Midterm portfolio

Arlette Aghajan
Prof. Lotspeich
ENGL 100 CF
Mar.20/2015
Topic:- Journey developing as a reader, thinker, and writer in our course.

      Through this a portfolio post, I planned to contain my struggle and success process which I faced during writing, reading, and thinking. My goal is to show my ability in many different fields such as writing, reading and ability to make connection between ideas and artifacts. This fact, I clarified it in time to reflect #2. For this reason, the journey composes from a portfolio introduction, progressing as writer, reader, and thinker.

   Portfolio:-    changed to ( Portfolio' difficulties)

        At the early of this semester, the study concentrated on what a portfolio is, its type, and its benefits. I felt lost since I did not have any knowledge and never heard about it. This is the first time that I create a portfolio, and it has sparked my curiosity to know much more details. Therefore, I take observation and some excerpts from different pages of a "Portfolio Keeping" book.  Actually, creating a portfolio is not easy as I imagined. Since I said before this is first time I create it, so I have some problems such as how explain my goals to other people, what I have to write, what kind of evidence I need, what colors I should use, and so on. I could solve these problems after writing, rewriting, adding removing artifacts, and changing colors.  

Developing as a Writer:-  Changed to (Overcoming Difficulties as a Writer)
     I had very simple skill in writing during my life in my native country and my ability of English writing was less good than is usual or expected. My knowledge of the principles of regular essay writing and summarizing readings were gained through my previous lessons. These studies were very important and helpful. Moreover, ENGL 100 courses added a new good experience to my English linguistic wealth; it helped learn how to write a personal narrative letter. It seemed to me completely different from other writing assignments that have learned. For me, I felt this difference in the involvement of a conversational style. The topic of this kind of letter showed my personal struggle while working hard for achieving my educational goal. The real challenge  I faced in this letter was inability to use requirements of this letter which are (who cares) and (so what). Since this was first time I wrote a personal letter, and I did not pay attention to the intended audience (who cares), the letter had lack to convey the lesson to the readers (so what). After getting feedback from an instructor, I had an opportunity to develop it by reexamining and correcting my inability (purple color shows adding details of a personal letter). Actually the most difficult period I met was when I wrote argumentative letters. These letters necessitated to involve the perspectives about file sharing and ethics. These arguments took place between two characters, Emily White and me. Emily White was intern at NPR All Songs Considered, she was manager at her college radio. The difficulty of this assignment involved the topic. Since I saw this topic was hard, and I did not have interest in this subject, it made me unfamiliar about how to start the argument at first time. In order to accomplish this letter and avoid plagiarism that is illegal on this campus, it took me to exert great efforts to accomplish it. Actually, it took me to look for a variety of resources as well get a good feedback from a writing center. The final steps of writing the letter to come to an end of the argument was tracking responses for each letter to be able to compose the next letter and keep on reading and correcting the errors related to the content and the grammatical rules. I took advantage to develop my writing assignment which was adding and clear some Added details (purple color shows added details). These ways were useful to know how to write. However, I am planning to progress writing much more by utilizing miscellaneous words and wording various sentences.

Developing as a Reader:-    Changed to (Overcoming as a Reader)
        I believe that reading is a helpful way to learn language. Since most time I speak Arabic and Armenian languages with family and friends as well as my desire to learn a third language which is English, I find that reading helps to acquire new words which can use them in writing. For this reason, first thing I do when I read; it is to understand unfamiliar words. Moreover this common way, reading in this course extends a theoretical horizon of my reading since it included how to read according to rhetoric and its three techniques. These elements are logos, pathos, and ethos (notes about the rhetoric and its techniques are available here). As I wanted to develop my understanding for rhetorical techniques, I used logos during reading the first personal story, Malcolm X. For example, Malcolm wrote and described his story when he tried to learn reading and writing at Charlestown Prison. His causes for learning were to be able to express what he wanted to convey. He said "I became increasingly frustrated at not being able to express what I want to convey in letter that I wrote... to Mr. Elijah Muhammad." As he continued "when Bimi first made me feel envy of his stock of knowledge. [He] had always taken charge of any conversation he was in, and I had tried to emulate him." These quotations symbolized to logical causes of his desire to be educated (logos statement). Understanding a rhetorical technique, my comprehension for reading became better. It helped me to look for author's analysis, purposes, and lessons. I followed this way while I was reading Fredrick Douglass' story which was about slavery life, and I took some notes in order to develop as a reader and also as a writer in the future. The real difficulty I met was when I read several posts about file sharing, and these posts included Emily White an intern at NPR, Emily White from hypebote, Jon Healey, Karl Sigfrid and David Lowery. I saw the posts discussed a complicated topic, so  I reread them many times and tried to comprehend what each author attempted to demonstrate in his and her letter. However, these all ways and strategies overcome any problem; I look for to use another way to develop reading skill which is summarizing any important plot, event, and quotation in the next story and write it in my notebook.

Developing as a Thinker:-   
      Developing as a thinker comes from critical thinking which means to analyze and assess the information to reach a conclusion. The personal letter gathered between reading and writing. By analyzing and understanding, I knew I wanted to write. For example, Reading included stories to Malcolm X, Amy Tan, and Fredrick Douglass. Each one of them had ambition and struggle to get education. Douglass faced difficulty to learn. His story inspired me to write my difficulty I faced when I studied English as a second language. As for Tan's story, I took her mother's story who was a limited English speaker as an example to write my story about exchanging class in my listening course (personal's link is above). The troubles which happen most times for me in this area are an inability to think especially when I have a writing assignment. For this reason, the best way to get out thus dilemma is practicing reading that keeps the activity of the mind continuously. 

   
      Finally, this half way of journey that included explanations of some of the obstacles in writing, reading and portfolio creating. It also showed how I dealt with in numerous ways and how I planned for the second half of journey. I hope these posts showed what I tried to convey and intend to.



The journey continues...





English 100 Midterm Portfolio Post Rubric 

A. 3
B. 3
C. 2
D. 2
E. 2
F. 3
G. 2
H. 3  
I.  2
   

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Works Cited

   Healey, Jon. “File Sharing or Stealing.” latimes.com. LA Times. 2008. Web. 2 Mar. 2015.

        <http://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-oew-healey18feb18-story.html#page=1>.

 Lowery, David. “Letter to Emily White at NPR All Songs  Considered” thetrichordist.com. The Trichordist. 2012. Web. 2 Mar. 2015.  

        <http://thetrichordist.com/2012/06/18/letter-to-emily-white-at- npr-all-songs-considered/>.

 Opposing Viewpoints: Copyright Infringement. Farmington Hills. MI. Greenhaven Press. 2014. Print.

 Sigfrid, Karl. "Decriminalize File Sharing." sigfrid.wordpress.com. Karl Sigfrid. 2008. Web.2 Mar.2015

         <https://sigfrid.wordpress.com/2008/01/07/decriminalize-file-sharing/>.

White,  Emily. "I Never Owned Any Music to Begin with." npr.org. NPR. 2012. Web. 2 Mar. 2015.

         <http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2012/06/16/154863819/i-never-owned-any-music-to-begin-with>.

     
 White, Emily. "In Defense Of Emily White (The NPR Intern)." hypebot.com. Hypebot. 2012. Web. 2 Mar. 2015.

       <http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2012/06/in-defense-of-emily-white-the-npr-intern.html>.