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Aaron Mackinnon Ms. Ingram English 1102-025 December 2, 2012 Portfolio Essay During my time in English 1102, I have learned an abundance of new material. I have also been able to build on what I learned in my prior English 1101. I have been able to improve my writing process greatly from my previously capabilities. In my English 1101 class, I focused on correcting my paper structure. With the understanding of correct paper structure venturing into English 1102, I was able to focus my attention on the other tools being taught. From Inquiry to Academic Writing assisted me with proper preparation and formatting of my papers. An issue I had during this class was citing my papers properly and knowing where the citations had to be placed throughout the paper. My lack of proper citation was due to my instructors in high school only requiring a reference page without citations throughout my papers; however, that is the past. English 1102 is my present and all my growth can be seen clearly in each of my assignments throughout the semester. Before I begin to discuss my writing, I will discuss the organization of my portfolio. I decided to place my WILTBY essay first because it opens the gates to who I am as a writer. I believe through seeing my past and present life experiences that who I am as I writer and why I write the way I do is more clear. Following my portfolio essay I decided to keep the process leading to my research paper in order. I started this by showing the map of all my different ideas

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and to show how my broad idea became defined to a single thought or idea. Next, I continued in the order of an annotated bibliography, three-sided essay, and then finally the research paper. Since each assignment leads to the next, I decided to keep everything I did about my inquiry question in the order that it was assigned. For my main writing assignments, I decided to place certain rough drafts before my final draft of the assignment so that my thought process in how I corrected my work could be seen. After my main assignments I decided to place my warm-ups and then blogs because even though they are also important I find that the papers show my main source of growth in the class. Firstly, my Whats it like to be you essay was placed with priority because it is me. I put of a lot of work into the paper trying to make sure who I am can be seen through the pages. I tried not to make my paper seem as if I was being distant from the audience; I wanted it to seem as if I was telling the story in person. Although I tried to avoid telling a detailed history of my life, my life story was not extremely dull, I was pleased with the end result. Initially, I narrated the story of my life as if it was about to be placed in an obituary; however, as the paper continues to progress it grows into a more personal paper rather than fact, which was exactly what I wanted. During the work shopping process for this paper it was brought to my attention that I didnt tell about my life today but only revisited different stages of my past. Honestly, when I first sat down to write my paper, I had no intention of writing about my present day life because I didnt want to have six-hundred page soap opera. Soap opera or not, the question for the assignment was in the present tense, so I knew I had to bring my current life into my writing. Therefore, I added a Here and Now section. The Here and Now Section brought a better closure to my paper then the previous abrupt ending.

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Additionally, this section shows how my life is now as I am learning to adapt to my new environment--college. Since I am me it was easy to write about just that, I just needed to figure out how I was going to shift through 18 years of living to figure out what would be a good fit for this paper. Without going through the process of my rough drafts I would not have been able to get to the final piece that I accomplished. Due to this developmental process of my work I believe that my final WILTBY essay embodied my life until now, which I believe fulfills the point of the assignment. I am very proud of my WILTBY essay for the fact that I think it is a quick embodiment of who I am and how I got to this point in my life. With the annotated bibliography and the three-sided essay, I had the most difficulties. Although the annotated bibliography called for a restating of the facts it was difficult for me to get a complete understanding of what was required. When I first started my annotative bibliography my inquiry question was What are the long term effects of food allergies? After trying to research that inquiry, I realized that the evidence was inefficient. Although I knew I could not complete my final assignment on that specific topic to deal with allergies I knew that I still wanted to deal with allergies. Therefore, I decided to change my inquiry question to Why are food allergies on the rise in children? With this question I was able to continue my research with less difficulty because of the many opinions on the matter. . The three-sided essay was the next assignment that caused me to second think my approach and capability of completing the assignment to all standards. I dont know what it was about the three-sided assignment but it had me stumped. Two paragraphs per article really is not asking much; however somehow it had me confused. I did not know what to write because it seemed too simple of a process to be correct. Even during peer groups I was going a little bit crazy because I felt that my work was without a doubt wrong. However, after talking to my peers

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and reviewing their work I realized that we all had the same problem but somehow all of our work was correct. My work seemed wrong because I used internet sites for my sources. Since this was the case my information was very short and to the point; therefore my three-sided assignment ended up the same way---short and to the point. This English class has taught me that a research paper isnt just a list of boring facts gathered together for scientists. I learned that a research paper can be anything that you want it to be as long as you put in the facts. Because of the annotative bibliography and the three-sided essay, I enjoyed writing my research paper and felt well prepared. The previous assignments gave me direction and confidence to write my research paper. Additionally, the two earlier assignments assisted me in building my references for my research paper. The hassle free part of finding creditable sources helped me focus on the information and the writing of the actual paper. I only had two things left to figure out, who was my audience and how I would present the information. For my audience, I chose middle school students because that is around the age that I discovered my allergies. I believe that the most difficult part of this assignment was not even the paper itself but the work citations. In high school for work citations all we were required to do was attach a work cited page and we were done. Through English 1102, I have learned that properly citing your work requires a lot more than a reference page. I learned that you have to place parenthetical citations throughout the whole paper. Since this is a research paper and the facts have already been written I was trying to figure out how to place them throughout the paper. My opinion throughout the paper is that all of the theories can contribute to the increase of allergies and since this is so, I do not push that one idea is more valid than the other.

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I chose my warm-ups for my Daily Activities because they are samples of who I am as a writer and what I believe writing is. My warm-up from August 24th allowed me to think and really figure out what the word inquiry means to me. I was able to glimpse back over it several times to keep me on target of where I needed to go with my research paper. My Warm-up from October 19th is my opinion of great writing. I believe that writing isnt a process based on grammar but a process based on pure thought and ideas. Writing down my opinion of writing allows me to know that all my writing will not be perfect; however, if I continue to write as I feel, in a way that my audience can understand, and try to better how I get my points across I will continue to grow. The Final Daily Activity I chose was the blurb I did for the book Peace, Butter, & Jelly. I placed this item in my portfolio because you saw something in it that was worth possibly getting published. Although it wasnt a for sure thing it was a wow moment for me. Actions like this give me more confidence to continue my writing outside of class. I already have confidence in myself but it feels great to hear it coming from others, it encourages me to continue working hard and improving my writing abilities. My blog shows my thought process before or after and sometimes both. You can get a feel of the stress I feel through my annotated bibliography and my ease in my two essays. As I wrote my blogs I was able to go through my mind and fix some of the problems that I was having trouble with. When I wrote blog number two and I talked about my research paper I gained a good idea in my head of how I wanted everything to be. This blog helped me chose my audience, middle school students, which also helped me to decide between tones. While I was writing my blog number two, I also was writing my research paper map. Doing both of these at the same time gave me ideas for the blog post and the research assignment.

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Personally I believe I grew from each new assignment. I took the time to soak in what I was taught and not only focus on it for the moment. The activity that helped me as a writer the most was peer editing. It allowed me to put what I heard in class into better context. An example of this is during a group session I began to talk about the answer to my inquiry question in scientific terms because that was the way that I read it and grew to understand it. However, during a group session my group brought it to my attention that they didnt know what I was referring to. Since my group did not see the information in its entirety they had no clue about terminology. Due to this I was able to adapt to my audiences need and explain better. Although, my peer group could help me with discussions, to better understand the parameters of the assignment, it wasnt always as helpful when it came to how the content of my paper was laid out and expressed. Due to this I sought outside help. I asked family members and other students to review my paper and to see if anything could be understood better. My family and friends have taught me to truly think about my wording, because although I know what I mean, it may not be as clear to others. I have grown tremendously in this class, but not without the help of those around me who want me to succeed. I know I deserve an A because I gave the class and assignments my all. I may not have always understood the assignment or liked it but I took the time to put my all into each. I continued to improve and learn through my classmates and you through each stage of the writing process and became better and better. With each essay it can be seen how my ideas progress and my knowledge of the writing process grows. I dont believe I deserve an A because I did the bare nor do I deserve an A because Im perfect and Ive learned everything. I know that I have not reached the level of perfection; however, my English 1102 has allowed me to step closer and closer. This class has shown me that there is more to writing than just placing words on paper,

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each word is strategically placed with meaning and each line has a thought behind it. This class has taught me that writing is more than something you do but a skill that has to be nurtured so that it can grow, writing is an art.