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Cesar Corona

Dr. Charlene Summers

ENG 105 M01

13 December 2023

Portfolio Reflection Essay

Throughout my first semester, I have learned a lot about writing essays, rhetorical

analysis, and much more. Writing three essays, with three drafts really taught me how to revise

essays and how to make every sentence important for the paragraph. When I was asked to revise

all three of my final drafts for my portfolio, I thought that it would be difficult for me to find

areas that I can change. I was wrong, there were a lot of areas that could have been improved,

like explaining the analysis more profoundly and more in detail, as well as making sure that the

starter sentence introduces the topic to the reader for the rest of the paragraph. Doing that made

my paragraphs feel like they were flowing together, which once again elevates my essay.

Another area that I worked on was making sure that my sentences meant something, instead of

being bland and not important for the overall essay. I did this because some sentences felt out-of-

place and by doing this, it improved my essay a little more. Especially in my first essay, there

were a lot of sentences that were not necessary and were “filler” sentences. I tried removing as

much of those as possible. Once I was revising my third essay, it became more difficult in trying

to find areas to improve on because I understood the assignment prompt more profoundly, but I

was still able to find many mistakes and hopefully fixed a handful of them.

When I was designing my website, I had simplicity in my mind, as well as being able to

show my best work that I did this semester. I did this by finding the homework assignments I

was proud of and making sure to put them on my website. I choose to include my teachers’ and
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classmates’ comments because they reflected areas that needed improvement and hopefully

showing improvements when seeing the revised essay of mine. This was especially important for

me because these comments helped me grow as a writer, because they explained areas that

needed improvement. I was incredibly grateful to have exceptionally good comments made

because it allowed me to change areas that needed improvement. Going back, simplicity was in

mind when designing my website. In the Essay pages, I wanted everything to be found quite

easily. Making everything simple and easy to find gives a better experience to the reader of the

page. It also allows me to be extremly proud of the website that I have created because it shows

that I always try to put my best foot forward, and this allows me to show the viewer of my

website.

The activities and homework that influenced my revisions were the peer reviewed

activities, throughout the semester. Each time we had a peer review day, I got a lot of amazing

feedback from my peers that helped elevate my essays. This was important for me because it

helped me become a better writer because I got feedback that was appliable to my essays.

Overall, my homework assignments also helped me with my revisions for my portfolio because

each assignment helped me look for the smaller details, as well as help me understand the

analysis part of the essays. At first, I really struggled to understand what it meant to analysis

something. This concept was completely new to me, and I really could not understand what it

meant to analysis something. By the end of the semester, I feel like I understand what it means to

analysis an artifact of some kind. Homework assignments, going to class every day and trying

my best to participate in class helped me understand the prompt of the essays and helped me

understand what it truly means to analyze. Every homework assignment was beneficial for me

because it allowed me to think outside of the box and helped me become a better writer overall.
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Something that I learned in my ENG 105 class that I will be able to use in my other

classes is the ability to write long and meaningful essays and how to analyze a piece of work.

When I first started the semester, I rarely drafted essays and when I would author essays, I

struggled a lot in finding the correct words to put on a paper. When I entered my ENG 105 class,

my professor mentioned that this is going to be a class where there is going to be a lot of writing.

I was terrified because I was never a good writer beforehand, and our first assignment was to

write a 750–900-word essay. I felt like I was not going to be able to write that long of an essay

but by doing assignments and learning what it meant to analyze, I was able to do my first essay

of that length. After that, the word count of our essays increased and raised, and I was able to

write an essay longer than 1000 words. I would have not believed that when I first started out in

class, and I am glad that I could improve my writing skills. Another skill that I used was

analyzing an artifact. This is especially important for other classes like US History, or

Psychology because it allows me to think deeper, and try to see what the picture, or writing, is

about. This again is particularly useful for future classes and allows me to succeed later.

I feel like everything that I learned in my ENG 105 classes can be applied to other

courses because these are all skills that are needed to be used in college and in life in general.

Learning how to read meaningful articles and thinking about why this article was written is a

great life skill to have because it allows me to understand what the topic is about. Another good

example of what I learned in my English class is being able to give valuable feedback that can be

useful for a person. Throughout life, many are going to need to give feedback in some way and

in my ENG 105 class, we learned how to give meaningful feedback that can be easily applied

and easily understandable as well. This is an important life skill again because many jobs require

at least some feedback, and learning how to give helpful feedback can be beneficial for yourself
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and the person who has received it. Thankfully, everything that I learned this semester will be

appliable to another class or appliable to life at some point and I am extremely glad that I got to

learn these important skills.

My writing strengths and weaknesses have changed dramatically throughout this

semester because I got to know myself better as a writer. Some of my writing strengths that I

developed this semester was making sure that I can reach the word limit and making sure that

everything that I write belongs there. I did not have these strengths beforehand, but this semester

allowed me to develop them, and I am glad that I am improving on these writing attributes.

These strengths will help me later in the future, when I continue my education, as well as when I

try to apply for a job and when working. Having to write long and meaningful paragraphs and

essays might be a challenge that I need to face later in my life, and I feel like I can make every

sentence count in my essays and reach the word count. Of course, later I might need to learn how

to write even more and have word counts that are double, triple the size that I have today, but

constant training and making sure not to give up will allow me to accomplish that. Although I

have some strengths, I also have some weaknesses and areas that need improvement. Sometimes,

I feel like I repeat some of my ideas throughout my articles. Another weakness that I have is not

fully understanding what the writing prompt is trying to tell me. When I was revising my essay, I

saw multiple times that I repeated the same ideas over and over, but I was just wording them

differently. I still feel like I do this frequently and I am trying to learn to stop doing that and

make sure that I have all my ideas written on my essay. As well as seeing that some of my essays

were not following the prompt completely. I have been trying to improve both of those

weaknesses, but I still feel like they are still evident in some of my writings.
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Some of the most challenging parts of my website were making sure that everything I

have on my website is my best work. Having to search through a lot of assignments to find my

best work took a while because I needed portfolio to have relevant content. I believe that having

also having simplicity in my website was a challenge as well, because I did not want it to have

too much going on at the same time, but having work in there really showed who I am as a

writer. I am satisfied with the way my portfolio turned out because that is what I envisioned it to

be when I was working on it. I did not want anything to feel hard to find or have assignments

that did not make sense or did not show my best work. So, I am glad that I was able to overcome

that challenge. Some of the easy parts of doing the website was finding the right resources to

make my website feel simple. I could add text to the website easily and add buttons that lead you

to the assignment I was talking about. That part in designing my website was more of the least

challenging part of the website making and I am glad that I was able to create the website that I

envisioned when I first heard about this assignment.

Overall, my identity as a writer has changed so much when writing all three essays. I

believe you can see a major difference between my first essays, compared to the final essays that

I was writing, I am so glad that I am able to write long and meaningful essays now because as I

mentioned, it is something that will be useful in my life at some point. I feel like I have improved

so much this semester, but there are still areas that I can improve on. I started off the semester,

being terrified that I was not going to be able to complete simple assignments, to write a 2000-

page reflection essay talking about my experience in ENG 105. I feel like I can think about what

I want to write about, and I am having an easier time putting my thoughts on paper. This was a

major skill that I was very worried about when first starting this class, because as I have

mentioned before, there were a lot of firsts this semester. Learning how to analyze a brochure, to
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a visual text to a peer reviewed article, I feel like I have changed so much since starting back in

August. This essay pushed me out of my comfort zone multiple times, as well as this class. This

class helped me because I became a more experienced writer because I learned a lot of new skills

when writing. For example, I did not know what Logos, Ethos and Pathos was before starting

this school year, and now I learned what those meant and had to use examples on how those

were evident in a peer reviewed article. I could not have done that before, because I did not know

much about writing, but now I can see the growth from the beginning of the semester to now. I

am so glad that I was able to take this class because it really taught me a lot. I learned so much in

so little time and am grateful that I grew as a writer.