Chris' Eportfolio

Composition

 English 2010 Intermediate Writing

Self Reflection Letter 

During my English 2010 course I have learned a lot about the writing process.  I took English 1010 quite some time ago and I was nervous to jump back into writing again.  In English 1010 we focused on reports and essays. This course has helped me break out of those habits.  At the beginning of the semester it showed that I had little to no experience in writing in other genres.  As the semester progressed I was able to see the differences in the genres and how to use different ones to have a greater effect on the audience.  I have included three of the different genres that I feel are a good representation of the experience I have gained. Those three genres are position/proposal paper, report and a review.  I thought about which pieces would best show my growth over the semester and I thought that the report would be a good choice because it is a style of writing that I feel confident in.  I chose to include the review because to me it is a stark contrast to reports.  The position/proposal paper was required by the instructor to be part of the final portfolio.  At first I was sad that I wouldn’t be able to post one of my more visual pieces because I was proud of them.  But as I thought more about how the position/proposal showed many more of the skills I have gained.

We focused a lot on how to write for the different genre choices; each one having reasons why to use that type of writing.  The position/proposal for example is a genre that allows you to explore other opinions while having your position showing through the strongest.  Another skill I learned during this class is revision.  I have learned that any piece of writing undergoes many revisions.  I felt good about my work and took it to class for our peer review sessions and my group was able to help me see ways to improve them, ways I never thought of.  

The peer review sessions were a great help to me and my writing throughout the semester.  I enjoyed receiving the advice from people who truly wanted to help my writing improve.  My group consisted on myself and one other person.  It was nice to have another person close to the topic look over it and see where I needed to add more information.

As I mentioned before it has been a while since I have taken English 1010 or any general education classes so this course was able to help me ease back into college and feel more comfortable with the upcoming classes and assignments.  There was a strong focus on the proper citing of sources.  As with any college class there are concerns of plagiarism so it was apparent early on the importance of citing things correctly.  I was able to learn the different ways to cite for the different genres of writing.  For example in the review paper I was able to cite sources right in my writing; conversely in the position/proposal paper I had to cite my sources in MLA format.  For the eportfolio I placed all my sources into MLA format. 

I have gained more confidence in my writing throughout this semester.  I am more comfortable writing pieces in any genre.  At the beginning of the semester I was nervous to draw up brochures, flyers or other heavily visual pieces but now I feel like I have a better understanding of what needs to happen in those visual writing projects.  I think this will help me in the future as I progress in my personal and professional life.

Another large area that I feel like I have improved in is the ability to work in groups or teams.  My current profession is a lot of work on your own and not much interaction with others.  I was able to see the real value of working in teams.  A lot more can be accomplished with people working together on a common goal.  For our group project we chose to write about was the dangers of air pollution and ways to fix the problem of air pollution.  It was nice to have group members who were passionate about the issue and who were willing to help with research.  We were able to split the research load and help each other become better writers.

As the semester progressed I felt more confident in my abilities to communicate with others through writing.  I have never been a great writer and was fairly apprehensive when it came to sharing my work probably because I never thought any of my writing was worth reading.  I have come to realize how valuable writing skills are to the workplace.  I hope to become an Occupational Therapist and part of that job entails writing reports.  It is imperative to be able to write thoughts clearly and in a way that will be easy to be understood.  Another aspect is being able to understand the things being written, as I have been able to see different genres of writing I have grown in understanding of what types of writing are best depending on the goals of the author.

A major point that my professor made to the class was the importance of deciding what the audience needed to know from our writing.  When I began the semester I took the approach of “Ready, Fire, Aim,” meaning that I would begin writing before I had decided what I wanted to accomplish and hoped that somehow a meaning would present itself.  Now I am more concerned about why they need to read my work.  I think this is a better approach because I can control where I want to take the readers rather than just jumping into it.  I also think that this is valuable because if I have a plan I won’t waste a lot of time sifting through endless information that has nothing to do with my topic or my goals.  

I was not very excited to take English again but I now realize how great it was and how much this class will help me advance academically and professionally.  It has also helped me realize that employers want to hire people who can communicate verbally and through written messages.  They want people who can understand through the written instructions and who are capable of writing clear instructions to others.  I am glad that I was able to learn and develop the skills necessary for my future college and career.