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Jaden Maldonado

Professor McCann

English 1301.129

6 December 2023

My English 1301 Semester

To begin with, my English 1301 semester has been amazing but stressful at the same

time. At the beginning of the year, some of my upperclassmen peers told me that English 1301

was going to be an awakening because of how hard the essays are going to be. When I got the

first essay prompt, it was nerve racking and made me feel like I was not going to be able to

complete it. The word count had me worried because essay one would be one of the largest

writing assignments I have ever had to do. Also, the prompt itself made me nervous about what I

was going to write my essay about. However, I was able to complete essay one while learning

different strategies about writing. With these strategies, essays two and three were easier than if I

had not learned those skills. My revisions for my essays were changed based on what I have

learned throughout the year, but also make the changes simpler. For example, in essay one, I

mostly changed repeating words. These changes were made because seeing the same words

repeated annoyed me as a reader of my own essay. The change in words would allow the essay to

have a little bit more spice to it. Also, things that audience members would have trouble

understanding were changed. For instance, instead of having another National Football League

team for the team that the Cowboys beat, I put the name of the team. This change was made, so

readers can see what game I am talking about. For essay two, the changes I made were more

about the analysis of the elements themselves. For example, in the first body paragraph, I gave
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more detail about the way Lenna looked to be able to make readers see the common horror

tropes. To illustrate this, I add more detail as how she looked, and the way viewers would feel

when looking at her in the poster. I made these changes because I wanted readers to see the

horror tropes that were used in the poster and put more emphasis on them. In essay 3, I focused

more on not repeating words and sentences. For example, one of the sentences that were in the

introduction was repeated in the first body paragraph and I repeated the word bullying too much.

These changes were necessary to keep the flow of the essay clean and to avoid aggravating the

readers with the same things.

Furthermore, for my website, I wanted my theme to be something related to anime

because anime helped me get through this semester. This semester has been and still is stressful,

so anime was able to relieve that stress by allowing me to forget about my problems and just

relax. One of the anime series that I watched the most during this semester was the Dragon Ball

series. Dragon Ball helped me the most because of the main character Goku and the main side

character Vegeta. These characters never gave up in their fight to protect their world even when

the enemy was stronger than them. This helped me never give up on my assignment for school.

For example, in U.S History, a final debate preparation worksheet was due on December the 1st

and I needed to add about two to three more pages of information, and I wanted to give up.

However, I remembered that these characters never gave up even when the odds seemed

impossible, so I completed my worksheet and got a perfect score on it. Also, these characters

made me realize that I should aim higher in my work. For example, I did not want to try hard this

year because of how hard it was going to be. Nevertheless, I pushed myself to reach new heights

with my work. Some of the work that I summited this year has been most of my best work in

high school. This is the reason my website is called “jadenmaldonadoanddragonball”. The

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website is more pathos based than any other rhetorical device. For instance, the background

pictures were meant to look cool and motivating. The reason I did this was because the viewers

of my website could be as excited as I was when creating my website.

In addition, one of the most important assignments that helped me through the entire

semester was shitty first drafts. To illustrate this, in shitty first drafts, it is mentioned that even

the best of writers does not just sit down and complete a perfect final draft right away. This

assignment should me that not everything has to be perfect, and it is ok to make mistakes. The

writing process takes time and is not something that can be rushed. This influenced the way I did

my portfolio because I wanted to see the growth I had as a writer as time went on. Another set of

assignments that helped me the most in revising my essays were the writer’s block ones. They

helped me be able to change different things in my essays. For example, one of the writer’s block

assignments talked about how writer’s block can happen because the student does not know how

to start off their paper. This assignment helped me be able to do something to start on how I was

going to revise my essays.

Moreover, one of the things that I learned from English 1301 that can be carried to

another course is how to work with my peers to make the work better than it was. Peer review

with peers can translate to many classes. For example, in U.S History, I had to write a position

paper about what side I was on about the New Deal that was proposed by Franklin Rosevelt.

Learning how to peer review in English 1301 helped the entire class review each other’s work to

make it the best it possibly could be. Another skill that can be transferred to another class would

be learning how to overcome writer’s block. In a lot of other classes, it is required to write essays

and other writing assignments. For example, in my Pre-Calculus high school class, I needed to

write an essay about how math is used in everyday life. With the knowledge of ways to
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overcome writer’s block, I was able to start writing the essay instead of looking at a blank page

for 30 minutes. One of the most important skills from English 1301 that can be used in other

classes is being able to manage my time efficiently. Time management was something that I

struggled with because I would always wait till the last minute to do everything. This felt as if it

was starting to put a strain on my body overtime. However, in English 1301, I needed to stay on

top of all of my work because it was physically impossible for me to procrastinate the essays and

the homework every week. A class this would be useful in would be Physics. For example, in my

class, I need to write notes while she is lecturing, but also focusing on what is being written on

the board. Learning time management made me realize that the teacher keeps whatever they

write on the board till the end of the class, so I could write all the notes she is saying. Then, take

a picture of the board at the end of every class to get examples on the board. Before I tried to do

both and I was missing important information she was saying, so learning time management and

prioritizing what was more important helped me take more efficient notes.

On the contrary, a skill from English 1301 that can not be transferred to another class is

writing in an academic formal tone. From what I have seen from other classes, the teachers do

not really care if the essays do not have an academic formal tone, as long as it does not have

slang. For example, in Pre-Calculus, the teacher told the class that he did not care about the tone

of the essay as long as it is done. Writing in just a formal academic tone is more reserved for

English classes and does not apply to most of the other classes. Another skill that I will not be

able to use in other classes is being allowed the freedom to choose a topic that suits me the most.

In most classes the teacher assigns a topic that needs to be written around and cannot be changed.

For example, in College Algebra, the professor had given the class a prompt about writing an

essay about what kind of math is needed to build bridges that are sturdy enough to support a lot
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of weight. This shows the reason as to why I could not use the skill of finding the best topic

suited for me.

Over the semester, my writing weakness has been the same. I put too much effort into the

first draft, that I barely changed anything for my final draft. Even though I know that there is no

point in turning in a perfect first draft, it is bound to have mistakes because it is a first draft.

However, that does not stop me from trying to make it perfect. For instance, for essay one, I had

completed the first draft a couple of days before it was due, but the day it was due, I looked back

at it to fix any errors I could find. Instead of doing this, I could have just turned it in and gotten

instructor feedback. One of my strengths from this semester is being able to formulate my

thoughts well on paper. For example, in essay two, I was able to make the outline of the essay

and follow it to a tee. This made the essay flow nicely and made it an overall better essay than

my essay one.

The most challenging part of the website was adding everything into it. The Weebly

website would mess up sometimes and I would be forced to redo everything that did not save.

Also, adding all of the spacers and dividers took a lot of time. For example, I was working on the

website creating the tab for essay 2 when my computer shut down because I hit my phone by

accident. When the computer turned on, the website did not save all of the work I did for the

essay two tab. This was the most frustrating part of this portfolio. The least challenging part was

getting all of my work to put into the website. I just went to blackboard and downloaded

everything, so I could add it to my website. To illustrate this, I could not find my essay 2 final

draft in my word or files for my laptop, so I went to blackboard to get it and convert it to a pdf.

This was the easiest part of creating the website because all of the work was already saved on

blackboard.
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In conclusion, my identity as a writer has changed over the months of this semester. I

have grown to be confident in my writing and believe in what I do. My identity has changed

because my eyes have been opened to the possibility of using emotions, communities, and visual

elements in my essays. For instance, I believe that when I write a new essay, I will be able to

incorporate what I have learned throughout the semester and can finally call myself a writer or at

least sort of a writer. This semester has been my favorite one out of all of my past school years. I

feel that I have grown a lot not only as a writer, but as a person as well. This semester has proven

to me that I do have what it takes to be able to write amazing essays and be able to stay on top of

everything. I look forward to what next semester holds in store for me.