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Kevin Gonzalez

M. Rodriguez

English 1302-171

12/11/23

Portfolio Reflection Essay

Some people must think that English class does not matter in the real world, but it does

because of the extensive skills and knowledge you consume while taking the course. English

classes are the most crucial course in every grade because you can learn many different skills

and get opportunities to find what you want to do in the following college years. When I took my

first English 1301 course, I felt that English should be my major because I loved writing essays

when I took the course, and the help I got throughout the class helped me improve my writing

and social skills. After taking English 1302, this course can help everyone improve their

communication and writing skills because of the extensive writing we pursue and the different

options we can take when we pick our topic for the semester. The issue I chose to seek for the

rest of my semester is how chefs’ knowledge and creativity will be necessary to make restaurant

dishes. I was required to complete an annotated bibliography, an analysis essay, and an

argument essay with multiple comments and reflections on my previous papers. For this

portfolio, I had to revise my essays using different assignments I had to finish. I had to create a

website that I had to theme with the other subtopics of my essays throughout the evolution of

the papers and how it brought support to my steps on becoming a writer with more transparent

and strengthening my vocabulary so that I can successfully gather and analyze research for my

English courses ahead of my subsequent years of University and may help me with the

opportunity to have a job as an English teacher.

To revise my Research Analysis Essay, I used the first days of getting my reflection

assignment and feedback to improve my weaknesses throughout the analysis essay. I learned

that I had to explain in detail the thesis statement I wrote and talk more about my explanations
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of the quotes from the articles I researched and why chefs should be considered artists from the

creativity and knowledge they consume when training and working in the culinary role. Using the

previous reflections according to my understanding, I used the weaknesses to improve my

quality of communication and writing skills to rewrite my first draft and improve my writing and

correct grammar malfunctions by adding more details and explanations so that I can have

feedback with fewer comments that I have to correct them. One example is when I discussed

the importance of chefs' creativity and being an artist in the culinary world. I had to find more

research about the importance of chefs being artists. I had to use one of my two new research

articles to obtain ten articles for my semester. I found an article discussing how chefs will use an

artistic culinary role with the latest inventions they use with their details and knowledge. Elbulli

was one restaurant that came out in two of the articles I had researched, so I found a common

representation that they are familiar to the artist's perspective as a chef. They are innovators

who have been popular in the past years and have made dishes representing real-world items. I

added this new article to my body paragraph. I made it slip smoothly through the section. I made

the paragraph sound clearer with a longer explanation of the paragraph and the thesis

statement from the introduction. Another change I made is the sentence structure; I had

excessively explained and reused the exact words and explanations. In most of my paragraphs,

I talked about the same topic repeatedly. I used accurate synonyms, so I had to change most of

the words and even delete some sentences to make the paragraph more transparent with the

thesis statement and articles I quoted. In the end, I believe that using my reflection assignment

and feedback on my research analysis essay had successfully guided me to improve my paper

by making me change sentences and add more details and articles to sound more precise and

have a high grade on my final draft so that I can keep improving.

In my argument essay, I also used my reflection assignment and feedback to find the

weaknesses in my writing and improve my paper to find a way to help the reader find the details

and see my side of the essay that I have prompted to research and explain in my writing. After
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my feedback, I learned I had many sentence fragments and used passive voice throughout my

argument essay. I went back and changed all the incorrections and even added more sentences

that explained the quotes in detail. For example, in one of my paragraphs, I talked about chefs’

knowledge and experience and how they have a lot of knowledge about dishes that haven't

even been around the world. I added an article that shows that chefs use indigenous ingredients

to show that cultural dishes aren’t dead but have evolved in the modern world so that people

around the world can enjoy a piece of history formed as a dish served with the creativity and

knowledge of the chefs when making the food with the specific ingredients. Writing long

explanations with the articles I have picked makes my arguments more one-sided. It makes my

essay way better for the researchers who want to analyze the side they want to read about.

Overall, my reflection assignment and feedback helped me use more evidence, explain more in

detail, and correct my mistakes in my first draft.

On my website, Weebly, I used images in the background to show the theme of my

essays, which represented chefs and their outstanding work over the years. For example, on

the title page of the home page, I show an image of Gordon Ramsey. Ramsey is a well-known

chef who has been a great inventor of different dishes and has shows and restaurants

worldwide. He inspired my choice of topic because I love how he has brought the culinary role

of a chef into the modern world. He represents an article I have picked, the Michelin star

because he has many restaurants with Michelin stars, which are hard to obtain due to strict

requirements for keeping the restaurant perfectly clean and well organized. At the same time,

these Michelin reviewers go around the world and check out the restaurants with potential for

these stars. For the research analysis background, I chose a chef cooking food because that is

basically what my topic is all about: a chef using their creativity and knowledge to know what

ingredients to put in and the right time and temperature they have to keep the food from

overcooking or having too much of one ingredient. Chefs are an essential aspect of the culinary

world because, in modern society, everyone likes to go out and take pictures of the lovely dishes
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that attract others to visit the restaurant. In addition, my argument essay background has a

concept of the now-closed restaurant and museum, elBulli. This restaurant has been a big part

of the creative culinary restaurants that people have loved seeing the menu items they served

when it was open. My topic mainly concerns elBulli and its impact on the culinary scenery and

how beautiful dishes can be from the different aspects that make a dish perfect. Lastly, the

reflection essay background is an indigenous dish that contains different native ingredients that

show the history of the dish and what different dishes can be from other parts of the world.

Overall, these different backgrounds show that in the culinary scene, we can all make different

dishes with various ingredients, revive the dishes of our ancestors, and have them popularized

in other countries that have not tried them.

On the contrary, I can apply all the skills I learned in English 1302 to other courses. One

of the skills I improved and gained significantly is brainstorming on rarely chosen topics and

making the subject enjoyable for the reader while finding great peer-reviewed articles that talk

about my case. For my annotated bibliography, my instructor explained that we must find

peer-reviewed articles in the Texas A&M International Univerty’s Sue & Radcliffe Killam Library

database to find the research and specific articles we need for our essays throughout the

semester. I found many interesting articles about chefs’ knowledge and creativity, full of

information from professionals and authors. Another skill is finding research for this class, which

can help me find research and articles for my other courses. For example, suppose I want to

find an article about the Civil War. In that case, I type “Civil War” and sort it into peer-reviewed

articles to see what interests me and what has the most information for my topic to find out more

about it. Another skill I learned is summarizing the article and all its data into a short paragraph

with a reasonable explanation so the reader can present the summarization and confirm that

they like it. My annotated bibliography helped me with the summarizations. I summarized eight

articles about a chef’s knowledge and creativity from the culinary perspective. Lastly, what I

learned in my English 1302 class that can not apply to other courses is talking about grammar
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and sentence structures with my English teacher and what I can do to improve my

communication and writing skills that will not apply to other courses. Overall, my English 1302

course has impacted me differently, from improving my skills to using them in the rest of my time

at the university and becoming a better writer.

Throughout the course, my writing strengths have significantly improved from my last

English course last year. My weaknesses transform into strengths through practice and

determination. I will become a great writer and have fun writing about different topics and

prompts throughout my time at university. For example, my weakness was finding the write

thesis statement and how I should structure it differently to perfect the craft. I improved my

thesis statement by drafting different thesis statements and summarizing what I included in a

body paragraph and how I would explain the information through examples and quotes. One of

my strengths is finding the right article for the topic of my essay. I found the best paper with

large amounts of information that can help me improve my writing and give me a better grade.

For example, when picking articles about chefs’ knowledge, I found how different articles have

information for specific ideas and creations to make my essay well-written, with many subtopics

and explanations of what chefs are all different and the knowledge they obtain from training and

the dishes they make throughout their lifetime. With all my strengths and weaknesses

throughout the course, I still improve all that I get into and find a solution to make myself a more

excellent writer for my future.

Finally, writing this portfolio reflection is the most challenging part of creating a website. I

must look back into a semester's worth of information to write this significant reflection essay

that is very important for my course. Finding a suitable theme and background is the least

challenging of creating a website. My themes must include famous chefs, dishes, and

restaurants, which is the least challenging part. Overall, I love challenging myself to improve my

website and the information that goes into it.

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After all the information, reflections, and essays I went through this semester. It made

me improve as a writer and changed my perspective on many subjects and topics, which is why

I chose to major in English because of how enjoyable my courses are when enjoying what I love

to do, which is expressing myself through writing and summarizing different articles and topics. I

am grateful for this course and the instructor who has helped me improve my writing skills, and I

would love to help people enjoy these courses to improve their writing and communication skills.