portfolio-letter

Dear Writing Department,
The first day I received my long awaited grading rubric back, I had a few choice words I wanted to tell Craig, but held my tongue. Here I had spent a good portion of my week revising the first essay and finally turned it in, with the hopes of receiving at least an 85. But that wasn't the case. Looking down at my paper I saw a score I really wasn't proud of, and didn't feel reflected the time and effort I had put into it. This was a long time ago. And these feeling towards Craig were defiantly out of ignorance. See, I started out my time in writing 101 as a high school running start student, unaware of the major differences between high school writing, and college level writing. And boy, I’ll tell you I was in for a rude awakening!

The difference I learned between high school writing and college writ ting were, that I actually had to sound like myself. As Craig put it, Stop sounding like writing is an out of body experience and you are some robotic, generalizing...! You get the point. It may seem weird to those that haven't been in a high school writing class for quite some time. But to be honest, in high school a person’s supposed to sound like some robot who's reciting Webster’s dictionary. Hell, as long as you have five paragraphs, some fancy words and a catchy title, you've got yourself an A. I used to pop out papers such as those like a toaster, and called it a day. But as I came to find out college rubrics had strange new things called hooks, thesis, description, and organization, just to name a few. These are some of the critical writing strategies that comprise college level writing. I started out my time in writing 101 oblivious of those components. They were defiantly my weaknesses. But after much hard work, practice and help from a great instructor, I finally feel I have reached a level in writing 101 that I can be very proud of.

The essays included in my portfolio are the ones I feel demonstrate my strengths as a writer the most. These include essay number three and essay number four. It has taken me three essays to do it, but I finally feel I have turned my weaknesses I mentions above, into my overall strengths. The title to my third essay was "A march for equality". Unlike my previous essays, "A march for equality" started out with a good hook, followed with a strong thesis, rhetoric strategies and organization. I felt like I sounded less robotic and more like myself, mainly because I was arguing my point, and was interested in my topic. One example that I feel demonstrate my use of a good hook is, "Love has no gender. "There I’m finished!" Shouted Bella as she added the final touches to the poster. "That looks fantastic!" Exclaimed Kellie in excitement. They gathered their things and headed out of their townhouse and into their car. The couple was off to Downtown Seattle where the 2008 march for gay marriage was being held." My intro is a narrative. I did this so that it would draw in the reader and give them a clear picture of what the argument was, that I later discuss. The other skill I demonstrated well was a clear thesis. An example of this is in my third paragraph, "I firmly believe that marriage should not be restricted to only male and female couples." This is clear and to the point, and is defiantly arguable. Which I feel made it a good thesis.

My fourth essay also shows areas I believe are my strengths. My title for essay four is, "Text messaging; A teenage epidemic!" This essay shows my use of many rhetoric strategies, an example of this is the anecdote I use in paragraph five line six. Here I tell a story that emphasizes my point that texting and driving is very dangerous, it demonstrates my point that texting has more negative affects then positive ones. Another strength that I feel is shown in this essay is my appeal to emotion. An example of this is quote, "Just think, Innocent children could be riding their bike on the side walk, unaware that some negligent teenager may come swerving into them while sending an unimportant text!" Throughout this essay, I use appeal to logic, emotion, rhetorical questions, and a clear thesis. These are areas I used to be very bad at, and now feel are my strengths.

Over all I chose these essays because I am proud of the growth they demonstrate, in comparison to the way I started out. In the first few essays I never had strong thesis, description or other rhetoric strategies. I feel essay three and four demonstrate these writing skills and many more that I have developed over time in writing 101. In the beginning of writing 101 I started out as an ignorant writer, unaware of all the elements it take to compose a well writ ting essay. I had many weaknesses in this category. I feel the two essays in my portfolio; demonstrate how I have transformed my weaknesses into strengths which make me very proud.

Thank you for your time. I hope you enjoy reading this portfolio.

Sincerely,
Amber Caughron