My Portfolio has been put together in a way that will demonstrate how I've progressed through Writing 101. It consists of my first and last essay papers. My first essay is about Bacon's rebellion and my last essay is a group assesment outline toward our class debate between the federalists and anti-federalists. The weaknesses in my first essay were not putting enough of my opinions in and that my essay sounded like a document instead of an essay. My strengths in that essay were staying on topic and providing evidence to back up my details. As for my last essay outline, our group had way more strengths than weaknesses. The only weakness in that essay was our lack of multiple effective main points. But the strengths were length, details, presentation, and counter arguments. For both of those essays I was really trying to follow my writing philosophy.
My original writing philosophy was just doing my best in whatever tasks I'm given. Now I feel that my original philosophy lacked detail. I've changed my philosophy more toward following standards and looking for what my teachers want out of my work. When I write I write for myself, and I write to impress. The way I wrote the first essay was very well detailed but I never wrote essays that way. This PSEC writing process was different, but it worked. In a way I'm still following my original philosophy but now I'm expanding that philosophy.
The way I wrote the first essay was very different from what I was used to. The writing process was somewhat similar to my highschool's but this process involved more details such as templates, more quotes, more paragraphs, and most importantly more steps before the final draft. In that essay I stayed on topic and my thesis was very well supported. But during my evaluation my instructor came to the conclusion that my essay sounded like a document which made my entire essay sound too factual. He told me to work on adding my own views along with the facts next time. One quote that stood out for my instructor was the introductory quote. “In January 1667, The Susquehannahs (Natives) had, in a most inhumane maner, murthered no less then 60 innocent people, no ways guilty of any actual injury don on these ill disarming, brutish heathen." This quote suppoted my point that the Native attacks in Virginia were on the rise. My overall experience for this essay was pretty confortable. I didn't stress much about how my outline or rough drafts looked and I came up with a decent final draft that I felt was my best work.
My last essay experience was a lot better than my first. What made thos essay experience better was the fact that it was assigned as a group assesment. I work a lot better in groups than by myself because when I'm in a group I get more feedback on my research, seeing if it's effective or not. Also when I"m in a group I feel more comfortable presenting. During the presentation and debate I had much information to contribute. All my points were well supported with facts and opinions and our group also supported eachother with plenty of back up facts. After completing those essays I realized that my writing style changed and that I felt that I could've put more effort into both essays, but after you complete an assesment, if you prepared for it, you always feel like you could've done better.
What I had hoped to accomplish from Writing 101 was to improve my writing in general, and now that this class is coming to a close I can say that I improved dramatically. I still have the same weaknesses but I intend to better myself so my weaknesses can soon become my strengths. I don't believe that I'll change my writing philosophy again because it has proven to be very effective. I have much to work on but I know that if I put my mind to it I could actually become a very good writer.
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