Caitlyn Durbin

515 Lincoln St
Agra, OK 74824

April 28, 2024

Tammy Davis
Northern Oklahoma College
615 N. Monroe
Stillwater, OK 74078

Greetings Mrs. Davis,

This collection contains writing assignments primarily from my English Comp I and
Comp II class, with the only exception being an assignment that I had to do for my Art
Appreciation class. To be honest, I’ve incorporated art into almost this entire project. I have
chosen art as my main focus for at least two of these writings in this collection. This collection is
not only a way to show my skills as a writer, but it can also show how art can be added into other
subjects as well. It can show my expertise, albeit still developing, as an artist and writer. I’m
hoping that this collection reflects my progress and how my writing skills have developed from
Comp I to Comp II. Hopefully, my skills will continue to improve.
The first artifact in my portfolio is my final essay from Comp 1, “De-stressing With Art”.
“De-stressing With Art” has been one of my all-time favorite essays to write, and I even got to
include my own artwork with the essay in the final project. I wanted to include this artifact
because it meant a lot to me when I was writing it, and it still does to this day. I wanted that
artifact to be the first one people saw when they came to my website. “De-stressing With Art” is
meant to help others know that there are more ways to ease one’s mind, primarily through
creating art itself. The second artifact on my website is “Mental Health Letter”. This artifact isn’t
one of my better writings, in my opinion. It was intended to bring more attention to mental health
and what people could do to lessen the effects that it had on high school and college students.
For some reason, I don’t feel like it came together all that well. It felt like I had to force the
words out of my brain, rather than let the words come out smoothly. The reason I included it as
an artifact, though, was because I wanted to show a piece of writing that, when I was in the
process of writing it, made me struggle. By adding this piece of writing, it shows others that not
all of my writing is going to be well constructed. In order for a writer’s skills to grow, the writer
has to show not only what they consider their best works, but they have to show some of their
weaker works as well. Why I think that this is one of my weaker works is due to the fact that
writing it felt odd to me. I don’t know if it was because it happened to be in a letter format, or if
it had to do with the subject material I chose; but it simply felt odd, like it was forced. “Hope”
was what I chose as my third artifact. That essay had been a timed essay from my English comp
II class, with the subject matter being well, hope. “Hope” is probably one of my more depressing
writings, with myself even stating in the introduction that I didn’t have a whole lot of hope. The
reason I added this work as one of my artifacts was to show that not every writer, myself
included, has good days. Not every writer is going to create lighter, more joyous pieces of
writing. When people look at these artifacts, I want them to see both sides of my work. I want
them to see both happiness and sadness in my writing, and I think that “Hope” is able to show
both sides. In all honesty, I didn’t know what to add for my fourth and final artifact. I thought
that maybe I’d add another piece from Comp I last semester, but thought better of it and instead
added a piece of writing from my Art Appreciation class. “Themes of Art” was a recent
assignment due in my Art Appreciation class; I ended up adding it to my website right after I
turned it in. I wanted to incorporate this piece so that I could show that writing didn’t have to be
confined to just one class. It may not be one of my better works, but I still wanted to show it. In
“Themes of Art”, my main focus is The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, which has been one of my
favorite works of art for quite some time. By adding this piece of writing, I want to show that
writers and artists can show appreciation for what they are interested in, and not just their own
work. This entire collection is centered around art and writing, showing the range of emotion that
can be covered, and how the creator’s skills can grow as well.
When I first started writing, I was absolutely terrible. Anyone could tell that I didn’t yet
have the skills for it. Granted, I was only about six or seven when I started writing. What
inspired me to write in the first place, though, were my parents, mainly my mother. She, and
sometimes even my aunt, would read stories to me when I was younger. When I got older and
started to read more on my own, however, that’s when I first got inspired to create my own
stories. Did any of them get finished? No, they rarely ever did. My skills did improve over time,
though, especially with the help of all those elementary, middle, and high school English classes.
Even now, my writing skills are still improving, which I’m super grateful for.
When I was younger, my writing process was simple, but not reliable in any way, shape,
or form. I’d get ideas for new stories almost every second, it seemed, and it made everything
much more complicated; I’d end up trying to focus on each and every idea that my mind came up
with, and it often resulted in me mixing up the plot points of each story. Luckily, along with my
skills evolving, so did my writing process. Any time I now get an idea, I write it down in my
notes and add on anything that I think would go well with the plot. For example, I have three
different story ideas that I’ve been slowly developing in my notes. I plan to work on each one
during this summer. Something I would add to my writing toolbox is: know your characters.
Know the subjects of your story. The reader won’t be able to get a grasp of who the character
truly is if the writer themselves doesn’t know the character either.
Even though my skills have gotten better over time, I still struggle to write sometimes.
Old writing habits manage to sink back in if I stop writing over a long period of time. Something
that attributes to this is procrastination. I have a tendency to put writings and other work off until
almost the last minute, especially if it’s an assignment of some sort. Somehow, it was worse this
semester than it was last semester. Even if it’s not an assignment, I still find myself
procrastinating when it comes to writing. Most of it has to do with me being easy to distract, or if
there’s too much going on around me. Time management has also been something that’s been
difficult to handle this semester. At some point in the last couple of months, I stopped using my
planner, which caused a good number of my assignments to go forgotten or to be turned in late.
On the other hand, however, once I get past all of the distractions and procrastinations and
actually start writing, it’s like I can’t stop writing. Once I have a good idea, or if I’m writing
about a topic that has my interest, I simply write what’s on my mind and let it go from there.
As for what’s next in my writing, I’m not quite sure. For the most part, I hope to improve
my skills as both an artist and as a writer beyond what they are now. I’d like to be able to create
more creative writings, whether they be short stories or fully developed novels. I’d like to gather
feedback so that I know what people do and do not like about my writing as well as my artwork.
I may not be prepared for these accomplishments yet, but I hope that, with more improvement,
I’ll be ready for whatever opportunities my skills provide me with.
I hope this collection of writings brightens your day, and I thank you for the time you
take to look through them. If you would like to talk about any of these writings, or anything else
on my website, please feel free to call or text me at 405-240-2623. If call or text isn’t your thing,
you can also email me at CDurb538@students.noc.edu.