Brown 1 Kendall Brown Ingram English 1102 April 21, 2013 Portfolio Essay Its been a long semester,

and my English 1102 class is finally coming to an end. In the past I have never enjoyed any of my previous English classes, and have dreaded every second of lecture. The first day that I sat in Ms. Ingrams class I thought it was going to be the same routine, but something was different. Sitting in Ms. Ingrams class has been really interesting, and we have discussed many broad topics mainly concerning health. After the first couple of classes we were asked a simple question, what does it mean to be healthy? From then on, we had to create an inquiry question that would eventually follow up with specific task and assignments to clearly answer the question. Though, there has been a countless number of frustrating writing assignments and work. I truly believe that this course has developed me into a better writer and overall student. When you go to my e-portfolio you will notice that it is organized from left to right in the order of completion. I used the method because I felt that it was easiest to navigate, while still clearly displaying my sections of work. Before English 1102, I had a difficult time providing the reader with the proper elements involved in my ideas or opinions. After reviewing my process work, it was unreal how much I have learned in just a short semester. Before I discuss any of my papers, I wanted to mention the importance of my blog assignments along with the From Inquiry To Academic Writing reading guide. Using Weebly has really been the groundwork of me growing into a better writer. In order to complete my blog assignments,

Brown 2 certain post required me to read me book. I found myself learning new ways to research, write, and think about all sorts of topics. Though the assignments were annoying to complete, the questions and tasks that I had to do challenged me to think critically. According to Bedford/St. Martins From Inquiry To Academic Writing text in chapter one Forms of critical thinking are the thought patterns that lead you to explore alternative opinions, predict opposing arguments, question statements and opinions, compare one type of experience to another, and to identify the causes and consequences of mind. If you click the blog tab, a great example of this would be blog post number seven. In this particular assignment, I highlighted the key terms and subjects of logos, pathos, and ethos. I like this specific example because it illustrates how I constructed new ideas to influence my papers overall communication and persuasion. I had to ask myself critical questions, and make decisions based on the readers point of view. I felt that this is just one of many examples of how my intellectual growth and maturity has skyrocketed through revisiting work, creating blog post, and learning helpful key concepts in the reading. The first essay example that I want to mention is my What Its Like To Be You essay, which took me many hours to build. When I started writing this paper I thought that it was going to be an easy paper with me giving details about myself and how I was raised. When I got ready to write my essay I was in amazed at how difficult it was to write. After the first workshop I quickly understood that I had obviously not provided enough detail or information in my paper. With the lack of material, my group was left with all types of questions and comments. It was at this time, that I realized how helpful the workshop activities could be. My group got really involved in my essay and gave me alternate ideas and suggestions to improve my work. Although this is probably one of my worst essays, I feel that the final draft shows how I have progressively grown as a writer. This may not show the greatest transition because it was the first

Brown 3 major assignment; however as the semester goes on, you will be able to see how I have grown as a writer from beginning to end. In the WILTBY page I provided examples of brainstorming, drafts, and other revisions to show how I took my first draft, and shaped it into my final draft. The next assignment that is posted is my annotated bibliography. This is a piece of writing that I have never done in the past, so it took me a couple of times to get the hang of it. Basically the purpose of the annotated bibliography is to provide a citation, and give details on how my work is connected to my topic. It is also important to include, how the author is going to use the information to make a valid point, and explain why the source is reliable. When building my annotated bibliography, the first challenge was to pick out all of the important information, while leaving out the information that does not concern to my topic. I provided my first draft on the page. As you can see I had the correct format, but did not include any information on how I could use the information in my paper, or why it is reliable. After researching, I found that my original topic of specifically Organic food Nutrition needed to change. This is when I really started to engage and understand the importance of the key concepts, the first concept being independent inquiry. This gave me the opportunity to work independently and explore how I could make changes to effectively present my work. This was only the beginning of my engagement. Over the semester I discovered how to use self-determining attitudes in my plans, questions, problems and assignments. I was always responsible to make sure that my work was done to my absolute best, regardless of any obstacles. There was not enough information, so I decided to expand my inquiry question to, Why it is important to incorporate organic foods into your budget, instead of buying the conventional ones? The action of taking my original inquiry question and expanding it to another idea was definitely the concept of risk-taking. I wasnt sure how everything was going to pan out, but in the end, it went a lot better than I originally

Brown 4 envisioned. As a result of the change, this gave me a whole new set of sources that I didnt include in my first draft. Although, I still do not have several sources, I was able to find sources that were very helpful, reliable, and beneficial for me to get my topic understood. As a finished product, I was easily able to look at the citations and know the significance of each one. This made my argumentative research essay much easier to write because I was able to flip through my annotated bibliography and find the related subject that I was writing on in my paragraph. I selected my first draft as a piece of evidence to show how far I came through the transition of my topic. Continuing left to right, I included my argumentative research essay. In my opinion this was the best essay that I had written, and was much easier to write because of the amount of practice that I learned in my previous assignments. As I mentioned before, the main question that I wanted to answer is Why is it important to include organic foods into your grocery list, instead of buying conventional ones? The idea of this paper is to make a valid point to the audience, which is specifically anyone who cares about their overall health and the condition of our environment. In my first draft you will see that I had a difficult time using good structure, word choice, and did not support my topic sentences. When I brought my draft to class, Ms. Ingram forced us to complete a Side-Shadowing activity to help us analyze every piece of our work, through every paragraph. This activity made me do a complete 360 and really revise my draft. In my first draft I had great topic sentences, but followed them up with literally no support. For example, in my third paragraph my topic sentence was The EPA has recently determined a safe amount of chemicals that a human can process without causing harm. This provides the idea of my paragraph; but without any statistics or background, this leaves the reader with questions of the validity of my argument. With that being said, I revised all of my topic

Brown 5 sentences and added support to make a clear argument to the reader. To support the topic sentence example that I just previously mentioned, I provided proven information in my paper such as I believe that these are highly toxic chemicals that a person should not be exposed to. In 1995 and again in 2002, the USDA found that of the 12 most commonly eaten produce items, 73%-90% were contaminated by pesticides, even after washing and peeling (Conventional Farming). Clearly this is only one example of how I learned to support my paper, but I felt that the Side-Shadowing activity really helped me get more in-depth and improve my paper as a whole. Aside from the activity, I felt that I showed my engagement to you during our conferences. If you recall we spent nearly 45 minutes alone on my paper! This consisted of me asking every possible explanation to construct a better research paper. As a result, I took your advice and provided more information about overall organic nutrition, and steered away from conventional farming facts. This helped my paper take off, and I was able to persuade my readers much more easily. To show how I grew from draft 1 to my final draft I attached my work to the Side-Shadowing activity, as well as my revisions in the argumentative research essay tab discussed in the conference. I think my grade for this course should be a solid low A. I was not the greatest student of all time, but I definitely have put in several hours of extra work to achieve my highest potential grade. To start off, I think I did a great job attending fewer than four absences; considering that I tested positive for mono back in February. If you havent noticed, I have always been prepared for class and have made great grades on all of my quizzes. That being said, I did not make good quiz grades because I am smart; it was simply because I was prepared for class with all of the necessary notes. Due to shyness, I am not the best student in speaking up in large lectures, but I am great in small groups. During group activities, I gave every piece of my honest feedback,

Brown 6 while still understanding to take in positive criticism. As a whole, I feel that my e-portfolio came together smoothly. My goal was to present my portfolio in a way that clearly illustrates that I put forth my absolute best effort. I think that I did a good job showing this in all of my paper revisions, mainly through turning negative feedback into the ultimate final product. I truly believe that I showed good effort, especially in my blog assignments. I felt that I really went the extra mile in these assignments; once I started them, I always had a hard time stopping. I have a sense that all of the self-assessments that you have read so far are feeding you all the same information that you want to hear, or saying how many great things they have learned over the course of the semester. In a typical English class, I would have just drawn up a couple sentences, or made up a stupid way of how I have grown as a student. Its a crazy feeling, because I can honestly say that I do not have to pretend or make any thing up about this class. This is hands down been the best learning experiences that I have had in an English class, and I am not just saying that to make you feel good about yourself. I seriously feel like a whole new student. My writing has improved so much, and the coolest part is that it can all be shown through accessing my portfolio. It has been a wonderful semester, and with it coming to an end, all I can say is thank you Ms. Ingram!