My Academic Writing Portfolio

This English class was the best English class I have ever had. There were no tests, vocabulary quizzes, or in class essays, which made the class less stressful. Before this English class, I was afraid that I would not enjoy writing many essays or writing so many words in one paper. Afterwards, essays have become something that is not so much my favorite task in the world, but it has become more enjoyable to an extent. Professor Sullivan’s class has taught me to formally write a research paper, to analyze a book through responding to different quotes from the story or novel, to understand magical realism, and to understand my own passion for school and how much effort I will be willing to put out in years to come.

Everyone on the planet has a goal set in life, but only a handful attempt to improve to obtain their goal by studying the subject their goal is in. In my English class, English 101 this quarter I was astonished by how much I had progressed as a writer sharpening my writing skills and also learned a lot about writing that I hadn’t learned before. In my writing portfolio for this quarter I had to write an autobiography essay, a research essay, and this reflection essay to develop my writing skills better. The writing assignments were fun to do because it challenged me to work on essays of different styles that were new to me. The essay assignments helped me grow as a better writer that gave me the self-confidence and skills to take on the world on my own.

Over the course of this semester I learned a lot about myself as a writer. This English 101 class has really allowed me to expand my essay structure and ways of thinking. This was my first college writing course and it has given me much more freedom when writing because in high school I felt limited and like what we were writing was not very important. In high school I would write essays to just to fulfill the required word or page count and to a degree I still feel like this but maybe that is why I am an engineering major but in this course I actually was able to express my ideas and for the first time really test the limits of my writing capabilities. I really enjoyed being able to incorporate my voice more in my essays and I believe

I learned that you are not only writing for your own benefit, your writing for your classmates, teachers and peers as well. It helps you gain common knowledge that you may not have known otherwise, as well as teaching us research skills that we will need later in life due to the rise is technology use. I have learned that research is a part of life and you will need it throughout college. Writing has helped me understand things I was unable to comprehend before, and gives me a feeling of capability. As Frederick Douglas, an African American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman, once wrote, “Thus, after a long, tedious effort for years, I finally succeeded in learning how to write” (McQuade and Atwan). At the beginning of the semester, I would have never guessed that I would finish this course on a positive note; however, I finished, and it was not as difficult as I thought it would

English classes are very important if you want to pursuit your academic goal, and there are a lot of things that I learned about academic writing in this semester. At first, I thought that it was going to be easy as long as I kept doing my brief assignments on time and showing up in classes. However, I was wrong, English is hard, especially if you are an international student because the methods of writing an essay are different. Though, I decided to take English 1301 because I wanted to be able to write something that would make it easier for a reader to understand, and of course to make me get good grades in other classes assignments. Also, because I didn’t know the difference between writing a rhetorical analysis essay and writing a normal

Many companies have implemented the benefit of tuition reimbursement. Tuition reimbursement benefits both the employer and the employee. Our company has approved a budget plan for the expansion of tuition reimbursement for those employees seeking a bachelor’s degree in business and communication. In most cases, companies begin determining whether or not to implement tuition assistance and/or tuition reimbursement during the developmental stages of the company’s benefit package. Other companies wait for the success of the company to begin rolling, and then decide to provide additional benefits for its employees. Offering tuition assistance to employees seeking a bachelor’s degree in business and communication, will qualify employees for new internal professional opportunities. Having employees with bachelor’s degree in business and communications will also benefit the company both financially and socially.

There are number of projects that I could include in my professional portfolio, but I have narrowed it down to three artifacts that I think would stand out. The first artifact that I choose is DD report, which I conducted in intro to motor behaviors class, the second piece is a fact sheet epidemiology and the third piece is a virtual child project from developmental psychology. The reason why I am choosing each of these is because they all are from different departments and areas of study. One project is from my major class, one is from my minor and the last one is from an elective class.

Throughout the course this semester I have learned a lot about writing and my personal writing process and skills. The assignments that stand out and helped me the most were the literacy narrative and the Fine Art essay. I think that these two were the most influential to my writing practice because they both involved topics and styles that I really enjoy writing about. The Literacy Narrative forced me to write in new ways and a new thinking practices that I didn't use before. And the Fine Art of essay was something that I enjoyed writing about and composing it in more of a poetic form and I liked being able to have the option of making my own.

Before I stepped foot into my English 1303 class, I had assumed that it would’ve been a class that I was not fond off. Within high school, English was never one of my strong points; so when college started I did not really know what to expect. Most of the time during high school, I would never really give much thought into how my essays were written, I just wrote them to get it over with. Within high school English classes, I had never experienced any sort of connection with the pieces that I had to write about. The topics that we reviewed were of no interest to me. Being introduced to the same environment had me very much afraid of doing the same process all over again, but now I currently enjoy both the writing and the class. So far this

This semester while attending English 1102 I have had some rude awakenings. I have discovered that writing essays for Gentry take time and patients, which is something I never really put into essay before now. I usually just waited until the last minute and wrote the first thing that came to my mind. Then I would do very little revising and I would get a graded I was content with having. Then this class came about and I had to break myself out of the role of writing my essay the day of or the night before. I also had to take the time and read the novel or story I was about to write an essay on. It has also taken me the whole semester to figure out what exactly evidence was and what was supposed to be in the conclusion. I have finally realized the mistakes I have been making and this allowed me to get most of my essays to at least a B.

This first semester at the University of Akron has flown by. I learned many new writing concepts that helped me become a better writer. English composition was a required class that I had to take in order to get my degree. Although this class was required I still wanted to take this class to become more knowledgeable about writing. Coming into English Composition I was worried about all of the papers and the workload that I would have to complete. I knew that I was going to have to write a lot more than I previously had in highschool, but I was unsure of just how much. The works that I decided to include in my portfolio comprise of my Literacy Narrative, Image Analysis Paper, and essay titled Mayas Hardships based on Maya’s experiences in I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. I selected these works because I felt that they are the ones that require the most improvement to them. The papers i've chosen show how far I’ve came In English Composition.

This semester I decided to take english 101 with van Hartesveldt. I can easily say taking van Hartesveldt this semester has really open up new skills in my writing that I never knew I could be capable of doing. I have learned so many things this semester and this portfolio is a big example of it. As you all can see from my first paper to my last, It's probably easy to spot all of the errors from the first paper to the improvements all the way to my last paper that are being shown. There are a few different things that this class has taught me and has made me realize through the semester. Such as realizing my growth as a writer, teaching me the importance of literacy skills assignments, realizing how my skills from english 101 had helped me with my other classwork and also how it helped me outside of class, and lastly realizing what area of my writing that I am more confident about and seeing what parts in my writing skills that I think need more improvement.

I’ve always enjoyed writing, and I’ve always been fairly good at it. In high school, I would receive high grades on most of my essays, if I even managed to turn them in. I was good at writing but not good at actually finishing what I write. Besides this, the problem I had most often with my essays was that they could be disorganized. I wasn’t very good at organizing my thoughts, and they were often jumbled. Taking English 1210 has certainly helped me improve this, along with other struggles I’ve had. This class felt easier than my past ones; however, I did learn more during this course than I did in other classes. I have achieved the learning outcomes for this course, which were defined for us in the syllabus. This course has helped me improve my writing and achieve these outcomes through classroom methodologies, learning grammar, and learning the composition process.

I can remember seeing that I had to take an English class my first semester of college. I was already overwhelmed with starting college, and having to write college essays made me get even more nervous. I sat down with my mom and decided to look at the English classes available, and I finally decided that I had to take an evening class to make it work in my schedule. The first day of English came and now looking back it was not as bad as I thought. It made me a better writer and be where I am today. It may have taken me some time to get where I am today, but at least I am on the right track. English Composition helped me realize that I am my own author and have strengths that I did not realize I had.

English class seemed to be the most dreadful to take within school. Writing essays for most of my grade in a class is not what I was looking forward too. When I entered college I knew that it would be one of many challenging classes I would have to take. Starting from the lowest English class to moving on up, the writing assignments became longer and more thought out. The time came when I got into this class that I knew more work was going to have to be put into essays and thus brought out what I had not seen before in my work progress.