Portfolio

Hello everybody,

            I have learned a lot about myself as a writer this year through the writing assignments we had. I think my main improvements this year were in how my papers were organized. I thought out how my papers show be structured and didn’t just try to rush through them. My top strengths as a writer are probably organization, conventions, sentence fluency, and ideas. Some areas that I could improve on are probably voice and word choice. I need to find a way to make my writing unique. I also could work on adding more detail into my ideas.

            The three projects in this portfolio include the essay revision, writing remix, and hits and misses. For the essay revision assignment, the directions were to select a major essay from this year to revise, focusing on two traits of good writing to strengthen. For this assignment, I chose to revise my literacy narrative about a book I read called Coming Back Stronger by Drew Brees. The two traits of good writing that I will be focusing my revisions on are going to be word choice and voice.

            As for the writing remix project, the directions were basically to select any piece of writing that we did in this class and transform it into a new genre, such as a poem, song, commercial, or billboard. The directions also said that it couldn’t be transformed into a school-related genre or format, such as paper posters or PowerPoint presentations. For this project, I chose a blog post I had written about Grand Isle. I will transform this post into a brochure advertising Grand Isle and what kinds of things can be done there.

            The third and final project in this portfolio is the hits and misses project. For this project, the directions were to identify two “hits” (pieces that you liked writing or were a good success) and two “misses” (pieces that you didn’t like writing or that weren’t a great success) from this year. My two hits will probably be my literary analysis and my literacy narrative. I chose the literary analysis as one of my hits because I worked hard on it and felt like I made a god claim about the short story that I was analyzing. Even though the literacy narrative is also the piece that I am revising, I chose it as a hit because I enjoyed writing it and thought it turned out pretty well over all. The two misses for me this year were definitely the research paper and the poem we had to write for a blog post. The research paper was a miss because I found it pretty difficult and annoying to have to find reliable and credible sources to find information at and then cite them all properly. The poem that I wrote on my blog this year was also a miss because I thought it was pretty hard to do. I didn’t really know how to structure it or how it should sound. Since it wasn’t a rhymed poem, I really didn’t know what to do in terms of structure and poetry techniques.

            As of now, I feel pretty confident of how I stand as a writer. Through doing all the big essays we had this year, I gained some good writing experience. I feel that my writing is very well organized and structured with good ideas. However, I could definitely improve on adding more details and going more in depth about my ideas. I also need to work on developing a more unique voice and using a wider variety of word choice in my papers. Although I have gotten a lot better this year, I still have a lot of improving that I can do. All I need to do is keep working hard on my future essays and papers. Hopefully as I go on throughout high school, my writing will keep on getting better.

Sincerely,

Bennett

Hits and Misses:

Hits: 

1. Literacy Narrative - I found it fun to write. This selection is my strongest paragraph in my opinion.

    Selection: "Reading this book felt so much different than reading a regular novel like I normally read. In a novel, you may be able to think of little relations between you and a character or situation, but nothing too significant. When I read this book, I easily pictured the things talked about. This made reading the book quite interesting for me. I had never read a book where I could really relate to what the author wrote because I pretty much lived through and saw what he wrote about. A different feeling was present in me when I read this book. Also, the way he explained how he looked at some of the things that happened opened my eyes to new points of view about my experiences."

2. Literary Analysis - I felt like I made a good and interesting claim about the story I read and explained it pretty well. This selection shows my claim.

    Selection: “The Return” by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o was an interesting story about a man named Kamau returning home to his village from a detention camp. However, the main focus of the story was not the man’s experience while in the detention camp, but it was his return home and seeing his family for the first time since he left. To make this the main focus of the story instead of his time at the camp, a certain technique was used by the author."

Misses:

1. Research paper - I did not like writing it and didn't do very well. The selection shows a pretty boring paragraph of just plain information, which is how much of my paper was.

    Selection: "When paper shells were first sold, they were sold unloaded but primed. This means that one just had to load the shells with powder and shot for them to be ready for use. These were sold in boxes of 100. Not many of these boxes of unloaded shells were produced because these were usually made for special orders that people placed. Brass shells were sold by the Winchester company unloaded in 1877. No brass shotgun shells were sold loaded until 1934, but only for special orders. Shooters generally preferred purchasing brass cases because the more you reuse your own shells, the less money you have to spend on new shells. Paper shells trailed behind brass shells in both availability and popularity in the late 1800s. Today, nearly all hunters and shooters purchase loaded shells, but may keep the empty hulls to reload them for repeated use."

2. Poem on blog - not very good or unique, wan't much put into it

    The poem is found on my blog.

Writing Remix:

Analysis of Rhetorical Situation:

             The audience for my brochure could be anyone in or around the state of Louisiana. These may be families with children, or a group of people who just want to go on a small vacation or fishing trip. The reason I chose this audience is because Grand Isle is a place that people may just want to make a quick trip to. Originally, the audience was pretty much my classmates, friends, or anyone else I may be having a casual conversation with.

            The purpose of the piece that I made is to get people to come to Grand Isle. My position as the maker of the brochure means that I somehow benefit from people booking a trip with Grand Isle. The audience needs to know how to get to Grand Isle, and they need to book a trip or make a visit. The outcome of this is hopefully that people will be persuaded to come to Grand Isle. The purpose fits because Grand Isle is a place to go to relax, and people want to book trips there. Originally, this was just a casual piece with no real purpose other than conversation. Now, it is a formal brochure to actually try to get people to do something.

            As for design, I used pictures of things available at Grand Isle that are appealing and seem fun. I made a simple brochure with basic things about Grand Isle that people will be intrigued by. This has changed from the original because at first, it was just two short paragraphs, but now, it is not really in formal paragraph form, but is designed so that people can read through it relatively quickly. It is definitely now more enticing.

Revised Essay:

A New Feel for Reading

            I woke up with a big smile. My 13^th birthday had finally arrived. I couldn’t wait to start my first day of being a teenager, and of course I couldn’t wait to get the presents. The one that surprised and excited me the most was my first 12 gauge shotgun, a Benelli pump. Throughout the day, I stayed ecstatic about receiving my new duck hunting weapon.

            “Bennett, there’s a package for you,” my dad said that evening.

            “Coming,” I said, running toward his voice.

My grandparents had sent the package. I didn’t know what to expect. When I ripped open the package, I found a book called Coming Back Stronger by Drew Brees. “Cool,” I thought. I have been a fan of the Saints football team ever since I was little, but when Brees arrived I became a little obsessed. He brought the team together with so much leadership and in my mind is the best quarterback in the entire league. I always looked forward to every Sunday to watch the Saints play and still do today. However, I didn’t realize that the book alone was not all that the present consisted of.

I opened the book, and a big signature drawn with black Sharpie on the inside cover caught my eye. A number nine at the top of the signature indicated that it had to have been written by Drew Brees. My eyes widened. “Is this what I think it is?” I thought to myself. Sure enough, the actual signature of Drew Brees was in front of me. On my book. Speech was not coming out. I could not believe that my favorite player and elite NFL quarterback had held and signed this book himself. It feeling was an inexplicable one. I couldn’t wait to start reading it.

In general, when I read a book, it’s basically the same routine; either I like the book or I don’t. I’d never really read a book that had felt much more special reading than other books until I read Coming Back Stronger. The special feeling came to me when reading not necessarily because it was a spectacularly written or incredibly deep book, but more because it related to me more than any book I have ever read.

 The book’s main theme is that if you keep persevering in whatever you are trying to accomplish, you can fight through the adversity and come out of it even stronger than you were before. Brees applies this theme throughout the book in more than one way. One way is through the New Orleans Saints football program. It is well known that this football team has struggled in previous years. The Saints used to be thought of as the absolute worst team in the NFL. When Drew Brees came to the Saints from Purdue University, however, all of this changed. The Saints began to gradually get better when led by Brees and even won their first ever Super Bowl in February of 2010.

A second way he applies the theme of fighting through adversity is tying together his adversity in his football career with the struggles of the city of New Orleans battling the damage of Hurricane Katrina. When the Saints won the Super Bowl during a hard time for the city, it brought pride to New Orleans and symbolized hope for its recovery. The team came back from being such an awful team to winning a Super Bowl, just as we hope the city will continue to recover from the hurricane and become an even better city than before.

The reason this book relates to me is because I lived in New Orleans and moved here to Baton Rouge when our house flooded from the storm. It seemed to me that I had to start a whole new life and I felt like the hope for New Orleans was dwindling. Then I realized, just as Brees explains in the book, you need to learn to go through adversity and try to come out of it not only as good as you were before, but even stronger.

Reading this book felt so much different than reading a regular novel like I normally read. In a novel, you may be able to think of little relations between you and a character or situation, but nothing too significant. When I read this book, I easily pictured the things talked about. This made reading the book quite interesting for me. I had never read a book where I could really relate to what the author wrote because I pretty much lived through and saw what he wrote about. A different feeling was present in me when I read this book. Also, the way he explained how he looked at some of the things that happened opened my eyes to new points of view about my experiences.

It was also neat to read about his feelings and thoughts throughout each season and even in some individual games. I found it so interesting to hear about what he saw, what happened on the sidelines, and what they talked about in the locker room during games that I specifically remember watching. I felt like I had an inside scoop on all the things that went on with my favorite team.

I consider this book to be my favorite that I have ever read. Maybe it is because my favorite player in the NFL wrote it, or maybe it is just because I liked how I was basically involved in some of the things he talked about; probably a little bit of both. Either way, this book  expanded my thoughts about reading. Hopefully I can find another book that I like as much as I liked this one.

 My Writing Center Meeting:

           My writing center meeting went pretty well. I got a better understanding of how I could take out some of my "to be" verbs and change them into stronger words. To revise this essay, I did that and some other new words for word choice and altered some of my language for improved voice.