Reflection on My Portfolio Essay

As one of the most renowned and well-known literary critics in the world of composition, Harold Bloom has self-importantly granted himself the privilege of specifying the reasons as to why we read. From human connection to self-actualization to the acquirement of knowledge, he adheres passionately and unquestionably that “the strongest, most authentic motive for deep reading…is the search for a difficult pleasure.” Bloom, as an experienced critic, fully recognizes the task of judging a book for its merit.

My English Literature major has helped me to achieve an outstanding level of appreciation, enjoyment, and knowledge of both American and British Literature. As a high school AP English student, I struggled through great works like Hamlet and To the Lighthouse. My teacher’s daily lectures (there was no such thing as class discussion) taught me merely to interpret the works as critics had in the past. I did not enjoy the reading or writing process. As a freshman at Loras, I was enrolled in the Critical Writing: Poetry class. For the first time since grade school, my writing ability was praised and the sharing of my ideas was encouraged by an enthusiastic and nurturing professor. Despite the difficulty of poetry, I enjoyed reading it.

English in its entirety can be simply described as author, biologist and physician, Lewis Thomas had once said, “We pass the word around; we ponder how the case is put by different people, we read the poetry; we meditate over the literature; we play the music; we change our minds; we reach an understanding. Society evolves this way, not by shouting each other down, but by the unique capacity of unique, individual human beings to comprehend each other” (Thomas 120). The impact literature can bring onto others is simply amazing and is a gift that should be shared with everyone. This spring semester has quickly broadened my perspective. Being that this is my freshman year in college I prodded around ideas of what majors I had interests in. I

In his piece entitled “ Disliking books” Gerald Graff, a professor of English and education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, tells his story of how with some helpful insights he shifted from disliking literature to enjoying reading and analyzing the texts. The author shares that during his early school years he developed an aversion to literature as well as most liberal arts disciplines for not being able to find their application in his daily life. Coming from a middle class family, it was expected that young Graff would go to college. Since no particular discipline really interested him and his family did not own a business to set him up on a successful business path, he decided to major

In “To Read like a Writer” Mike Bunns introduces how writing is “a series of choices” with an account of his past as an employee at a theatre. As he was trying to concentrate on his reading, he had an epiphany that literary works are all “a series of choices”(Bunns 72). He then transitions to his main claim of how reading like a writer allows for the reader to determine whether or not to adopt the same style as the piece that the text may have. He breaks this down into subsections that readers need to observe before they tackle the writing, such as context, genre, and publication. Additionally, he points out the necessity to makes notes while reading the

My time in ENC1101 has been beneficial in many ways. Since the beginning of high school I dreaded writing all types of essay in English. So coming into this class I was not too fond of idea writing six thousand words within four short months. My inability to put my thoughts into creative and well worded sentence is the biggest obstacle I face when it comes to writing. I came into this class hoping it would improve my writing skills, which it did. Shortly after attending this class for a few days, the professor introduced the concept of a portfolio draft. My initial reaction was “wow, this is going to be a lot of work,” however, I realized that this would only benefit my grade due to the multiple edits my paper would go through. The portfolio reveals the amount of progress I have made throughout the semester with my writing. This portfolio really highlights on my ability to take criticism of others into account when it comes to editing my professional and portfolio draft.

Klinkenborg claims that many college students will not choose humanities as their major because they are more likely to choose majors that they believe will lead them directly to a good job. By students choosing this route, there has been a major decline in the experience of literacy as the number of students graduating in the humanities has had a substantial decline. For example, a study from Pomona College, Klinkenborg’s alma mater, determined that only 1.03% of students graduated with an English major. Moreover, there was a study at Yale University that yet again showed the reduction of this major. It was calculated in 1991 that there were 165 graduates with a B.A. in English literature and by 2012 there were only 62, again representing the major dwindling

The assignment i’ve chose for my portfolio is “The Memoir of Leilani Vance’ essay.The memoir was about my father Chris Vance , he was in the army and died in the line of duty . I chose to write about my father for the memoir because he was a great father, brother, and uncle , and i will always love & miss him. This was challenging because it's hard to talk about him , i barely even knew my father .

This portfolio has show my progress in many different ways. The biggest way is my rhetorical knowledge has been increased because of the sources we have had to read especially in this last unit when we had to use the UW database. The scholarly articles and journals pushed my reading and analyzing to the limit, but it really helped me for the future. Because of my ability to analyze the sources well, it has helped me increase my writing, because I have been able to really find good credible quotes to use within my work.

In this portfolio it will show a range of work that was completed in English 111. You will find a table of contents so you can locate each piece of work easily. There will be a sample of a writing from my religion class that I have previously taken. This writing is a research paper. The reason I chose this sample of writing is because research papers is not one of my strongest papers that I can complete but, this was an easier research paper because of the topic that it was on and I could use any source I wanted to as long as it was not Wikipedia. Also, you will find samples of each writing assignment that was completed in this course: Narration Essay, Comparison/Contrast Essay, and Argumentative Research Essay, along with some revisions

The piece of work that I have chosen to place in my portfolio is a long essay that I wrote my junior year for Ms. Stillwell’s AP U.S. History class. The assignment was timed, I was given thirty-five minutes to complete it. The goal of the assignment was to evaluate the impact of the Declaration of Independence and to analyze how it marked a turning point in American history. This was to be answered in the form of an essay. This type of essay tests a skill known as periodization, which focuses on analyzing how time periods are distinguished and the turning points that separate them.

While compiling this portfolio, it allowed me to reflect on the challenging work and the deep commitment that I have put forth to finish this degree. I cannot help but be proud of my accomplishments,

The first piece I chose to put in this portfolio was my narrative piece. The reason I chose this was because it was the first paper I wrote for this class back in early October. The piece may not be perfect, but looking back on it I can see the improvements I have made into my more recent pieces or writing.

Welcome to my 8th grade portfolio and I am going to talk about how I have grown from 7th grade to 8th grade in math. In math we work on a website called Digits filled with learning based tools and activities that help us master numerous math subjects as homework. We take multiple quizzes and tests always on the current subject we are learning about. Every morning we do warm ups. Warm ups are just practice problems to prepare us for lessons and bigger practices in the upcoming class. My performance in math has improved from weak explanations and work, to detailed, and understandable explanations of math using thorough work. In 7th grade I was in the CC7 class and now I am in CC8. That doesn’t mean I haven’t improved. I am at grade level understanding

There are English majors everywhere and many of us know the struggles and successes of it. We take pride in our large vocabularies, our extensive book collections, and that we might have read the "Harry Potter" series at least 10 times. As with all majors in their respective areas of study, we are passionate about ours. Whether you enjoy poetry or plays, novels or short stories, digitized books or getting them from the shelf, this list represents 15 things that we can all relate to.