Harrison Smith

English 1010 B2
Ms. Griffin
November 8, 2016
Portfolio 2: Self-Reflective Essay
The process I used when writing my narrative essay included a lot of brainstorming,
procrastinating, and talking with my friends about what I should write about. When I was
thinking of topics to write about I first thought of writing about my first experience at Riccis
house when I stayed the night, and he cut himself. However, that did not have enough
background or plot to it. Later, I decided that All-State Choir, would be the best option for me,
because it has a lot of side effects that came from writing my essay. I learned a lot when it came
to peer revision, my grammar was very strange and hard to read. However, I believe through this
process I was able to find my errors, and I found a good way to fix them with the help of my
peers and Ms. Griffin. I believe that my voice and thoughts were put into this paper efficiently.
For an example, when I write, Why would I even bother trying this early, is this even going to
be worth my time.
I believe the weakest part of my narrative essay would be my transitions. I really
struggled with how to properly transition from one topic to another during this essay. My
wording can be really hard for some people to read at times, and that could be because of many
things like me just wanting to be done with this paper, even though I have enjoyed writing it.
This affected my descriptions because the picture was not as clear as I wanted it to be. Also, I did
not like being restricted to five pages, I had at least another page to write about to fully go into
description about what I wanted to describe. I do want to write more like this, even though

narrative writing is not my strength, I believe that I could become very efficient at writing
narrative papers in the future.
Narrative papers are very interesting if done correctly, you want to tell a story, and the
story needs to be true to you and who you are. I wish I would have done more brainstorming, and
just writing down a full first draft without editing anything before and then going back to fix
everything. Additionally, include your perspective of the story, and use words to your advantage.
I could have improved my essay if I prepared more, and went more in detail, be sure to describe
everything you can think of, you are telling a story.