For my portfolio, I chose my This I Believe Essay, Application Essay, Proposal, and Trend Analysis. I chose these three because I feel that the evolution of my writing shines bright throughout the lot of them. In all four of them, I made precise and important corrections and held true to the actual purpose of the papers. Out of all of the essays I've written this semester, these four are, in my honest opinion, the best selected to exemplify my writing for a portfolio.
The This I Believe Essay was meant to have the writer talk about something they felt passionate about. I chose this essay because I felt that I made my paper strong enough for any reader to really connect with it. After reading some example papers, I decided to write about the importance of math and science in peoples lives. My partner and teacher both mainly brought grammatical errors to my attention, but also the need for more substance in my paragraph about math. The only major change I made to the essay for my second draft was adding detail to my explanation of the importance of math, and edit the quote from my old math teacher.
For the Application Essay, we were supposed to find a colleges application essay and do exactly what it asked of the applicants. I chose one of the application questions from in our english book, asking the applicant to describe an experience that really changed them as a person, as well as their perspective on some sort of issue. I talked about my first hand experience with uniforms in highschool, and how I went from hating them to thinking there's a good reason for them. I chose this essay because I felt it really brought out my ability to find what the prompt is asking for, and I met it with great force with an essay about my personal experience. My partner pointed out my grammatical errors as well as what sentences just didn't work with the flow of my paper. The professor pointed out that I ought to explain just how uniforms were of regional, national, or international importance like the question states. I really edited the third paragraph. I deleted some sentences, which got rid of some confusion the reader might have gone through. My problem was that it sort of jumped all over the place, but by editing it a little bit, that was all cleared up.
Our Proposal papers were meant to be on a local issue, and was meant to discuss possible solutions that would help to fix the problem. I chose to write my essay on a student at Bridgewater State who threatened to shoot up the school, and preventative measures students and teachers can take to help stressed out students before they hit that point. I chose this paper because out of all that I've written this semester, this paper has the best editing. If you look at the first draft, where my partner told me to add more about the shooter, you can see that I took her advice in the second draft. I drew upon an entirely new source to add plenty of more detail to my paper. I also added an entirely new set of sentences to really go into my explanation of how students can spot the problem before it gets out of hand.
My last paper in my portfolio, my Trend Analysis paper, is my most recent of all the essays. In this, I talk about peoples opinion of higher education, and what they feel lands them with a better job. I chose this essay because I feel it really reflects my ability to incorporate raw facts and numbers into my essays, while still keeping them interesting. My partner and professor said that I ought to include more information about years past on the subject. I had a hard time improving on that thought, as my poll sites only carry very recent polling information. The subject was too ambiguous to google. But that didn't stop me from making changes like correcting grammatical errors, switching up sentences, and overall making the final presentation of my thoughts more structured and stronger to the reader.
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