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Whitney Hamlett
UWRT 1101
Ms. Ingram
27 July 2015

Final Portfolio Essay

Welcome to my e-Portfolio and portfolio essay. My final portfolio essay is a

showcase and reflection of my summer semester in UWRT 1101. Throughout
this essay, I will be explaining how I grew as a writer. I will be explaining how
I grew as a writer through my literacy narrative, midterm, portrait of a writer
essay, blogs, warm ups and reader response letters.

I.

Home
The home page of my e-Portfolio has an Abu Dhabi theme. I chose this

theme because I really want to go to Abu Dhabi and stay there for few
months. If you look at the top of the page, you will see my title. I chose my
title to be Willingly Writing Whitney, because I wanted my e-Portfolio to be
creative and Willingly Writing Whitney is the name of my portrait of a writer
essay. Willingly Writing Whitney is a phrase that sums up my love for writing.
I will explain about my love for writing in the Portrait of a Writer section.

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Furthermore, I added a picture of myself at my junior prom. I chose this
picture because I think my smile in the picture is welcoming. On the right
side of my picture is a description of where I am from, my family, hobbies,
career and writing goals. Under my prom picture there is a button that links
to my final portfolio essay. Under the final portfolio essay button, there is a
YouTube video of the singer Birdy singing Skinny Love. I chose to add this
song because I mentioned the song in my literacy narrative and I want the
reader to know how the song sounds. I also added a caption of why I chose
to add the song to my e-Portfolio under the video. Under the video is a
button that links to my literacy narrative.

II.

Literacy Narrative
I think the literacy narrative assignment is my favorite piece of writing.
The literacy narrative was the first assignment the class did. I think the
literacy narrative assignment made the class become better writers.
When I read my peers essays and I hear everyones reflection on their
writing, I believe everyone started to love writing. I think everyone was
nervous about what do because in high school we were told how to write.
The purpose of the assignment was to write about what we were
literate in throughout high school. Ms. Ingram made it clear that literacy
was more than reading. Before coming to this class, I didnt know what my
literacies were. In my writers choice artifacts, I posted a warm up
explaining what I thought about literacy. I defined literacy as being able to

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read and write. My literacy narrative focused on musical and functional
literacy.
My first draft was all about my marching band experience and how I
grew as a musician. One of my process work artifacts, I posted my literacy
narrative timeline as a process work artifact because that timeline was
the foundation of my first draft of my literacy narrative. After one of the
peer review sessions, I decided to make my literacy narrative more
personal. My second draft was about my literacy in music as a whole and
how my dads death affected me as a musician. I think this assignment
made me realize how my dad impacted me as a musician. If I didnt sit
and down and write this narrative, I dont think I wouldve realized the
impact my father had on my music.

III.

Midterm
The midterm came so quickly! When Ms. Ingram said it was time for
the midterm, in my head I said, Oh lord! I couldnt believe that I was
about three of the six weeks into the class. I think the best part about
the midterm was seeing how far I came. I think my midterm reflects
my growth as a writer.
The first part of the midterm was part A. In part A I had to look
back at my first blog where I asked ten questions about the syllabus. I
had to look at the questions I posed in the first blog and see if I could
answer it now. One of the questions that I asked in the first blog was,

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will there be more interaction with the teacher or will there be more
student interaction. I said, that there is more student interaction. I
asked that question because when I came to the writing class, I
thought the students would only interact with the teacher. However,
the students interact with the other students more than the teacher
because we have peer review sessions and group discussions.
Connecting my midterm to my first blog post allowed me to see
how I curious I was when I first started class now. Part B was about
looking at the Key Concepts on the syllabus. In part B, I had to talk
about the key concepts I am good at and the key concepts I found
challenging. I made a chart to demonstrate the key concepts I was
good at.

Key Concepts I am Good At

Key Concepts that are

Intellectual Growth and Maturity

Challenging to Me
Multi-modality of Print & Digital

Responsibility of your Own

Texts
Writing Process & Revision

Learning
Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone

Part C
was
all
about

As soon as I came to the writing class my objective was to

participate in class discussions. I think I did a good job doing that.
Furthermore, I wanted to take Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone to
the next level. I decided to talk about my fathers death in my
literacy narrative. This caused me to get out of my comfort zone and
I am glad that I did. In my midterm, I mentioned that I had a hard
time with the writing process and revision because I didnt develop a
writing process until the last two weeks of the class.
Whitneys Writing Process
1. Read the directions of the assignment
2. Create an outline
3. Pick an album to listen to
4. Start Writing
5. Have someone look at my work
6. Make corrections
7. Look over the assignment again
8. Submit the assignment
examining the literacy I wrote about in my literacy narrative. In class we
talked about the definition of literacy and how, today, it means more than
the ability to read and write. In my midterm I wrote about musical literacy

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and functional literacy. I said, I define musical literacy as having
knowledge in all aspects of music. If someone asks you a question
about music, you should know. When the class was asked to talk
about the type of literacy we used in our narrative, we were all
confused. We werent sure if the things we were literate in actually had
a name. Another question we had to answer in Part C was, did we learn
anything about the relationship between language and power? I said,
that I did learn something about the relationship between language
and power because certain words give more power to what youre
writing. For example, I could say, It was a hot sunny day. That
sentence was not powerful. I think a powerful sentence would be, It
was 99 degrees out side and the blazing sun shining down on my
forehead cause me to sweat. I think that sentence is very powerful
because it provided more mood and detail to what I was saying. We
also had to talk about who had the power in our literacy narrative. I
said, music had the power because music was responsible for the way
I felt and functioned.

In Part D, we had to talk about our goals for the second half of
the semester and how we planned to achieve those goals. I said, my
academic goals for the second half of the semester is to finish strong,
participate more in class, and put my all into every assignment. My
plan for achieving my goals are to diligently work on everything I can

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with the time I am allotted, get out of my comfort zone, and strive to
do my best. I think I have accomplished that goal.

IV.

Blogs
Doing blogs were very fun. We had to do a blog at least once a
week. The blog assignment either had an excerpt that had helpful
tips for our writing or it was a follow up to a big assignment. I found
the blogs to be really helpful because doing the blogs allowed me to
be myself as a writer and ask questions. The class did a total of five
blogs. From the 1st blog to the 5th blog, I can see how I grew as a
writer. To do one part of the midterm we had to reflect on the
questions we asked in our first blog. When I was doing my first blog,
you can definitely see that I showed independent inquiry and
curiosity. I felt like I had so many questions to ask. Even though I
had a negative outlook on writing on the first day, I had a feeling
that UWRT was going to be my favorite class and it is. My favorite
blog is blog post #4 because I read Shitty First Drafts by, Lammott.
Ms. Ingram made a reference to that book in my midterm and I had
no idea what she was talking about. After reading the except,
everything Lammott was saying was exactly how I felt. I knew I had
bad first drafts. In blog post #5 I said, My favorite thing Lamott
said was, "now, practically even better news than that of short
assignments is the idea of shitty first drafts. All good writers write
them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific

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third drafts". I completely agree with her statement because it
seems like all of my first drafts were horrible. In my first draft,
I usually say too much or not enough. I think my first drafts are bad
because I really don't know what I want to write about until I see
what me peers write in the peer review sessions. Even though I
may still have shitty first drafts I now know not to feel upset about
my first drafts.

V.

Portrait of a Writer Essay

The portrait of a writer essay was very hard for me. It took
me a long time to start. I had no idea what I wanted to write for
my first draft nor did I know who I was as a writer. The Portrait of
a Writer essay allowed me to critically view myself as a writer. I
think I went from having a dry first draft to having a nice title
and an adequate reflection on myself as a writer.
As I mentioned in the home section of my final portfolio
essay, the title of my portrait of a writer essay is Willingly Writing
Whitney. I wanted to have a cool title. I wanted the reader to see
how I was willing to write. In my Portrait of a Writer essay, I
mentioned that I had a negative outlook on writing before
coming to UTOP. This was shown when I said, I came into
college with a negative outlook on writing. I thought I would be
reading Shakespeare and writing a ten-page essay on it. I was
wrong! I realized I should not judge a class before I get to it.

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When you read my Portrait of a Writer Assignment, you will see
that how I talk about writing is more positive. This is shown when
I said, I write freely whenever an idea comes to my mind or I am
bored. I think writing is universal. Writing consists of so many
components. I see writing as an innovative way to communicate
with others and most importantly express how you feel I think
that quote shows that I see writing more positively.
The hardest part of writing my portrait of a writer essay
was trying to answer all the questions Ms. Ingram gave the class
without directly saying I was answering the question. I also had
trouble talking about my writing process because at the time of
the assignment, I didnt have a writing process. However, I have
a writing process now. I think the easiest part of writing the essay
was identifying my strengths and challenges as a writer.

VI.

Writers Notebook Artifacts

My first writers notebook artifact is my warm up about how I

viewed good and bad writing. I said, my definition of good writing Is

writing that flows naturally and is written nicely. My definition of bad
writing is writing that is written sloppy, has slang, and the text. I
chose the first warm up to be one of my writers notebook artifacts
because If I was asked those two questions right now, my answers

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would be completely different. Now I define good writing as writing that
has a clean style and clean voice. I define bad writing as writing that is
unclear and hard to grasp the readers attention. I think my definition
of good and bad writing changed throughout the course because my
attitude of writing changed from positive to negative. Therefore, I had
intellectual growth and maturity because if I kept the negative attitude
towards writing, I would not have been able to to grow as a writer. If I
didnt grow as a writer, I would have been complaining about all the
writing I had to do or not putting my all into my writing. My second
writers notebook artifact is my warm up on how I defined literacy. This
warm up was very important because it connected to the literacy
narrative assignment. In my warm up I defined literacy as, When I see
the word literacy, I think of literature and someones ability to write.
When I think of the word literacy now, I think of anything a person has
mastered or have faced. In my midterm I said, I was literate in musical
and functional literacy. I am literate in music because I have been a
musician for about eleven years. I am literate in functioning because I
use my music to help myself function when my dad died and when I
am in stressful situations. This is also a part of intellectual growth and
maturity because I now view literacy more than just literature, I see it
more as a universal concept where someone is an expert at something.

VII. Wild Cards

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In my LBST 2102 Global Connections class, I had to write a discussion
post question essay. For the discussion post I had to choose between a
few articles. I had to write no less than a three to four paged paragraph
about how I felt about it and the themes that came up. The discussion
post essay is my first wild card. I chose my discussion post essay as a wild
card because I had the chance to say how I felt about the articles I read.
This connects to UWRT because many assignments in UWRT required me
to write what I felt. Unfortunately, I didnt use my writing process when
writing the discussion post. Since I did not use my writing process I got an
85. My teacher for that class said, Whitney you did an effective job of
using relevant course themes for your discussion question specifically
your discussion of gender equality. In many ways both Mary Barra and
Brittney Griner were othered because of gender and sexuality. Overall
this was a good essay but there were quite a few spelling/grammar errors
including the misspelling of subjects names. After reading my teachers
feedback I didnt know I had a lot of spelling/grammar errors. Next time I
know I must use my writing process no matter how busy I am with other
school work. Furthermore, working on the discussion post was very easy
to me because I have been writing a lot in UWRT. For example, providing
detail and examples in my writing. UWRT has prepared me for a lot of my
writing assignments.
My second wild card is the Dos and Donts of peer review chart. I used
that chart as a wild card because I think that chart can be applied in the

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writing world and in the leadership world. It can be applied in the writing
world because of peer review sessions. The chart was very handy because
when I first started peer reviewing papers I held back on my comments
because I either did not know what to say or I didnt want my peer to
think that I was critiquing their paper to harshly. I realized that I was
preventing my peers paper from becoming better because I did not tell
him/her my comments. At the end of UWRT I ended up writing a lot of
comments, both good things and areas of improvement.

VIII. Final Portfolio Essay

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My final portfolio essay is the second tab in my e-portfolio. Like I
mentioned in blog post #5, I started my final portfolio essay a couple of days
before I really knew what I was doing. I created the title and the color
scheme I wanted and called it a day. I started to look at final portfolio essays
from Ms. Ingrams class and Kelsey Summeys e-portfolio and final portfolio
stood out to me the most. Maybe it stood out to me because her literacy
narrative was about music and my literacy narrative was too. Kelseys essay
was very organized to me. When I went to her final portfolio essay tab, I saw
that she created an outline for her essay that highlighted her artifacts. I
followed the same format she used and now my final portfolio essay is more
organized. In my outline I also explained the purpose and the importance of
the artifacts I chose. My outline is under the literacy narrative tab and is one
of my process work artifacts.

IX.

Grade Reflection
From comparing my midterm grade and trying to improve the effort

I used when doing my assignments leading up to my e-Portfolio/ Final

portfolio essay, I think I deserve an A. While I was working on my ePortfolio and my final portfolio essay, I had the requirements on hand
while I was working. I did my best to go above and beyond in providing
detail on what I learned in class and the assignments I did. I also did
my best to incorporate the five modes of multi-modality and answer

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the central inquiry questions. I think my final portfolio essay and ePortfolio is very organized.

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