As I review my portfolio and its content, I can honestly say my growth as a writer has increased significantly since the first day of class. I’ve learned how to incorporate my own personal style to formal pieces of writing without altering the meaning behind each piece. Learning how to properly address rhetorical devices such as ethos, logos, and pathos has been helpful in this process. Proving myself as a credible author was easier once I understood how to properly utilize these devices, while integrating my own personal opinion. Reading the short excerpts about the elements of style, rhetoric, genre, and research were also very useful in my success in this course, and in the completion of my portfolio.

At this point, I feel very confident in my writing skills. Over the course of the semester, I was exposed to several different types of writing and was able to compose my own literacy narrative, rhetorical analysis, and inquiry blog. These three pieces are the main parts of my portfolio that I wouldn’t be hesitant to share with anyone. I plan to use my works to assist others in developing their own pieces in the future if need be. At the start of the semester, I wasn’t originally enrolled in Ms. Andrew’s 1103 English course; switching into this class was one of the best decisions I could’ve made as an individual who enjoys writing and being creative while doing so. I liked how she always tried to keep things modern instead of teaching directly out of a textbook. We watched several YouTube videos and TedTalks to help get a better understanding of several concepts covered throughout the course. I found this to be very helpful when given the task to write our own forms of the examples shown to us. I also enjoyed getting into the large circle and having class discussions about assignments. It really helped me to understand the assignments in further detail and helped me produced credible, interesting work.

Up until this course, I had difficulties opening up and expressing my personal emotions in pieces of writing, but after writing my literacy narrative, I learned that personal experiences make for better writing. It allows your audience to get personal with you as the author and potentially put themselves in your shoes for the short time they’re reading your piece. It could also open their minds to new possibilities they would’ve never thought of unless they would’ve read your work. Providing personal information can be more helpful than one realizes as an author. Before completing this course, I thought most every piece of writing I was going to do in college was going to be formal, strictly formatted, and there would be little to no room for my own personal style. After completing the course and my portfolio, I have come to the realization that adding personal touches makes it far more intriguing to read, grade, and discuss later on. In my rough draft of my personal literacy narrative, Ms. Andrews made the comment that I didn’t have to be so “formal” and “proper” in such a personal piece, and that it was okay to say things that I would actually say in my everyday life.

After reading Zemliansky’s “Literacy is Not Just Words Anymore”, my interpretation of literacy completely changed. I learned that literacy can also be visual aspects as well. My favorite portion of this course was when we analyzed commercials and advertisements and learned about American ideologies that were common in our society. In every ad or commercial, the people being utilized were more often than not celebrities, or individuals who appeared “flawless” to the human eye. They were very beautiful, and appealed to the public eye. As I discovered this to be repetitively true, I began asking myself why? The answer I came up with is that in our country, being beautiful is the only way to be accepted in society, any other way is ostracized amongst Americans. I also enjoyed writing my own version of the “Nacerima Modern Ritual” piece. This really forced me to expand my thinking which is very frustrating to me personally. I absolutely despise having to force myself to really think about something because normally it just comes with ease. This helped me grow as a writer, and pushed me to think outside of the box.

After writing the rough draft of each important pieces of the portfolio, “workshop days” would be held in class. During these “workshops” Ms. Andrews would assign each class member to a group in which we would proofread and peer-edit our classmates pieces of work. This was very helpful in creating each piece because you received feedback from more than just one individual and you could get a second and third opinion on your piece. For example, if a classmate is stuck on how to tie two ideas together into one, or needs help coming up with a clever title to their work, you can assist them in finalizing their piece and bettering it before being analyzed and critiqued by the teacher in the final draft. Obtaining feedback, whether it is positive or negative, is always helpful when producing pieces of writing. Despite the fact I typically don’t enjoy peer collaboration, I always learned something new each time we were given the opportunity to work in groups for any assignment and found it to be beneficial.

Throughout this course, each assignment has proved its relevance to either my life, or the society that I live in. Being able to write about things that actually have an effect on my daily life really made me open my eyes to the world around me, made it much more interesting, and I can’t believe I’m actually saying this but it made the class fun. Creating my rhetorical analysis was frustrating because we had to make it digital, but after getting a hang of the wix website, it turned into a fun assignment. I will use the skills I’ve developed over this course to continue to improve and further myself as a writer. My experience in this course and my final portfolio will serve as a token of my knowledge that I can keep with me and I can showcase to others in the future.