COVER LETTER
Dear Reader,
I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with writing. Although I love using writing as a way to express myself, I tend to have a difficult time with more academic, structured writing. During high school, I detested assigned essays and other writing assignments, as I felt forced to produce perfected sentences. However, through this class, I found myself grow as a writer, as I learned that an excellent piece of writing requires a journey filled with drafts, self reflections, and rhetorical understanding.
After years of cranking out timed, impersonal essays, it was refreshing to be assigned the Living Picture Narrative essay, where I could delve into something I was passionate about. Ready to follow the 5-paragraph writing template ingrained in me since middle school, I was surprised to learn that there was no set structure for me to follow. While I was initially worried about the lack of framework, I found that it was easier to write this assignment, as I could develop my narrative based on what I deemed logical, rather than purely finding evidence that fit my structure. Reading the article “Shitty First Drafts” relieved the pressure of producing perfected writings on my first try. For my narrative, I wrote down everything I thought of, not worrying about how I sounded. After some polishing, I found that I finished much quicker than I expected, and that I produced a satisfactory first draft. The Living Picture Narrative strengthened my metacognition skills, as I self-reflected on my writing planning and developing skills. I reflected on how I previously prepared for writing assignments, and applied new strategies to prepare for this narrative.
While I have written papers similar to the Living Picture Narrative, the Podcast Project was unlike any assignment I have done before. Although I have done research papers before, I have never had to present them in a relatively informal tone. Furthermore, for this project, I included observations I personally made, instead of only incorporating secondhand research to support my claim. For this project, I strengthened my rhetorical knowledge skills. When writing the script for this project, it was important to consider the audience that would be listening to my podcast. To ensure that I did not sound overly formal, I kept a critical eye (or ear) on myself, rewording sentences to make them more conversational. The Podcast Project demonstrates my writing on a medium other than words on a paper - instead, readers become listeners.
This e-portfolio holds the first major project of this class as well as the last. It showcases my first year journey as a writer straight out of high school, to a more experienced (but still learning) college freshman. Through these 10 weeks, I have gained a lot of insight about myself as a writer, learning about everything from writing first drafts, to considering rhetorical concepts. In this class, I experienced academic writing outside of structured and impersonal essays, and I found that it can be a very rewarding and satisfying experience.
I hope you enjoy exploring this portfolio just as much as I enjoyed creating it.
Thank you for stopping by,
Chelsea Lee