Tori's
writing
portfolio
writing
portfolio
final evaluation
My progression as a writer has really made me happy this semester. I came into the class feeling pretty confident about my writing skills, as my highschool had a pretty rigorous writing program that all students were required to take. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my writing could go much further. When I finally strayed from the analytical writing style that I had always known, I started to have much more fun with my writing. I was also a lot more happy with the work I was producing. Throughout the semester, I began to feel as though my writing was flowing more naturally and becoming more enjoyable to work on.
I still struggle with the voice in my head that tells me my writing is not good enough. Now that I am writing in different styles with less rigid guidelines and criteria to fill, I feel like my confidence has diminished. Sometimes it takes me a while to come up with a topic to write about, as I am constantly starting an essay and then deleting it shortly after thinking it is not good enough. I think I struggle with this because I am so used to producing work in response to specific questions or following specific guidelines. This is essentially the first class I have ever taken where we have the freedom to choose what we write about.
I think that my effort in our weekly writing assignments has been pretty good. I have tried to gradually make progress on all of my essays and not go too long without thinking or editing about one of them. I put a lot of work each week into the pieces I thought I would include in my portfolio, and really tried to follow the Murray’s lists in writing my multiple drafts.
I found the conferences to be very helpful, and I feel like I got a lot out of them. I did my best to make note of everything that we discussed in our conferences and make the appropriate changes to my essays after the fact.
I think my class participation has been great. I feel that I have usually had a good grasp on the readings we prepare for class discussions and that I have participated a lot in them. I always did my best to voice my thoughts and opinions during workshops and during other open class discussions.
Analysis Essay:
The first big change I made to this essay was going from solely analyzing an Old Spice commercial to analyzing both an Old Spice and an Axe Commercial. I took the paper further by comparing and contrasting the two companies’ advertising strategies and histories in general, and analyzing the effect and they had on the consumer. After throwing Axe into the mix, I decided to do some research and add citations to this essay.
My individual analysis of each of the commercials makes me happiest. I think I really captured the essence of the advertisements well and used good description. In doing so, I also started to look at advertisements and commercials differently. I started to pay more attention to the details and become more aware of what companies’ incentives are. This also makes me happy because I like when the work I do in the classroom carries over to my everyday life.
If I had more time, I would definitely do more research on the topic. It was really difficult and time consuming to find information on these two companies and their commercials specifically, so having more time would give me the opportunity to do that. In doing so, I would try to find professionals’ take on the companies’ commercials and strategies, along with statistics about how their advertising affected the companies’ sales and popularity.
Descriptive Essay:
Initially, I had only written one the first short about my dog Barkley for my descriptive essay. I really enjoyed writing it, and felt like I wanted to expand on the piece. When the working short assignment came up, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so, so I started thinking about a story I could tell about my other dog. I tried to match the style of the first, and added the second short along with the third about a moment I shared with a best friend from high school. So overall, the overall piece changed as I added more shorts to it and tried to make it somewhat collective.
The first two short essays make me really happy simply because they are about my dogs. I think I captured their essence well, and just reading over the pieces makes me smile. I went into the piece wanting to capture their personalities, and I think I was able to do so pretty well even though they’re dogs.
If I had more time I would probably experiment and try to write about a bunch of different topics and experiences. I like the idea of capturing a short moment or a single thing without many words. I would try to come up with a list of memorable experiences or moments in my life and try to write about them, capturing everything with minimal wording and background information.
Persuasive Essay:
The thing that changed most about this essay was the tone. Initially, I wrote using more formal words, rather than conventional and conversational language. I then decided that I wanted my audience to be BC students, and I pictured this piece being in a student newspaper. I changed the tone completely and tried to make it a lot more interesting and relatable to a student.
This change in tone is actually what makes me the happiest about this essay. It was really difficult for me to make my writing less formal and analytical. I am not used to writing conversationally, so when I made progress with these changes, I was pretty happy with my own progress as well. I think that the change made the paper a lot more interesting to read and changed the strength of the argument completely.
If I had more time, I would definitely want to do some research and include citations in this essay as well. I think that there are a lot of discussions happening about this topic right now, and it would be interesting to see what other people are saying about it. I would also like to talk to individual students at BC and maybe faculty members about their experiences and takes on dating and hooking up and include their perspectives in my essay.
I still struggle with the voice in my head that tells me my writing is not good enough. Now that I am writing in different styles with less rigid guidelines and criteria to fill, I feel like my confidence has diminished. Sometimes it takes me a while to come up with a topic to write about, as I am constantly starting an essay and then deleting it shortly after thinking it is not good enough. I think I struggle with this because I am so used to producing work in response to specific questions or following specific guidelines. This is essentially the first class I have ever taken where we have the freedom to choose what we write about.
I think that my effort in our weekly writing assignments has been pretty good. I have tried to gradually make progress on all of my essays and not go too long without thinking or editing about one of them. I put a lot of work each week into the pieces I thought I would include in my portfolio, and really tried to follow the Murray’s lists in writing my multiple drafts.
I found the conferences to be very helpful, and I feel like I got a lot out of them. I did my best to make note of everything that we discussed in our conferences and make the appropriate changes to my essays after the fact.
I think my class participation has been great. I feel that I have usually had a good grasp on the readings we prepare for class discussions and that I have participated a lot in them. I always did my best to voice my thoughts and opinions during workshops and during other open class discussions.
Analysis Essay:
The first big change I made to this essay was going from solely analyzing an Old Spice commercial to analyzing both an Old Spice and an Axe Commercial. I took the paper further by comparing and contrasting the two companies’ advertising strategies and histories in general, and analyzing the effect and they had on the consumer. After throwing Axe into the mix, I decided to do some research and add citations to this essay.
My individual analysis of each of the commercials makes me happiest. I think I really captured the essence of the advertisements well and used good description. In doing so, I also started to look at advertisements and commercials differently. I started to pay more attention to the details and become more aware of what companies’ incentives are. This also makes me happy because I like when the work I do in the classroom carries over to my everyday life.
If I had more time, I would definitely do more research on the topic. It was really difficult and time consuming to find information on these two companies and their commercials specifically, so having more time would give me the opportunity to do that. In doing so, I would try to find professionals’ take on the companies’ commercials and strategies, along with statistics about how their advertising affected the companies’ sales and popularity.
Descriptive Essay:
Initially, I had only written one the first short about my dog Barkley for my descriptive essay. I really enjoyed writing it, and felt like I wanted to expand on the piece. When the working short assignment came up, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so, so I started thinking about a story I could tell about my other dog. I tried to match the style of the first, and added the second short along with the third about a moment I shared with a best friend from high school. So overall, the overall piece changed as I added more shorts to it and tried to make it somewhat collective.
The first two short essays make me really happy simply because they are about my dogs. I think I captured their essence well, and just reading over the pieces makes me smile. I went into the piece wanting to capture their personalities, and I think I was able to do so pretty well even though they’re dogs.
If I had more time I would probably experiment and try to write about a bunch of different topics and experiences. I like the idea of capturing a short moment or a single thing without many words. I would try to come up with a list of memorable experiences or moments in my life and try to write about them, capturing everything with minimal wording and background information.
Persuasive Essay:
The thing that changed most about this essay was the tone. Initially, I wrote using more formal words, rather than conventional and conversational language. I then decided that I wanted my audience to be BC students, and I pictured this piece being in a student newspaper. I changed the tone completely and tried to make it a lot more interesting and relatable to a student.
This change in tone is actually what makes me the happiest about this essay. It was really difficult for me to make my writing less formal and analytical. I am not used to writing conversationally, so when I made progress with these changes, I was pretty happy with my own progress as well. I think that the change made the paper a lot more interesting to read and changed the strength of the argument completely.
If I had more time, I would definitely want to do some research and include citations in this essay as well. I think that there are a lot of discussions happening about this topic right now, and it would be interesting to see what other people are saying about it. I would also like to talk to individual students at BC and maybe faculty members about their experiences and takes on dating and hooking up and include their perspectives in my essay.