Jamelah Travis

144 E. 9th Street Dykstra Hall 316

Holland, MI 49423
26th April 2015
Professor Werner, Assistant Professor
Department of English
Lubbers 334
Dear Professor Werner,
Thank you for your guidance, understanding and responsiveness to my writing and also to my
ways of learning which have all helped me acclaim greater knowledge and writing skills. I
appreciate that the grading during this class was done so proficiently; these quick grades and
feedback has helped enhance my writing abilities by recognizing what is already done well and
then being able to focus more on what needs work, increasing my listening skills, and that
although a bad grade is disappointing, realizing to use that bad grade and learn from my
mistakes. These skills have not only applied to this class but all of my other classes as well.
That being said, I have created a portfolio in order to illustrate the improvement and progress in
my writing, as well as highlight areas that still need to be worked on. In this portfolio, I will
share four pieces of writing done throughout English 113, two being the positive pieces, or the
ones I am most confident and proud of, one negative piece, or one that could have been done
better, and one They Say I Say critical summary. Again, thanks to the quality of instruction in
this class, these four texts have developed in themselves immensely but also developed from one
to the next. I am confident that you will be pleased with the growth that this portfolio will show.
The first piece I chose was the audience analysis paper. The objective of the assignment was to
chose an advertisement and analyze how the author revealed his/her audience choice. I
understand now that an audience analysis greatly differs from an advertisement analysis because
in the audience analysis I am not considering rhetorical strategies (ethos, pathos, logos); this was
a process I did not realize when I turned in my first draft of this assignment. For example, on
page one, paragraph two of the first draft I wrote, Pathos is primarily used in this advertisement
as it picks out certain emotions and circumstances that seem to be perfect to a given consumer
(Travis Audience Analysis). Walking away from this project, I felt more confident on
understanding the vehicles for recognizing an intended audience such as the sex of the
characters, the phrases on the ad, the color or mood, etc. I chose this to be my negative piece
because I didnt quite grasp the intentions of the prompt and I feel that from then my writing has
changed greatly because I am more aware of the purposes.
The second piece I chose to include in my portfolio is the annotated bibliography. I chose this
piece because I feel that this is where I finally begun to understand the structure of PIE
paragraphs and how they are to be incorporated in papers, research, and homework assignments.
I was able to revise my final draft and from that came distinct differences among the response
paragraphs. In the initial final draft, I was writing on my response to The Omnivores Dilemma
and stated, Pollan's gift is to entertainingly present complexities, without being weighed down

by his own excellent scholarshipit is a gift to know which bits of evidence will compel and
which will simply bore. He is an enormously scholarly guy, without being slightly dull in that
students of many levels could find this book compelling and readable (Travis Annotated
Bibliography). After revisions, I ended up completely taking out that sentence because I
realized that I was still summarizing rather than responding to the content related to my research
topic on food waste in America. With that new knowledge, I was able to redo all of my response
paragraphs correctly which helped my grade, but most importantly it helped with my research
paper. This is why I chose the annotated bibliography to be my first positive piece.
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the skills gained from the annotated bibliography
helped created my second positive project, my research paper. The assignments purpose was to
create a thesis-driven, argumentative paper of our own topic. Once I could understand the PIE
paragraph format, I then moved on to integrate templates from They Say I Say. On page two,
paragraph to of my final draft I stated, Seifert contradicts himself here. On one hand, he argues
how great dumpster diving can be financially. On the other hand, he also says the amount of
wasted food is too immense. By focusing on the large amount of food found in his local
dumpsters and how his family is able to survive solely off the foraged foods, Seifert sometimes
overlooks the deeper problem of food waste in the United States (Travis Research Paper).
This template and many other argumentative templates used in my research paper provided depth
and reason to my paper. Overall, this positive project greatly enhanced my writing skills and
taught my how to properly include argumentative templates to strengthen my argument.
Finally, for my summary or reflection, I chose to do They Say I Say chapter 17 critical summary.
I chose this piece because it was the first that I earned full credit on. Previously, I often was
deducted points because of improper citations and PIE paragraphs. In the second paragraph I
state, I agree with the explanations described in this chapter about how to draw specific
conclusions on data because it is vital to all audiences, including readers without scientific or
statistical backgrounds, to be able to interpret the data and therefore build their own conclusions
(Travis TSIS Critical Summary). This piece was the last critical summary for the class and I
am proud to say that I correctly demonstrated argumentative strategies and provided the correct
citations.
After looking back on all four of these assignments and reviewing my progress I am sure that my
writing has improved and strengthened. By recognizing my mistakes and what I am doing well,
I have enhanced my writing skills and can carry these tools into future academic classes.
Thank you,
Jamelah Travis