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Jameson Humphrey Ms.

Ingram English 1102 April 20, 2013 Portfolio Essay English 1102 started like any other class so far in my college career. We came in, sat down, discussed the syllabus, and then got to know one another. I got the impression this would be a class based on discussion and peer involvement which made me a bit uncomfortable. Turns out, I was right. Talking in class (especially before noon) has never been my forte, but luckily most of our discussions were done in groups of 3-4 people. As Ms. Ingram began to discuss the work we would be doing, I remember mentally groaning and wondering how we were going to fit it all in one semester! But in the end, it all worked out. Looking back, the first few weeks of class were rather laid back. We mostly just tried to get to know one another and most of all get to know Ms. Ingram. It was at this time that I started thinking the class was going to be a piece of cake. What I didnt know was how the heat was about to get turned up.
Works better with this

*add self-assessment at end

The focus at the beginning of the semester was on a book called Peace, Butter, and Jelly by David Seidel. I remember wondering what kind of crazy professor would have us reading a cook book. In reality, PB&J is about Seidels whole life, and the recipes are just reflections of different stages in his life. The first potion, Peace, talks about his past and how he got to be where he is today. Seidel seems to have led a very interesting (and arguably eccentric) life. Starting as a personal chef, Seidel and his wife moved to Dominican Republic and ran a hotel, moved back to the states and spent time in a yoga monastery, adopted a child, and started another company. Whenever the couple succeeded in what

Drawing connections from the reading - good

they were doing they would tear up their roots and move to something else. I dont understand how anyone could give up a comfortable, successful life for the unknown. Reading this part of the book really got me thinking about my own life. I havent made any concrete plans as to what I want to do. Peace gave me some peace in my own mind in that I dont have to know where Im going, only that I must follow my own path.
If you wrote a poem including it here would be good

To me the Butter section was all about enjoying life. This is where Seidel put all the recipes from his travels around the world and his work as a chef. I look at these pages and see the various stages of his life reflected in the food. His La Fanega is a veggie burger that he and his wife served in their hotel in Dominican Republic. Finishing up the book is the Jelly part which I enjoyed the most. The poems are little windows into Seidels day to day life. I think it would be a good exercise for everyone to write a poem every day to reflect how it went and/or what they learned that day. I could use this as a way to ensure I write every day and keep my literary skills sharp. From this point in the semester we naturally transitioned to our What It Like to be Me essays. I think I enjoyed this part the least but learned the most from it overall. Talking about myself is my weakest point and in this essay I was supposed to bare all. It was hard to describe myself without getting too far into how I think. In my mind Im very introverted and this is very hard to describe (especially in writing) to another person. I did manage to put the essay together, though I feel I may have missed the boat a bit in meeting the requirements. I think I focused too much in what makes me unhappy and less on what I believe in and how I feel about life in general. As I finish up on this essay and my portfolio, I plan to go back to the WILTBY and see if I can rework it. I understand that I need to maintain focus and convey what it truly feels like to be me rather than list my woes.
Adding some quotes / examples of what you revised would be awesome

As a writer, I know it is necessary to understand myself before bothering to write about anything or anyone else. What right does one have to judge another if they cant write consistently

about themselves? Knowing yourself is the natural first step in inquiry (particularly in this class) because a person must be interested in what they are looking into in order stay focused on the subject. Blogging was another challenge for me but this time it was out of inexperience and not dislike. I honestly enjoyed blogging after getting started. My posts were a good way of reflecting on each assignment or reading after completion. I particularly valued the way I had to order my thoughts and form a definite opinion on each assignment before writing its subsequent post. I think that towards the end of the semester blogging became an important part of my process for writing and thinking about the course as a whole. In my opinion, it would have been better if we had msny smaller posts instead of seven relatively long ones. The benefit of blogging would have been maximized if we had a post due after almost every assignment rather than only the major ones.
Used back to back consider revising

The inquiry portion of the course crept up suddenly on me. All the sudden we were in the library expected to be looking for books on our topic. Honestly I hadnt really thought about my topic until that day. Luckily, the librarian was very helpful and assisted the class in narrowing our search for topics. That day, I settled on environmental health as my topic for inquiry. After class I went through the library and found a total of five books I thought would be useful in my studies. Working on the annotated bib was uncharted waters for me as a writer. While I had made bibliographies in previous classes, annotations were new to me. Luckily the formula for writing the annotations was simple and I had no trouble with the assignment. On the contrary, I think my annotated bib helped me see sort through which of my sources were truly viable to my topic. It was at this point I began to realize that though their titles sounded applicable, my print sources were lacking in the content that I desired. From this point, my inquiry took a bit of a turn. My topic focused from environmental health to the effect of nature on health. I started doing online research to supplement my book sources. Due to

the recent and ongoing nature of my topic, the most useful information turned out to be the newest. This meant that online sources became the most viable (and informational) for me in my inquiry. Gradually I found that my print sources were next to useless and ended only citing one quote from one of the books. I found that finding a variety of sources is extremely challenging because many people say the same things. It is also difficult with online sources because distinguishing between reliable sources can be confusing.
Great example of what you learned in this class

One of the biggest differences between this paper and papers I had written in high school was the difference in structure. Previously I was taught not to include my own voice in the paper and to argue from a pedestal rather than investing myself in the argument. In this paper, we were encouraged to include our own experience and appeal to a readers emotions rather than just stating cold, hard facts. The difference is that our papers were true arguments rather than just regurgitation of facts found from our various sources and thrown together to prove a point. Finally my argument focused to the benefits of nature on the health of city dwellers. I settled on this because I found compelling evidence that urban environments were detriment to health, especially mental stability. As it turns out, even a stroll down an urban street can have negative effects on a persons mental functions. This is because the overuse of directed attention, which is a response to stimuli such as car horns or flashing lights, tires the brain and makes it more susceptible to stress and break down. Transcending the requirements of the assignment, I thought it important that I have a good argument for the sake of any city dwellers that may read my paper. One of the most useful activities I think we did in class was drafting our papers and the getting feedback from peers and Ms. Ingram before writing a final draft. I enjoyed giving and receiving feedback on our writings because other people see and pick up on awkwardness and flow problems in my papers that I usually miss. I feel that my feedback on others papers was beneficial to them as well for the same

reason. I think of myself as a decent writer and I am skilled at picking out bad grammar, structuring, and word choice. What I learned most from this activity was that Im bad about trying to totally rewrite peoples papers. Instead of just giving suggestions about structure and word choice, I would scribble and mark out and write all over a persons draft. As the semester went on, I consciously tried to give feedback rather than revisions. Revision is up to the writer and it was only my job to let them know that something was off. So, not only did I get useful feedback on my papers, I learned how to better give feedback throughout this semester. Putting together my eportfoilo has been like reuniting with an old friend. I have had to make similar portfolios in classes for the past three years. I enjoy being able to put all of my work from one semester into one place for me (and anyone else) to look at if I so desire. As a culmination of a whole semester, it is important that a portfolio be easily navigable and most of all interesting. I try to include little snippets of my personality in my portfolios and pictures, quotes, and ideas from my day to day life. The main difference in this portfolio and my previous ones is the addition of process work to my list of pages. Most teachers just want to see the final product of an assignment because this is the piece that will be graded. Ms. Ingram values the work that went before the final product, and the growth associated with that work, over the finished draft. I think this is important because I am encouraged as a writer to make my work better each time a new draft is due. I remember in high school I would write one draft and nine times out of ten that was the final draft I turned in for grading. I learned nothing from this because I got no feedback from the teacher or peers. Without feedback, I miss simple syntax and grammar mistakes when reading over my own work. Its only natural for a person to think their own writing clear and concise when there is no one to tell them otherwise. Now I would like to address some failings I felt I had during the course of this semester. Now that it is drawing to a close, I see that I could have been more diligent in keeping up with assignments.

Readings in the textbook in particular were difficult for me to complete on time or finish entirely. I fell victim to the age old problem of skimming and missed many of the key points in each reading for lack of focus. Additionally, though I fell that I wrote effectively thought the semester, I think more could be said in many of the papers that I wrote. I would write to the minimum length and then look for ways to cut the paper short and end it as soon as I could. This is an ineffective way to write because while it may be concise, I could have made more key points and my papers would have been more convincing. The main cause of this was the fact that I suffered terribly from procrastination this semester. I would wait until nearly the last minute and writing short papers was the only way to complete assignments on time. One thing I want to improve on in the future is my participation in class. I know that I was a passive student this semester when Ms. Ingram wanted us to be engaged and for out class to be discussion based. A major reason for my silence was the relatively early time in which the class started. As a college student, I stay up obscenely late and I am not going to perform optimally in any class before noon. I know this is no excuse but it is the simple truth. The fact that I dont like talking in class doesnt help either. I think that as a class in general we did not like discussing aloud and left most of the talking to the professor. Had we engaged in conversation more class would have been more enjoyable and passed much more quickly. So as a whole I think the class benefited me as a writer and person. I was challenged to see different ways of thinking and living in a society where being average is discouraged. I found that the goal in life is to be extraordinary and to live the way you choose. I think my wiring grew in that I can now include myself in my arguments and grew to understand myself better in the process. My research skills were sharpened and I was held accountable to be truly convincing in my papers for the first time. Each paper was picked apart by my peers and I learned that I do have a lot of room to grow as a writer.

Though I regret to admit it, I know this course was beneficial to a well-rounded education. In order to be a Renaissance man I must be skilled in many things, writing included. I realized the importance of writing in all professions be it reports or articles or even blog postings. Writing is something that everyone should be able to do because not all conversations are held verbally. If a person is truly dedicated to an idea or topic, they will write about it.

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