William Oshkinowe

[censored], Waubun, MN
[censored]-1199
William.oshkinowe@ndsu.edu

6 May 2021

Clair Willden
English 120
NDSU
Fargo, ND

Dear Clair Willden,

I created this portfolio to show the work that I have done throughout the semester. In
hopes of showing my progress in the class, I have made the website easily accessible to skim
through all of my writings, and to hopefully show how my writing has improved. I tried to make
the website look good, while keeping it simple and pleasing to read. For the journal entries I
transcribed them to make it easier to read aswell

The first part of this portfolio is just the documentation of each assignment, and the date
the assignment was due. This part of the portfolio is just purely for documentation and as well as
to supply references later in the portfolio. Reading through these documents will give you a brief
understanding of how I write and the progression of such. I will also give a breakdown of why I
wrote the piece in the way I did, and the advantages / disadvantages of doing so. Each essay will
be embedded directly into the site, so you will not have to download the PDF’s in order to read
them.

When looking back at all of my writing in this class, I consider the Rhetorical Analysis
essay as my best piece of writing in this course. I label it as such, mainly because it was a topic
that I was passionate about, and the one that I wanted to drive forward. I wrote the paper in
hopes of delivering a reason as to why many people prefer one game over the other, and how
those two different games approach similar situations and problems. I also went over why I
believe that one game has done a better job at maintaining a fun experience, and how the other
could have done better. However, there were some things that I believe could have been
improved in the paper, and have done some rewriting of the piece to clear up those points. I
believe the revisions also provide a better contrast between the two games, and to treat them as
two completely different games, rather than two sister games. The revisioned essay is placed on
the website, as well as a more in depth explanation of the revisions.

I learned a lot throughout this course, and I believe that I have come to better understand
some of the learning outcomes that were originally posted in the course syllabus:
● Recognize how genre can change depending on writing style, audience, and the
overall progression of the piece of writing.
● Write and organize the Rhetoric content to better suit the genre, audience,
arguments and analysis of an essay
Learning the first objective really took place during my first essay; the Profile Essay. During the
writing of that essay, I had no idea of who I should be writing the piece to, and tried to make an
adventure story because I figured that would be more interesting to a wider audience. However,
the final result was not what I had envisioned, and fell short on multiple key factors. An example
of this is in the Profile Essay, where I tried to set the scene with this opening sentence: “During a
cold winter evening on the 24th of January, I pulled into the driveway of my grandfather,
William Gene Oshkinowe, and knocked on his front door”. This would not have been an issue if
the entire essay was written in this story genre. But half way through, the genre started to shift to
a documentary, and it ended up with sentences such as the closing sentence of the 4th paragraph:
“With his pilot license, he also got a radio license, and was able to talk to command centers...”.
Out of context this sentence could fit in with an adventure story, but the context I provided ended
up turning the genre into a completely different one.
In the next essay, the Rhetorical Analysis essay, I knew that the genre should be the same
all the way throughout, and I did just that by defining my audience, writing, and voice. This gave
the essay a more serious and straightforward approach. It also made it easier to read, providing
context about how the essay should be read. After writing this essay, I learned that some genres
are better suited for some writings than others, and that by giving better reading context I can
make a better essay that focuses only on one specific genre.
The second learning objective was learned while writing the Rhetorical Analysis essay. I
wanted to write something that showed how I felt about how Bethesda handled Skyrim, but I did
not want it to become too pushy. I had to rewrite many sentences over and over again because it
felt as if I was being too forward with my opinions on the game. I finally got the hang of writing
in a way that I felt gave it a better voice; not too pushy, and not too neutral. An example of this is
in the 3rd paragraph of the essay where I wrote, “The decisions that you make in Skyrim have
almost no real effect on the world. Sure the storyline will move along just fine, but the NPCs
simply do not acknowledge the things that you have done.” This type of writing told the reader
that I did not hate skyrim, but that I would just rather play its predecessor. If we were to compare
it to an older piece of writing, say from the Profile essay, we have sentences such as the opening
of the 3rd paragraph; “Being away from the family he grew up with, in a large place with new
people, cultures, lifestyles, and with the limited money that he had, he really had no reason to
complicate things further with something like flying.”. This sentence felt too pushy and told the
reader that I am giving my opinion about my grandfather. The way I handled the rhetorical
content in my 2nd essay, was much better than the first, and I feel like I understand how to use it
better now, since I was able to use it properly.

As a closing paragraph to this cover letter, I would like to acknowledge the weird and
nontraditional English class that we had. It was a fun experience, and I am glad to have been able
to be your student. It might have been better had we not been in a pandemic, but I would like to
think that the pandemic is what gave the class its unusual charm. In any case, thank you for being
my professor, and I hope that you have a wonderful summer.

Sincerely,

William Oshkinowe.