For my portfolio presentation, I want to talk about what Ive learned this semester and

give a few examples as to how my writing style and process of writing has improved. At the
beginning of the semester, I thought I had a pretty solid idea as to what went into a solid essay.
For the most part, I did. I already knew a few of the techniques for coming up with ideas
described in class like clustering and freewriting from film classes in high school.
One thing that I didnt know about was the difference between writing to think and
writing to communicate those thoughts. That writing to think is a great way to create lengthy
content, but that it needs to be revised and reviewed by someone else so that your thoughts are
communicated properly.
In our first essay, the personal narrative, I wrote about my experience during my first
dirtbike race. Throughout the process of writing this essay, I had to look up multiple different
descriptive words to be able to create a vivid image. Not only that, but I spent a decent amount of
time using the cluster method to try and recall the memories that happened.
For our second essay, the topic was a rhetorical analysis. I did my analysis over Anna
Quindlens Between the Sexes, a Great Divide. This type of essay was something that I have
never done before, so it was definitely a new learning experience for me. I ended up trashing my
first draft of the essay because it turned out being more of a response to the reading than an
actual analysis to it. I had to find a few examples of rhetorical analyses online to be able to get a
grasp on how they are done properly. I had the basics of analyzing what the author meant in the
language, both literally and figuratively, but I have a big problem with including my own opinion
in my writing and that goes against the reason of writing a rhetorical analysis altogether. After a

few days of revising and re-reading the essay I finally got it to where I was confident in what I
had written.
For the third essay, I wrote about how racism has changed in our country, specifically in
the context of the two pieces Letter from Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr. and
Mommy, What Does Nigger Mean? by Gloria Naylor. For this essay, we were required to
conduct a small amount of research to base our argument off of. For me, I argued that although
the acceptance of racism has declined, it has not yet been abolished as it is evident in our society
every day.
Overall I feel that this portfolio is a good representation of different my writing presented
in different styles. It shows that I have the ability to write in multiple different contexts and am
able to present a convincing argument based on information given already.