The End Is Near

As we come close to finishing our portfolio, I decided I wanted to blog about the experience in general of creating my first writing portfolio. 

First, like I said, this is my first ever portfolio. In finishing it I have a sense of accomplishment; I am really proud of my work this semester. In the beginning of the semester, I was terrified of the 20 page requirement. But I realized as the semester went on that when you take the time to break down the steps and do it in pieces, 20 pages isn't hard at all. I think I'll be able to apply this to other writing that I'll need to do in college and beyond. The only problem is that in class, I am required to get certain sections done by a specific date. It will take a lot more effort to make my own schedule and force myself to stick to it next time I have a semester-long writing assignment. So I think the actual process of breaking it up and writing it was a good learning experience. 

Also, I think I'll take away from this the many ways we tried to come at our writing. Free-writing, for example, I never thought would work well for me. But the way we went back and made 2 outlines, one from our writing and one for the final draft, I realized that free-writing helps me remember to include a lot of things that wouldn't have occurred to me if I had been writing to a strict outline. 

One other thing is that we were always expected to evaluate our own writing. We had to decide the format, what should be included, and how to put the end result together. The three extra essays for the portfolio were a way to tie all of it together in our own evaluation of the work we had done. 

Now, I'm just excited to see how the end result turns out!

Presentations

This week in class we started doing presentations today, on Wednesday. I thought I'd write a little about what I thought. First off, I was really impressed with the professional style of the presentations. It was obvious that everyone was trying to speak clearly (with a little exception made for Taylor since she only had 4 minutes to present), and everyone's projects were very informative and interesting. And I am going to say right now, that after Kayvon's presentation, I definitely plan on flossing tonight. I'm not going to turn down an extra few years. I also now have an idea of how short 5-7 minutes is. I was planning on reading my entire essay, which is about 4 pages long. I think that might take a bit more time than I actually have, so these presentations also helped me plan my own. All in all--I look forward to more on Friday!

Class this Week

I thought the exercise we did on Wednesday was pretty informative. I think our group had a pretty good idea comparing and contrasting essays and speeches, since both are kind of similar, yet at the same time very different. Essays are a one short deal, make your points, make your conclusion, and hope you convinced your reader. Speeches, on the other hand, can emphasize points more than once without people thinking you are being redundant, since you can change your voice inflection  and the way you are saying the point. It is a much more personal interaction, whereas in an essay the writer and the reader are entirely separate. But then again both are long pieces of written writing (although one is performed) that are meant to be persuasive and informative. 

My Chosen Genre - The Essay

I know that we just did essays, but this time I am writing a completely different kinds of essay. My last one was very informative and scientific, but this one will be more creative and, of course, call for change. 

The kind of essay I am describing is sometimes called a Descriptive Essay, which means there is a lot of descriptions of the setting, and of people. Also, there is a lot of use of metaphors and similes and often is a personal story.

A lot of different kinds of people write these essays - we read a few of them for class a few weeks ago. Also, like I brought up in class, one example is Jamaica Kincaid's "A Small Place." Mostly the reason for writing them is to call for social change (lik Kincaid's), or to bring attention to something not many people know about or realize. They are often published in literary magazines, and are sometimes able to reach a wider audience that way. 

I have a lot of freedom in this genre. There are so many kinds of essays--I can really write whatever I want however I want to. I am choosing to write it to bring attention to an issue that I find important that most people never think about. I am bringing in a lot of personal stories to make it interesting and more real for the reader. 

Sources: Along with our in class resources and course packet, I read an essay called "How to say nothing in 500 words."

Assignment #3

For my last assignment, like I've been talking about, I want to do something more creative. So I think I would like to write a short story/creative essay about what happened to ASD people after they leave high school. I think I'd like to write about three examples that I know about: 1) Dan - mildly MR, ~age 25, works as a janitor and lives with his mother; 2) Jamie - severely disabled, ASD, age 17, unable to work, lives with his mother; 3) an example from a group home/insitution (I don't know anyone personally); 4) Ariel and Christine - twins, both severly disabled, ASD, given up by parents, live with foster parents, ~age 6. Basically I want to write about something people don't normally think about--the fact that some of these people can't take care of themselves and are a huge burden to their parents and to society, really. I don't have a solution, but I really feel like people don't realize how big a problem this is. 

Essay Comments

I was pretty happy that Prof. Scott didn't trash my essay and tell me I needed to rewrite it--but then again I don't think she has the heart to do that to anyone. So I was pretty happy with what I read. My research proposal needed a lot of work when I got it back, but I'm really glad that my essay was mostly well written. There was one idea that she pointed out that I hadn't even thought about--that I was being confusing on whether or not I was talking about VT, or any college. That's a good point since I think I started out talking about VT but by the end of my essay wanted to apply it to all colleges, since my thesis changed as I wrote the essay. Now I know I can go back and make it less confusing. I think it was good that she had a clear idea about whether or not to use personal stories in my essay since I was a little confused about whether that would make my essay more or less legitimate. Anyway, I was definitely in agreement with the items that she pointed out and plan to fix them pronto. And I'm looking forward to the next assignment. 

The Essays

When I first started writing my essay, I already had a lot of it in my mind from the research proposal, which in some ways made it easier and in some ways made it harder. I have begun to feel very trapped by my topic, and I often feel that I am repeating ideas over and over because I have written and rewritten them so many times between my proposal and all the drafts of my essay. I know we have one more assignment to go with the same topics, and after that, I think I won't be writing about AS anymore for a very long time. 

Especially after I heard Prof. Scott's essay in class, I really had an itch to write something more creative, even if it were on my same topic. I feel like I've stuck to academic essays because they are all I know and have experience with from high school. I think the next essay that I write will have to be personal, however, since I have all these ideas rolling around in my head now.