Assignment/Activity Title Final Draft Op-ed Skill Writing, Research

Year Sophomore Portfolio Category Critical Reasoning

This editorial was the first real editorial I had ever written, as well as the first serious piece of news writing I had ever done. I did the assignment on the mold that was found in Rolling Terrace earlier this year. This was a difficult topic to do, because there was no serious reporting done on the subject, and therefore I did not have much background research to investigate. However, doing a local issue instead of a national one gave me more perspective on the problem. This assignment is important to my portfolio and my growth as a writer mostly because it was a different writing style that I had to use. Journalism writing, or news writing, is very different from normal writing. The lack of extra words and the to-the-point style of news writing was a change, especially after many assignments in 9th grade in which length was encouraged. The change was not easy to adjust to, as was present in the rough draft of this assignment. After a while, it got easier, but the assignment was still difficult to complete within the length limit. However, after doing many edits to cut down the language and the extra facts, the assignment became much shorter, almost too short. The fact that it was news writing was not the only new part of this assignment. I had, in previous assignments, had to put my opinion into my work, most notably the critical thinking paper. But with those assignments, the point was not to write about what I thought; it was to write facts in a directed manner. The editorial was completely about what opinion I held, and why that was correct. This was a change from the fact after fact type of writing that I was accustomed to. I did learn more about different types of writing, and it wasnt as difficult as I thought it would be. This could have been from the creative editorial as well, because it was written in the same style; but it was not as focused and polished as this assignment was. Some of the biggest issues in my first draft were grammar and wordiness. These have both been problems in my writing before, because I am not as careful as I could be while writing. This leads to my grammar often not being correct. The wordiness comes from me thinking of a substitute for a word, that while longer, works just find. If I was being careful, I would have taken out the time to think of a word to replace it. But when I didnt think about it carefully, I just wrote things that sounded fine. The final draft of the assignment really helped me with that. I realized that I couldnt get a good grade on this assignment without the grammar and directedness that focus brought, so I decided to edit carefully. After a long process, and almost half of the editorial being changed, I got a final draft that I was proud of, and that I got an A on.

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Assignment/Activity Title SkillWriting, Media, Research.

YearFreshman, Sophomore PortfolioCritical Reasoning, Ethics.

Metacognitive ReflectionThe following questions ARE NOT A SCRIPT!! Use the ideas within the questions to reflect on the assignment and its significance to you. Your reflection MUST use Times New Roman font, size 11, single spacing

How does this assignment reflect your growth in the category in which you are placing it? How have you changed as a result of this assignment? Why is it important to include this piece in your portfolio? How and where does this fit in with your prior knowledge? How do you think that others will react to this product? What process did you use to complete the product? What did you learn by doing this assignment? How does the portfolio product illustrate the connection(s) you've made between yourself and the course material? In what ways would you do things differently if you could do it over again? What did you discover about yourself? How does it relate to your future? How does it illustrate your strengths and/or weaknesses? What obstacles and challenges did you have to deal with, and how did this struggle change you? How does the portfolio product show that your perspective on the world has deepened? How does it relate to your understanding of the world around you? Which of your accomplishments makes you feel most proud?

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