Reflective Letter
Dear readers,
Within this portfolio, I have included all of the writing projects that I have worked on during the course of the Fall 2017 semester in Advanced Writing Workshop: ENGL 458. During this semester we worked on a wide variety of projects that were intended to sharpen our writing skills and make us think about changing the world in some way. In addition to the work that I completed for ENGL 458, I have included three other works from two other classes that I have taken this semester. I have included two works from Contemporary Women Writers: ENGL 331 and one work from Young Adult Literature in a Multicultural World: ENGL 435.
Meeting the Outcomes
As a requirement of this class, we have to show, through our work both in this class and the other works that we choose to include, that we have met two of the outcomes set forth by the English Department of North Dakota State University. The outcomes are:
Outcome 2: English majors will be able to read (analyze, interpret, critique, evaluate) written and visual texts.
Outcome 6: English majors will be familiar with literatures as culturally and historically embedded practices. This outcome includes goals such as familiarity with major writers, genres, and periods, and technologies of writing.
I think that the best example of how I met Outcome 2 was through the mentor text reading that I did before I wrote my own projects. Throughout the course, we were given mentor texts in the specific genre that we were working with at the time. These mentor texts were meant to help guide us and give us ideas of the style and content that we could possibly use within our own writing. For me personally, the mentor texts were a very useful resource in guiding my own writing. I read the texts closely and “evaluate[d]” (Outcome 2) them for useful techniques that I could use in my own writing.
An example of that is how I used Ben Norman’s essay entitled My Others Keeper in relation to writing my Life & Literacy essay. While reading Ben Norman’s essay, I was struck by how conversational and light his writing was. I could almost hear a friend’s voice narrating the story as I read it. He did a wonderful job of making his story come to life. He kept the reader interested and engaged in his story. As a reader, I was hanging on his every word. I loved his style of writing and I tried to imitate that style within my own writing. I worked very hard to make my writing seem conversational and fun as I was telling my story, as if I was speaking to a friend. Like Ben, I worked to incorporate some humor into my story while also showing how I hope to change the world through education and literature. Even Ben’s content within his story was an inspiration to me. Ben wrote about the many jobs that he went through and the impact and influence that those jobs had on him. As I was reading, I started to think about my own job history and the path that led me to English Education at NDSU. In my writing, I reflected on the different career options that I considered throughout my life and the choices that brought me to where I am today. Mentor texts like Ben’s were a great influence on my writing throughout the semester. I was able to “analyze” (Outcome 2) the different texts for aspects that would work within my own writing and I “critique[d]” (Outcome 2) those elements that I thought maybe did not work well within the mentor texts and those that would not work within my own writing.
I think that the best example of how I met Outcome 6 in this class is our work with the audio essay and the digital writing project. Both assignments, the first using sounds and the second using images, are examples of “culturally and historically embedded practices” (Outcome 6) that have evolved over time. Stories have been told orally for thousands of years and the audio essay is this era’s version of the orally spoken story. Audio essays and podcasts allow the listener to receive the same information that they would receive from a written story but without the inconvenience of slowing down their lives long enough to actually read the story. Audio can be consumed while also engaging in another activity, like driving or exercising or even working. Audio is easily consumed without the disruption of one’s day. If someone were to listen to my audio essay, they would hear my Life & Literacy narrative in a condensed version. This allows the listener the opportunity to hear my story and my message without disrupting their day.
Digital writing has the same historical presence that audio has. For thousands of years, people have communicated by pictures and drawings. Now, technology allows us to use photos in a new way. Images are very powerful and can convey many kinds of messages to the consumer depending on what the creator wants the audience to feel. In my digital writing project, I wanted my audience to understand how important family is. I hope that the images that I included to represent myself will make my viewers think about their own families and the things that are important to them.
My Process
When the semester first started, I was a bit intimidated by this class. I had not done much creative writing previously and I did not think of myself as a creative person or someone with a very imaginative mind. I was nervous that, once we began writing, I would struggle with what to write about. Once we had received more instruction and looked at some mentor texts, however, I felt much more confident in my writing and creating abilities. Once I started to write, the stories about myself and my experiences and how I wanted to use them to change the world just kept coming to me. It was difficult for me to know when and where to stop at times.
The digital writing assignment was something completely new to my and I was a bit overwhelmed with all of the options that I had. Within textual writing, there are only so many things that an author can do to make their project different and stand out. In digital writing, the possibilities for creativity are almost endless. I love photography and I believe that images can be very powerful but my technology skills are very lacking. I had so many exciting ideas for the assignment but I had problems in executing those ideas.
My Strengths
In regards to writing, I think that my strengths lie in narrative and writing about what I know. As I wrote the narrative pieces, I found myself lost in the story and the writing. I found it easy to write an engaging and sometimes humorous story that readers would enjoy. I knew that readers would enjoy it because I greatly enjoyed writing it.
Writing about what I know is another strength of mine. Once I started writing about my past and my hopes for the future, I found it hard to stop. I realized that I had so much to say and that I just wanted to share my motivations and my passions with my readers. I found it so compelling to write about what I know that I included a rule about it in my rules for writing for my future students.
Things I Could Improve On
As I mentioned earlier, one of my weaknesses this semester was my lack of technological skills. I even had trouble with producing this website. Technology is great but I just don’t know how to use all of its tools like I should. This is something that I need to work on as a future teacher. Technology of all kinds is going to be a large part of my classroom and daily life as a teacher. To better accommodate my students, I will need to better educate myself on the technological tools that are at my disposal as a student and a teacher.
Along those same lines, I need to work to better understand the genre of digital writing. Digital writing is a very large genre and I want to educate myself more about the different forms that it can take, especially in the classroom as a learning tool. Without knowing much about it, I think that it is a very interesting genre and something that students would be very excited about.
I very much enjoyed Advanced Writing Workshop throughout the semester. The class and the instruction pushed me out of my shell and comfort zones of writing. This class also gave me some great assignments that I hope to include in my own future classroom.
Thanks for reading,
Samantha Jochim
Within this portfolio, I have included all of the writing projects that I have worked on during the course of the Fall 2017 semester in Advanced Writing Workshop: ENGL 458. During this semester we worked on a wide variety of projects that were intended to sharpen our writing skills and make us think about changing the world in some way. In addition to the work that I completed for ENGL 458, I have included three other works from two other classes that I have taken this semester. I have included two works from Contemporary Women Writers: ENGL 331 and one work from Young Adult Literature in a Multicultural World: ENGL 435.
Meeting the Outcomes
As a requirement of this class, we have to show, through our work both in this class and the other works that we choose to include, that we have met two of the outcomes set forth by the English Department of North Dakota State University. The outcomes are:
Outcome 2: English majors will be able to read (analyze, interpret, critique, evaluate) written and visual texts.
Outcome 6: English majors will be familiar with literatures as culturally and historically embedded practices. This outcome includes goals such as familiarity with major writers, genres, and periods, and technologies of writing.
I think that the best example of how I met Outcome 2 was through the mentor text reading that I did before I wrote my own projects. Throughout the course, we were given mentor texts in the specific genre that we were working with at the time. These mentor texts were meant to help guide us and give us ideas of the style and content that we could possibly use within our own writing. For me personally, the mentor texts were a very useful resource in guiding my own writing. I read the texts closely and “evaluate[d]” (Outcome 2) them for useful techniques that I could use in my own writing.
An example of that is how I used Ben Norman’s essay entitled My Others Keeper in relation to writing my Life & Literacy essay. While reading Ben Norman’s essay, I was struck by how conversational and light his writing was. I could almost hear a friend’s voice narrating the story as I read it. He did a wonderful job of making his story come to life. He kept the reader interested and engaged in his story. As a reader, I was hanging on his every word. I loved his style of writing and I tried to imitate that style within my own writing. I worked very hard to make my writing seem conversational and fun as I was telling my story, as if I was speaking to a friend. Like Ben, I worked to incorporate some humor into my story while also showing how I hope to change the world through education and literature. Even Ben’s content within his story was an inspiration to me. Ben wrote about the many jobs that he went through and the impact and influence that those jobs had on him. As I was reading, I started to think about my own job history and the path that led me to English Education at NDSU. In my writing, I reflected on the different career options that I considered throughout my life and the choices that brought me to where I am today. Mentor texts like Ben’s were a great influence on my writing throughout the semester. I was able to “analyze” (Outcome 2) the different texts for aspects that would work within my own writing and I “critique[d]” (Outcome 2) those elements that I thought maybe did not work well within the mentor texts and those that would not work within my own writing.
I think that the best example of how I met Outcome 6 in this class is our work with the audio essay and the digital writing project. Both assignments, the first using sounds and the second using images, are examples of “culturally and historically embedded practices” (Outcome 6) that have evolved over time. Stories have been told orally for thousands of years and the audio essay is this era’s version of the orally spoken story. Audio essays and podcasts allow the listener to receive the same information that they would receive from a written story but without the inconvenience of slowing down their lives long enough to actually read the story. Audio can be consumed while also engaging in another activity, like driving or exercising or even working. Audio is easily consumed without the disruption of one’s day. If someone were to listen to my audio essay, they would hear my Life & Literacy narrative in a condensed version. This allows the listener the opportunity to hear my story and my message without disrupting their day.
Digital writing has the same historical presence that audio has. For thousands of years, people have communicated by pictures and drawings. Now, technology allows us to use photos in a new way. Images are very powerful and can convey many kinds of messages to the consumer depending on what the creator wants the audience to feel. In my digital writing project, I wanted my audience to understand how important family is. I hope that the images that I included to represent myself will make my viewers think about their own families and the things that are important to them.
My Process
When the semester first started, I was a bit intimidated by this class. I had not done much creative writing previously and I did not think of myself as a creative person or someone with a very imaginative mind. I was nervous that, once we began writing, I would struggle with what to write about. Once we had received more instruction and looked at some mentor texts, however, I felt much more confident in my writing and creating abilities. Once I started to write, the stories about myself and my experiences and how I wanted to use them to change the world just kept coming to me. It was difficult for me to know when and where to stop at times.
The digital writing assignment was something completely new to my and I was a bit overwhelmed with all of the options that I had. Within textual writing, there are only so many things that an author can do to make their project different and stand out. In digital writing, the possibilities for creativity are almost endless. I love photography and I believe that images can be very powerful but my technology skills are very lacking. I had so many exciting ideas for the assignment but I had problems in executing those ideas.
My Strengths
In regards to writing, I think that my strengths lie in narrative and writing about what I know. As I wrote the narrative pieces, I found myself lost in the story and the writing. I found it easy to write an engaging and sometimes humorous story that readers would enjoy. I knew that readers would enjoy it because I greatly enjoyed writing it.
Writing about what I know is another strength of mine. Once I started writing about my past and my hopes for the future, I found it hard to stop. I realized that I had so much to say and that I just wanted to share my motivations and my passions with my readers. I found it so compelling to write about what I know that I included a rule about it in my rules for writing for my future students.
Things I Could Improve On
As I mentioned earlier, one of my weaknesses this semester was my lack of technological skills. I even had trouble with producing this website. Technology is great but I just don’t know how to use all of its tools like I should. This is something that I need to work on as a future teacher. Technology of all kinds is going to be a large part of my classroom and daily life as a teacher. To better accommodate my students, I will need to better educate myself on the technological tools that are at my disposal as a student and a teacher.
Along those same lines, I need to work to better understand the genre of digital writing. Digital writing is a very large genre and I want to educate myself more about the different forms that it can take, especially in the classroom as a learning tool. Without knowing much about it, I think that it is a very interesting genre and something that students would be very excited about.
I very much enjoyed Advanced Writing Workshop throughout the semester. The class and the instruction pushed me out of my shell and comfort zones of writing. This class also gave me some great assignments that I hope to include in my own future classroom.
Thanks for reading,
Samantha Jochim