Portfolio: Reflective Letter

___This quarter I feel writing 101 challenged me as a writer and improved my skills. I improved on forming my opinion, transitioning and creativity. I think everyone has his or her own unique view of things. I have tried to have a different viewpoint than others, and explain my thinking of that view. At the beginning of this quarter, I made up a writing philosophy and it has developed into a realistic philosophy for my writing skills. Now when I write try to be creative and opinionated.

___Earlier this year I did not have a writing philosophy, I was a sophomore at Federal Way High School I remember how restrained I was in English class on my writing. Students in Mr. Burke's class were never allowed to use "be" verbs or use first person in any writing for that class, so it was difficult transitioning to use I Say. The transition from that class to writing 101 was a big leap for me. Finally, I was able to be creative, write with passion, and use my own writing philosophy. Even though I had all this freedom with writing, I did not know what to do with it at first. I was so overwhelmed with the fact that I could write however I wanted to. After writing my first essay about Bacon's Rebellion, I realized I did not even know how to put in my opinion and view on the matter into my writing. Luckily, I improved throughout the quarter on my "I Say" skill. The biggest improvement of writing more “I Say” came from my writing midterm. I wrote about personal experience concerning lessons of history. One of my personal experiences is “When I was only ten years old, my mother decided to move to Oregon with her boyfriend, while I continued to live with my grandparents.” I explained more in my essay how that affected me and what I had learned from my mom’s past. I believe my instructor helped me with that leap into becoming a stronger writer, even the book, "They Say, I Say" helped me understand ways of inserting my opinion into my writing. One way that Craig, my writing teacher, helped me improve was the one on one I had with him to discuss the steps of my writing i.e. outlines, drafts, more drafts, and eventually a final draft. The advice and suggestions he gave me was the perfect guideline I needed to create my finished product.

___”I Say” was the biggest struggle for me in my writing, but finding information on the topic was surely my strength. Ben and Craig gave the class all the information one needed for the first essay assigned. Some used the research better than other, I think I used the information given to me the best way I could for my writing. My points were strong in my essays, with quotes that supported them really well. A strong point in the second essay was, “Mrs. William Bird states in the article, Royal Commissioners Narrative, that "there was said to be above two hundred of the English murdered by the barbarous Indians, and posts [messages] came in daily to the Governor, giving notice of it, and yet no course was taken to secure them."(3). Anyone familiar with government will agree that ignoring the people will not make a successful leader.” The quote that I found in an article defiantly supports my point about how the governor was a bad leader and a selfish man. This quarter I have had good supportive evidence, and have improved on my commentary. I use the “They Say, I Say” book to help me start a good sentence for the “I Say” part.

___The result of this quarter has mostly been improvement. I have learned more about myself, and what my strengths and weaknesses are as a writer. I will continue to work on improving those skills I lack, and one day I will be an amazing writer. I am truly happy that I had Craig, the intimidating writing teacher that pushed me overboard. In the end with all the help from my peers and teacher I leave writing 101 with satisfaction that I have done the best I can, knowing that I will only improve as time goes on.