Through out my e-portfolio you will see blogs, my case study, my project proposal and my final project. You will note how I have learned new things and improved as an English student.
At the beginning of spring semester I was expecting a change from what had been my first semester. I was taking courses that seemed more interesting from the ones of my first semester. However, I didn’t know what to expect from my English class other than more reading. When we were first introduced into the blogs I thought I wouldn’t like it. It just seemed like weekly essays to me. But then we were able to do whatever we wanted with them. I started having some fun with them and sooner than I knew I wasn’t very happy when we had to stop on the blogs and focus on the research.
I think one of my best works was my second blog. I think it was the one I had the most fun with. Although, It wasn’t an as formal writing piece I thought it was my best. I was able to make my writing vivid and powerful story of my car accident from last semester. From this, I learned that I’m not so bad with narrative writing. Before I hated narrative writing because I thought that I never had a good amount of detail. Either I got to little or too much detail causing the writing to not be good over all.
I have learned a lot with in the past few months by being in this English class. I have improved my research abilities by making stronger connections with the information I obtain and my project as a whole. I have learned how to use WordPress and how to navigate the library services. My favorite thing that I learned was being able to incorporate myself in my writing. Like having my own style of writing. I was glad to see that my TA encouraged us to use our own jargon in casual writing. I think this helped me differentiate between writings in which it’s appropriate to use this casual writing and when it’s not. This will help me in my future writing assignments. I will know how formal or informal to be in my writing. I also realized that my writing tends to be a lot better when I’m more passionate/interested in what I’m writing.
I have also learned many non-academic things. Through-out my first year of college there has been a couple of personal problems that I was not counting on like my car accident and getting really sick. These obstacles have made me a stronger person. I made great connections and friendships I had no idea I would make. I was able to meet people who have gone through some of the same things I’ve gone through.
My project topic was out-of-state-tuition. I chose this topic because of a personal experience. The goal of my project was to inform others of an issue and bring awareness to it. I feel like there are a lot of issues that go unnoticed only because they are issues that target minorities. I decided on a website because I had originally thought of doing it on my own and I thought it would be the best way to inform others. I feel like I/we (my group and I) might have been able to do something different like a video or something. I think we didn’t do that because neither of us though of doing it together until later in the project. I feel like it would have been a stronger project. Another thing I would have liked to done different is that I would have liked to have done more research and found more solutions for my topic.
I think that it is nice for us as students that we get to do this portfolio. To me, it’s like a sign of closure to this whole year. It’s a seal to our first year of college and to what has set us off to what will be the rest of our college carrier. For the most part we really had no “limit” to either our project or our e-portfolio. That’s something not a lot of professors do.
DIANA ALCALA 