Holly

=English 103 Reflective Portfolio=

====In high school, I often found myself doing little work for papers and still getting better grades than most students. During my junior year, I took an AP U.S. History course that really improved my writing abilities. Throughout that year, I became very comfortable writing papers that each had a precise format. My writing was done well but was far from creative. My senior year, I got lazy and did even less to improve my writing skills. I felt ill-prepared for the adjustments I would have to make for English 103. My misunderstandings of requirements and the poor grades I was receiving, were very motivating for me to understand this new type of writing. As I was introduced to the new styles of writing ans all the rules to perfect them, I became a little overwhelmed at first; however, I could feel myself becoming a better writer. English 103 exposed me to more creative writing and better writing in general.==== ====The first paper of the semester, the memoir, allowed me to use creative details to explain a powerful experience. This paper helped me learn to follow requirements; especially length requirements. These strict rules helped me become a better writer and it showed in a persuasive essay I had to write for my SOC 242 course. I continued to find my writing abilities always improving. By the end of the semester of English 103, i was prepared to work on my favorite piece of writing: the multi-genre essay. This essay allowed me to be very passionate in my writing with many vivid memories. I'm glad that this piece was at the end of the semester because I was able to improve my writing skills a lot before working on a piece that I enjoyed so much. My multi-genre was a somewhat dark piece about a scary time in my life. I loved the creative format for it and how I was allowed to portray my experience with so many different ways of writing. At first, putting this piece together was a little difficult, but once I got started, I was very pleased with the assignment. My friend, Shelby also helped me with this paper by providing me feedback. It was nice to have feedback because I was able to improve my writing.==== Although I did not come into English 103 prepared, I'm leaving with a lot learned. I understand not only more concepts of writing, but also lessons about planning and procrastination. I've learned to read more carefully into the requirements and to always know what the professor is asking for. I'm now more comfortable with my writing, and I'm getting better at the planning. I must always remember that if I need help, I need to ask for it.

GIMP
I've included this paper in my portfolio because I got a perfect score on it for extra credit. I believe that the feedback I received from my English papers helped me write this paper. This paper required me to relate to the infamous Mark Zupan and include a time in my life when something went very wrong. With some information from the book, "Gimp" and new ideas and help from English 103, I was able to put things just the way I wanted them to form a well written essay.

Memoir
I enjoyed this essay because I was able to be very vivid with details. I liked writing this paper because I found it much simpler to just write exactly what I was feeling rather than look up quotes and events on the internet or in books. I felt like it was more of a free write because it was all based on my own personal experience. As the first paper for English 103, I received a lot of helpful feedback once it was finished that helped me begin to develop as a writer.

Letter to the Senator
This is a piece I wrote for my SOC 242 class. We were asked to introduce a problem within society and propose ways to fix the problem. I feel that English 103 helped prepare me for this type of persuasive writing and allowed me to construct the letter in an organized format. I got an A on this paper which was much better than my first paper for this class so I was very excited that my hard work had paid off.

Research Paper
I'm not usually a fan of papers that are based solely on finding information from the work of others, but I was happy that we could choose our own topic. This paper was a learning experience from not only a writer's aspect, but I also got to learn a lot about animal testing. It was sad but very interesting to learn and overall I enjoyed composing this paper.

Multi-genre
This was by far my favorite writing for English 103. It's probably my favorite writing I've done so far. It taught me to be very creative with my format and I got to share a powerful, personal experience in an expressive way. This is a piece of work that I honestly don't find finished yet. I plan to continue adding to it in my spare time. I believe that it's a good piece of writing but I'd like to improve it because it's also an enjoyable piece to work on.