CJ Henry

2
nd

Ms.Ingram
Final Portfolio Essay
To be honest, when coming to UNC Charlotte, I thought that the English class I would be
having during the UTOP program was going to be the same as my other classes in high school.
Not the exact same, but with more papers to do. High school English classes were mainly about
reading books and having test & quizzes on them. When we would have papers to write, our
rough draft was basically our final draft. I say this meaning that whenever we did a paper, the
teacher told us the instructions and when it was due. No peer edits, anything, it was just what
you thought was best for the paper. The only feedback given on it was when we got it back from
the teacher, but at that point it was already graded. I really didnt get anything out of what they
wrote on my paper because all I did was look to see what grade I got. Especially if it was an A, I
would probably glance at what the teacher wrote but not pay any attention to it. I mean I did get
a good grade, so why should the comments matter? English 1101 was going to be the first
college class that Id take at UNCC. I did not know what to think coming into the class, but little
did I know, this writing class that I now had was going to be a whole lot different than high
school.
It was Tuesday, July 1
st
, I woke up and a big thought ran across my head. Today was my
first day of classes at UNC Charlotte. Fast forward to 11:00, I just got out of my biology class
and up next was my 1101 Writing & Inquiry class. But this class started at 11:30, so I had some
time in between to do whatever. I decided to go to the Student Union to grab a bite to eat. I
didnt eat breakfast that morning and was a little hungry. I went to a convenient store inside of
the Union and got a croissant and some soda. I ate on the way to class, which was in the
Cameron building. I finished the croissant when I stepped in the door. It was now 11:20; I
threw my trash away and walked to room number 109. I sat in the group of chairs where I saw
my friend Jala sitting. By this time it was 11:29 and then you walked in. You introduced to the
class and told us about yourself and made the class introduce themselves so that we could get to
know each other. You also told us we would have group decisions and this helped me get out of
my comfort zone. I have gained more confidence and have more of an opportunity to speak on
things since we do this more than I did in high school. Later on after that you told us about the
different things that we were going to accomplish in the class. You told us that we were going to
have to make a weebly account so we can make an E-Portfolio. This was going to contain most
of the work that we were going to be doing in class, including blogs, the midterm and different
papers which were my Literacy Narrative essay, Portrait of a Writer essay, and this essay along
with all the process work.
The first tab on my e-Portfolio is my home page. On the home page of my e-Portfolio its
titled Cjs Site with a brief note on who I am, where I lived, and what to expect in my e-
Portfolio. In the background I have a picture of a pile of Jordans and some foams. I have a
huge interest in these shoes, even though they cost mainly over $150; I still buy the ones that I
like. At the bottom, I have a slideshow presentation that includes seven pictures. These are all
pictures of me, either by myself or with my friends. Below my pictures I will put this paper
(Final Portfolio Essay), I wanted to put this on my home page because this is the most important
paper and needs to be one of the first things seen when looking at my e-Portfolio.
Ok, now look at my second tab. This tab is my Literacy Narrative. This includes my
rough and final draft along with some feedback on the paper. The Literacy Narrative was the
very first major writing assignment that you gave to the class. There were various things we had
to do with this paper. At first you asked us to write about how we grew as a writer from the
ninth to twelfth grade. But the draft after that you asked us to pick one key point out of it to
write about. As the class we defined literacy as being more than just having the ability to read
and write, everyone had different aspects on it but I saw it as acknowledging your ability to read
and write and using it to help others. This definition about literacy is what I used to write about
in my final draft. I can remember your word on major assignments like it was yesterday, If you
fail to do or turn in a major assignment, you will fail this course. The class was five weeks long
so we each piece we did counted for a lot. I made doing my work and having it turned in on time
a top priority for myself. I knew that everything was going to be on me and I had full
responsibility for my own learning and over everything that I did. Keeping this thought in mind
I paid close attention that happened in our classes most of the time. This is college and nothing
will be baby fed to you, you have to go out and get it. To think about it all we really had was
two papers to do throughout the course, this one and the Portrait of a Writer paper. This Literacy
Narrative was one of the only times I got to pick out my topic and talk about it. In my writing
book, The Subject is Writing, it had a chapter that explained how writing about the things you
wanted to, could better your writing. Author Joe Antinarella says that if you write about
something with your own personal expressive piece to it, then the writing is ultimately more
time consuming but instinctually more stimulating than transitional writing. I just had to make
sure that it went towards my literacy.
In my paper I talked about how community service was really crucial to me in the twelfth
grade, and how I helped this little girl get a higher grade in her class. When I first got the
assignment the main criterias we had to cover was to include relatable details, sensory details,
and dialogue. The part of my paper that contributed to my growth had to be the dialogue. When
I did my first draft I included some dialogue, but I needed more. Both you and my peers that
read my paper said it was okay but if I added more detail it will be better. It seemed the more
dialogue I put in, the more detail it brought out and explained how the person felt in the words
that he/she said. Also when I would write what someone said I would often misplace the
commas or periods after the second quotation marks. I learned that the period and comma needs
to be after the last word in the quote. This helped me a lot because it made me a better writer in
writing the quotations.
If you take a look at the next tab over you will see that is titled Portrait of a Writer.
You will see my final draft and my rough draft prior to the final. Feedback and brainstorming is
available to see as well. This was my second paper that we had to write in your class. This is
where I wrote how I thought I was as a writer and how I was a different kind of writer in high
school than in college. Ive never written a paper with music in the background until college. In
every paper that I completed I would always listen to music. As author Nathan Timm said in the
passage Tips for College Writing Success, Youll be amazed at the writing youll get by having
music in the background. Youll find it easy to write along to the beat of music. is another
thing he said about writing with music. I highly agree with him it is something about the sound
of the beat and lyrics in the back of my ears that soothes my mind and creates a better learning
for me. Aside from that, developing details and examples is what really contributed to my
growth as a writer when I had wrote this paper. In the paper I said, Most of the writings I did
had to be a certain way and had all these rules to follow. In which I was talking about writing
in high school. After this sentence I went on to say that I think Im a better writer in college.
You asked me, Like what? Examples? Include a list of rules from its writing? This is where
the receiving feedback comes in to place. I think getting feedback is excellent and very
important, because you need to know everything you need to make your paper better. When I
went to revise my paper I added examples to explain the rules and added how I felt about the
writing to give a better understanding to the reader. Instead of using the first sentence I went in
to say, Most of the writings I did had to be a certain way and had rules to follow most of the
time, such as writing in MLA format, having a minimum of five paragraphs, and having specific
writing topics to talk about. It was a good paper but I went through and added more detail on
some things to explain what I had to say a little more. I learned that there is never a time where
you can add too much detail, and often at times the more detail you include, the better the paper
will be.
The next tab over is where my blogs & midterm is located. Ive never actually done a
blog before coming to this class. We completed a total of six blogs throughout the course.
These blogs were very different things like writing about myself so you could get to know me
better, what I wanted to expect out of the class, what I wanted to do in the future, and if I had any
questions regarding the class. My midterm was a very crucial blog. In most classes we would
have to do the midterm the last week of the quarter in the semester. I was about the second week
where we had to do it since our class was a summer class. We had five points to write about:
Answering questions we had when we first started the class, analyzing the key concepts of the
syllabus, talking about literacy, goals regarding the second half of the course, and what advice
should we give other upcoming freshman now that we have a head start. This helped me express
a lot about myself to you. I feel like I also learned some more things about myself that I have not
said a loud. Meaning, Ive had my mind on some things but as I sit down and actually think
about it and write on it, some things could change around or I could get a better understanding
about the things because I often go do research about it. I always had a goal to be a successful
person and life, but it is why I want to become successful. As I think about it, it is because I see
flashy things out in the world like clothes, cars, and big houses and know that if dont do what
Im supposed to do, workwise, I wont make it. If I had a job being a doctor it would better my
chances on getting a Lamborghini as if I were working at McDonalds. So this goes to say that
when doing different things I learn that if you actually take the time to sit down and discuss it,
you will get more out of it.
My last tab consists of my writer notebook artifacts and wild cards. I included a readers
response to talk about how writing with music helps me more, a section out of my notes to show
they 3 points to genre were, a memoir from my magazine class to show writing skills, and the
writing territories assignment form this class to show what comes to my mind when I write.
I think I should deserve an A on this e-Portfolio. I say this because I feel as if I met all of
the requirements of an A portfolio that was listed within the syllabus. I feel like I picked the
right writing assignments to show how I grew as a writer.