Portfolio

Charles Stater

Dr. deGravelles

Block 4

17 April, 2013

Dearest Classmates,

            My research paper, ( Of Blood and Sand: Combat in the Holy Land) writing remix, (poem adaptation of a blog post about Deadman Wonderland) and hits and misses (small piece about my favorite writing projects as well as my least favorite), will all be compiled in a massive work, my personal portfolio. I chose the abovementioned pieces for a variety of reasons. My research paper I want to perfect, as I thought I did a pretty shnazzy job overall but with some formatting tweaking and some reconstruction of some sentences, the rest should fall into place. My writing remix is coming along nicely. My original post was about the blood and death in this anime so I decided in my poem to still have some of that (can’t really have enough, after all), and also I made the decision to bring in part of the tragic romance involved within the anime, as well as the strong bonds of loyalty and friendship. Poems aren’t really my strong suit, but for this one I’ll push hard to make it good.  My hits and misses will be an excellent reflection on my work over the past year, I don’t doubt. I chose my research paper as a hit because in the end I was very proud of it. I did the research and sat down for a few hours and simply wrote my final essay, and I enjoyed doing so a lot. Additionally, my blog post “The Dead and The Dying” was really fun to write, as I hoped to spread my fervor towards my dark and intriguing anime/manga (which you all should totally read). Writing about things you love, I think, made those two definite “hits” in my book. On the flip side of the coin, however, was my literary analysis and poem blog post. I’ll be frank; I hate doing literary analysis. I don’t like pulling stories and books apart, I feel like it takes away from the overall enjoyment of the piece, and I think my distaste was evident in the analysis. I will work on a more formal and engaging tone in literary analyses from now on. I also am not a big fan of poetry, which may help to explain my poem I wrote in my blog. I thought I did a poor job, although I will admit that I did have some fun with it. This is why I am making my writing remix a poem, as I want to improve my poetic skills, not to mention have a little fun in the meantime. These “misses” weren’t my best, but I believe I learned more about them and got practice from doing them all the same. Moving right along to the person behind those hits and misses, indeed, the one typing these very words, we advance to myself as a writer.

As a writer, I believe I am becoming stronger and stronger as time progresses. AP essays are a breeze, and I think I’m slowly learning how to make boring research papers have a touch of flair that is all my own. I like to think that some of my writing is at least slightly enjoyable to read; if it isn’t, what’s the point in writing? My strengths are word choice and sentence flow, I enjoy a beat that is all my own that seems to echo throughout all my literary pieces. I think organization is something I’ll need to make a definite move on improving, as I am not a very organized person in the real world and this tends to translate into my paper as rather jumbled thoughts throughout my writing. The only real way to work on this is to practice, practice, practice, and revising my papers is an excellent way to do this. Learning about writing is a rather difficult thing to do, as there aren’t any formulae to memorize or dates to remember. It is a gradual process, and I think I can see what exactly I’ve been learning and improving on this year. With the pressure of AP essays, I better learned to manage my writing time and to write fast, but still coherently think about what I’m actually putting down on the paper. My first thought when I entered the writing center was something like “Well, where is everybody?” Garrett and I had decided to undertake the journey together, and we got there a little early. We soon ran into some Writing Fellows who vowed to assist us with our quest. After a little rustling of papers, Garrett and I were instructed to read our entire papers out loud. I was mildly annoyed, as my paper is about 5 pages long, but soon enough I began to appreciate this aspect of our visit. Reading aloud  helped me catch numerous grammatical and organizational errors, which the Writing Fellow was quick to note and point out to me. At the end she gave her overall evaluation of my writing and gave me some pointers on how to fix up some formatting issues, and then sent me on my merry way. (Garrett too got a good deal of help with his paper, including some potentially problematic incorrect citations)

After this adventure in the Writing Center and using the improved skills I acquired thanks to my visit, my editing is coming smoothly, fellow classmates. Organization is coming more easily now, and my vocabulary and subsequently my word choice is advancing along at a steady pace as well, not to mention my continued practice is leading to a layer of pizazz throughout my paper. Additional things I need to work on probably will all involve some usage of theme. For some reason, I really find it difficult to put into words a concise and clear theme for a paper. Maybe I can convey the message throughout the body, but to me that never seems significant enough and I can’t seem to make it clear enough. This also ties in with organization, because whenever I end up writing a thesis statement I always seem to do it unintentionally and place it at the bottom of the paper. Despite all this, this year has been my best as a writer, teaching me a lot of vital new tricks and skills to help keep my writing afloat in the tide of assignments. I appreciate all help given to me by you all, and to all a good night.