Portfolio Reflection

            Before I had started this course, I was very scared. I never thought myself to be someone who did exceptionally great in English courses, but I still thought that I did a decent job. College courses are said to be harder than those in high school. So, when I realized how much I hated AP Literature in high school, I was so stuck on thinking I wouldn’t do well enough in this class. I struggled a lot back then and it really made me lose any hope I had in my writing. Yet, here I am now almost at the end of the course and I’m glad to say that I don’t think in such a way anymore, plus I have seen improvements from when I first started. This class truly was able to help me in pinpointing where in my writing I struggle most on, so that I could grow from there. I was also introduced to MLA format, which I had never seen before, but have now become used to. Now I feel more at ease about my writing, which is reassuring when I have to write essays.

            The Literacy Narrative was the first essay we had to do for this course. It was probably the most fun for me to write as well as the easiest. At first, I really couldn’t decide on what specific moment to write about. All that could come to mind was how much I did not like writing essays for my AP Literature class. I never had anything against writing until that class, so all I thought about was how I had grown to dislike writing. I really was about to write on that, until I realized that literature isn’t just open to writing but reading as well. Once I decided to write on my love for reading, I was able to write my heart out without much problems. I enjoyed being able to write from my perspective and showing my feelings. It was basically a creative writing assignment compared to other essays we did in this course.

For this essay we also did peer review, for which I am glad we did because it actually helped in further improving my essay. My classmates, Zaakirah and Kevin, gave feedback and offered suggestions in what to do to better my essay. Zaakirah specifically mentioned how my conclusion seemed incomplete, which I did end up agreeing with since I already have trouble in writing conclusions. So, I just decided to keep in mind that I had clearly tie up my story. In my draft I didn’t have any dialogue, but then Kevin suggested I add some to keep the reader more interested. The use of onomatopoeia and dialogue are just some of these elements that once added to your writing allow for it to become much livelier, which is why I took his suggestion. This assignment honestly allowed for me to be freer in my writing, which is why I felt that it was easy once I got into it. I wasn’t worried about there being an argument that I had to thoroughly show my stance on. All I was focused on was writing about how much reading meant to me, allowing for me to truly show my passion for it. 

            The second essay of this course was the Exploratory Narrative. This was a huge switch from the previous assignment, which is why this was the first assignment in which I actually struggled. Although this wasn’t an argumentative essay, I could help but feel that there were still some parts in what I wrote that could be seen as an argument. I already go through a hard time writing argumentative essays, because of how much I have to go on about in order to thoroughly prove my point. Yet the thing about writing on a specific idea and showing how it is evident in the fairy tale, but still not making it seem argumentative, was just unsettling to me. For the Exploratory Essay, I wrote about the gender stereotypes that are always seen in the story of Cinderella, as well as its remakes and adaptations. I had to make it seem like all I said was a statement, as if it were a fact. I couldn’t mention any other ideas that would go against it, because then that would make it into an argumentative essay which isn’t what was wanted for this essay. I wasn’t allowed to show my opinion on the topic, which was really hard to resist. This essay was also the first to introduce us to using MLA format. I honestly had no trouble with the format itself. Researching for works that would further show how my points were “factual” is what left me annoyed, mostly because of how long it took to even find one source. Even then, I was still unsure on how to phrase my wording in order to make my point seem straightforward and as if it were facts.

            The last essay that I wrote for this course was the Research Critical Analysis. We were told that our topic on this essay could be the same as what we used for our Exploratory Essay, it just had to be argumentative this time. It may have seemed that this essay would’ve been easier since I had the Exploratory Essay to use as a basis and was planning on using the same thesis, but instead I only went through more trouble. At first the original thesis I wanted to use from the previous essay showed to be difficult to present a valid argument on. The counterargument would only prove to be stronger than the point I was trying to send. I knew that the audience would be my professor and other students since we also did some peer review for this. With them being my audience, I knew that they already had knowledge on the fairy tales so I wouldn’t be able to stick with the original thesis, because they clearly would be well informed on it. Had I stuck with the original thesis then they most likely would’ve steered in favor for the counterargument. I ended up rewording the thesis but still keeping the same general topic from the Exploratory essay.

            This time I was writing about how Cinderella is one of the fairy tales in which it is seen that she is always presented as passive and pretty, despite the many versions. I wanted to make it clear that such a stereotypical character is embedded into the story, and that without such a character the story of Cinderella wouldn’t exist. I did manage to finally know what I wanted to write about, but I still struggled because of not wanting to repeat myself. Since the Exploratory Essay basically shared a similar topic, I didn’t want to seem as if I was repeating myself in the Research Critical Analysis. Even then there were some parts that I thought were good from the Exploratory Essay, but I obviously couldn’t just copy and paste it into the other essay. So, for those parts that I wanted to use I had to rephrase myself, but I felt as if just didn’t sound the same. 

            Overall, even if I still went through difficulties in writing essays for this class, I was still able to overcome them. I learned about MLA formatting which I had never used before and was able to get the hang on using it. Even if I feel weird about other classmates reading my work, I knew I had to get used to it because in the end their feedback proves to be very useful. As I said, I had honestly grown to dislike writing and not believing I was capable in doing well. Yet this course has helped in showing me that I am able to write well and that I have improved in my writing skills.