Malia N.

Lancaster
11/18/2014
Ms. Weaver
Rhetoric I

Reflections of My Portfolio

When I first began my journey in college, I was apprehensive about taking a Rhetoric
course, because in high school I extremely loathed English class. However, I was pleasantly
surprised that I actually enjoyed English for the first time, when I first attended my Rhetoric
class. My first few attempts at writing responses were decent, but I soon noticed that I had to up
my game, so to speak, in order to live up to the expectations that were placed before me as a
college student. Looking back on my first few assignments, I wonder how my writing changed
so much. It is amazing to me to see how much my writing has evolved over the last few months,
and I never thought that I would get to the point where I could write mini-essays every other
night at the snap of a finger; or for that matter, write actual papers at the drop of a hat.
In examining my portfolio document by document, I noticed that my first few writing
responses were not as professionally written as I would have liked them to have been. To me,
they seemed a little rushed, and not as clean-cut as they should have been. For example, in my
first writing response, which was assigned as a compare-and-contrast essay, I made more

grammar mistakes than usual, probably because I wanted to hurry up and finish. Looking back
on that today, at the tail-end of my first semester, Ive realized that quality work takes time to
compose, and that if you want to succeed in college writing, you need to take it seriously.
By the time that I had been in school for nearly two weeks, my writing had already
shifted from simplistic and objective, to a more complex styling which became the dominant
way in which I write today. For example, in my fifth writing response, which I turned in on
August 27th, I noticed that I wrote a longer article that was more detailed and in-depth than my
others. The grammar was better, the article itself was clearer than others written previously, and
my writing was neater.
In high school, I never wrote first or second drafts, because I would usually nail the
concept of the paper on the first go-round. In contrast, when I came to college, I was forced to
write first, and even second, drafts. As this was very much out of my comfort zone completely, I
had to get used to it. Needless to say, I learned that there is no such thing as a perfect first
draft, and I have to admit that I never actually had a perfect first draft in the first place. I think
that the reason why I never could bring myself to write multiple drafts, is because I thought that
every paper needed to be perfect from the beginning. I believe that the reason why I thought this
way was because I received so many of those dreaded red pen errors, for minor grammar
offenses. In fact, as I state in my first writing response, The corrections would be so frivolous
that I wondered 95% of the time why they even mattered. These experiences caused me to have
a lot of anxiety when writing essays & long research papers. Those turned me into a grammar
and paper-writing perfectionist, and thanks to my positive experiences in Rhetoric I, I have
learned to be more laid back, and to write what comes to me, instead of worrying about proper
format and perfect grammar.

As for my second & third drafts, Im always relieved when I reach that stage in my
writing, because it is a comfort zone for me. I know that once I finish my first draft and start
making edits to my paper, that I am in the home stretch to finishing out the assignment, and its
always a relief. As I expressed in my final writing response, (Writing Revision, number 22), I
think that the assignments that challenge us the most are the ones that teach us the most, and I
have found that to be extremely true. I know that my most difficult assignment that I had to
accomplish this semester was definitely the ethnography essay. I had a hard time understanding
what a discourse community was, but after I found my niche within the topic, it took a lot less
long to actually finish it. Because I chose a topic that I was passionate about, (horses), I delved
deeper into my discourse community, and ended up doing an excellent job on the assignment.
I have to say that the section of my portfolio that consists of my polished work, (2nd & 3rd
drafts), is my favorite because it showcases my best work of the semester. I worked really hard
on these final drafts, and I love to show them off because I worked so tirelessly on them. As I
stated above, the hardest assignments are the ones you learn from the most, and I have to say
that, without a doubt, this statement is beyond true. All three of my major essays challenged me
in different ways, and because I struggled with each in a different way, I learned different things
from all of them. In my Literacy Narrative, I learned that who I am as a literate individual is due
to the huge influence that my grandfather had on me when I was just a tot. Although I was too
little to read or write at the time, the memory of him reading to me has stuck with me for forever.
In my ethnography assignment, in which I analyzed the discourse community of rodeo.
At first I had no idea whatsoever of what I was supposed to do, because I didnt fully understand
the entire concept. After a little deliberation and hard work, however, I finally got the gist, and
wrote my ethnography. Once I got my flow of writing started, I ran with the paper & it turned

out to be one of my best yet. Because I was writing about rodeo, and horses in general, which is
my passion, I turned out a paper that I am super-duper proud of, and I was surprised that I did so
well on. What I learned from my ethnography is that even if I dont clearly understand what I am
being asked to do, you can come to an understanding by relating that difficult assignment to
something that you are passionate about.
Lastly, I had to write my Rhetorical Analysis essay. I have to admit that this assignment
wasnt one of my favorites at first, because to this day, I still dont know how to actually analyze
a text. I struggled with this assignment for at least a week because I didnt understand it. Luckily,
as with the discourse community project, I was doing this paper about horses as well. Since we
had to choose a text and pick it apart piece by piece, I chose one of the many Budweiser
Clydesdale commercials because they make me laugh, and they are about Clydesdale horses. I
found that the more I added into the essay, the more jumbled it became. After receiving my
second draft critique from Miss Weaver, I understood why; I had added in too much detail to the
introduction, and not enough meat to the actual body of the paper. After downsizing my paper
from three introductory paragraphs to just one, as well as adding in a lot more detail to the body
of it, I came out with a more well-organized paper.
In reflection, this semester has been a wild ride full of ups & downs that every freshman
college student experiences. However, through all of the difficulty that I faced, I came to the
realization that my writing is definitely going to change dramatically over the next four years.
Im proud of the mature tone that my writing has taken, and I am extremely proud of the three
papers that I wrote this semester. Because of all of my hard work, I made it through just fine, and
Im proud of myself and my work immensely.