiety would overcome me as the due date got closer. Writer's block

was a constant issue that I encountered in the process of writing. I eventually had to learn that

terrible first drafts are inevitable; writing is a learning process that cannot be achieved on the first

try. Once coming into terms with this, writing became more natural, and the anxiety I once had

slowly started to disappear.

I chose the critical response essay to Jonathan Foley's lecture "Building a Climate Safe

Future" to be the first essay in my writing portfolio because it is the first writing assignment of

the semester and thus demonstrates my growth as a writer. Given that paper was my first college

essay I had a substantial amount of anxiety in the process. I felt the pressure of writing a perfect

rough draft. Through the process of accepting feedback and revising my essay, I realized that

writing is based on trial and error. In my rough draft, I initially struggled with punctuation and

conciseness. I learned to write concisely by using specific word choices that effectively get my

point across to the reader. The minor punctuation errors such as commas and comma splices

were easy fixes that were made by watching online videos on punctuation. However, I am proud

of this essay because, in the end, it was well organized and conveyed the message to the reader. I

wrote a clear thesis and was able to prove my argument through the examples in my writing.
Through this essay, I learned that I am more capable than I think. I am my biggest critic, and

therefore, I hinder my abilities through self-doubt.

The second writing assignment in my portfolio is a synthesis essay comparing three

experts' approaches to combating climate change. In this essay, I was more confident as a writer

which is seen in the organization and structure of the essay. The essay had a good flow of logic

and demonstrated a growth of ideas from one paragraph to the next. I smoothly incorporated

quotes that strengthened my arguments into paragraphs without disturbing their structure.

However, as I got further along into my essay, I found myself getting too general in my analysis.

I went back to add more commentary to develop my argument further and continued this

throughout the essay. Through this assignment, I finally gained the confidence that I needed

because it forced me to analyze deeply and synthesis texts. This made me further develop my

skills as a writer.

I chose to place my visual analysis essay to Aminder Dhaliwal's graphic novel Woman

World in the middle because it is different from the other pieces in the portfolio. In demonstrates

my development as a writer, as it is the first time I have done a close analysis of a graphic novel.

Dhaliwal introduced several interesting topics regarding the issues of living in a patriarchal

society. My interest in analyzing the underlying humor made it challenging to pick a specific

thesis to focus my essay on. I found that the thesis statements I wrote were too general and

therefore lacked a close analysis. This led to me to re-access the direction of the paper and create

a thesis statement focusing on her satirization of consumer products. Through this experience, I

learned the significance a clear thesis statement has in directing the attention of a paper.

The last writing assignment in my portfolio is the community proposal on Octavia

Butler's Parable of the Sower. Unlike my other essays, it is a creative thesis-driven piece. The
prompt was to create a proposal plan for an improved community for Robledo using the Haas

project proposal format. It was difficult to write a creative piece while also meeting the demands

of a thesis-driven essay. However, it gave me the freedom to toy with the idea of creating my

community. I also included concrete detail and commentary on the text to justify the reasoning

for the plan. The project proposal is an interesting paper as it shows a creative side that differs

from the other thesis-driven essays.

Overall, my experience over the course of this semester has allowed me to strengthen my

abilities as a writer. I developed certain skills to improve my writing, such as: taking breaks,

making an outline, and free writing. I found that these simple tasks helped me throughout the

writing process. At the start of the semester, I always doubted my ability and would second guess

myself. I overcame the anxiety that I once had, and instead became a writer confident in her

abilities. This came through the realization that writing is a process that continues to improve

throughout time.