Anna Maria Pantelias

FYW 1000C

Prof. Roeder

November 25, 2020

Through My Eyes: Portfolio Process Letter

For my final portfolio I decided to include my 3 revised major projects we had

throughout the semester. The first being my self-portrait about how study abroad helped me find

myself again, the next is my research project on the effects social media can have on us, a

growing topic that I find so interesting and very relevant in our lives currently, and the 3 poems I

wrote on three different topics that are very relevant to me and my expressed feelings about

them. I used my first draft/ outline of my research project. I also included my reading responses

to Kaling and Thomas, and Lorde and Miller. I really enjoyed all these readings and my

responses give an insight of what how I took and interpreted each reading. I also included

examples of my feedback and some extra creative work I enjoyed throughout the year like my

process letters, I remember list, language statement, sensory details, and mini genre writing

exercises. I think each piece says a lot about me as a writing and as well as a reader. You can see

both my strengths and my weaknesses in my writing, something I’m not afraid to share with

everyone. That’s a big thing about me and this portfolio, I want it to be raw and be able to show

what I’m good and what I’m not so good at because its normal that not everyone is a perfect all-

round writer and that’s ok. I thought I hated writing my whole life but I’ve come to realize I just

hate writing the standard MLA and very structured essays where I don’t have much of a voice. I
hope to show this to other people and help them realize that maybe they don’t hate writing, they

just haven’t found what you are good at yet.

The biggest revise I did was for my research project, which is what I would also say was

my hardest project this semester. I had a lot planned for it, but once I started, things went a

different route, which in my opinion, wasn’t a bad thing at all. I remember planning a website

and the home page was going to be a general introduction, and then below 4 different boxes that

would navigate you to the different topics of the effects social media had, in either children,

relationships, or depression and anxiety, and then my I was going to put together a little video.

As I mentioned before I’m not much of a structured writer, and although it was a website, I feel

like I had little room for my own opinion and was worried how voice would flow through this

website. I didn’t want it to be a regular research project website with the just the facts. I feel as if

the version I had envisioned was great, but it wasn’t going to allow me to express it in the best

way that I could and use my own voice on it. I decided to just change it to a PowerPoint, which

worked a lot better for me in the long run. I was able to say my introduction and then go down

the slides, talking about one topic at a time. I had the first slide of each topic say what the topic

was and my personal experience with it, and then I followed that with another 2 to 3 slides with

the informative fact and data charts and pictures that went along with it. I think I was able to

better utilize the topics and be able to use my voice as well as the facts with the PowerPoint

instead of the website. It was truer to me and I was able to say everything I wanted to say. I also

decided to cut the video planned. Due to complications and the pandemic and me not being tech

savvy at all, I thought it’s best I cut the video to make life much easier, and instead I finished it

off with a conclusion which included what I concluded based on my research what we can do to
help these failing areas because of social media. Ways where we can live lives healthily with

social media, because its only getting bigger and bigger.

As for my audience, I would say that, collectively, my audience would be a bunch of

different people. I would divide it into my major projects. My self-portrait would definitely be

for anyone going through a heart break. I talk about my full journey from before during and after

and my hope would be that the reader does see and after, that the pain won’t last forever.

Everyone goes through a big breakup and hard times in their lives and I think anyone who has

experienced being in a sinking hole for a bit can relate to my piece. I would also include one of

my poems, mosaic, from my genre project, in this audience as well. For my research project for,

I think the older generation of Gen Z and the younger millennials. I always found it weird being

considered “Gen Z”, because in my opinion the kids born from 1997-2003 grew up so much

different than the kids now. Social media was still a new thing when we were young, but are now

old enough to understand it completely, were as you see kids as young as 2/3 with an iPad in

there face all day. I think since we are the older part of this generation, it’s important that we are

aware and informed on the information I put in the research project so that we can think of ways

to fix it. For my genre project, my other two poems I included are very different from each other.

In my poem, my cycle of hell, I think for sure anyone with anxiety will be able to relate to that.

That was definitely my target audience, showing how anxiety can make little everyday things so

hard, and hopefully show anyone else without anxiety a little insight to what its liked. I picked

going to the gym as my anxiety tick because I feel as if it’s something people wouldn’t even

think would cause anxiety. For my other poem, just not here, it for anyone looking to move out

of state, country, or hometown. I know with my personal experience it’s just a feeling you can

explain to anyone, but you know this isn’t where you are supposed to stay the rest of your life.
Its not wanting to sound ungrateful, but at the end of the day no matter how hard you try, you

just can’t shake the feeling. I think this piece can really speak to the people who feel the same

way. Give them the sense that although they may have everything they need at home in the

physical sense, they know deep down it isn’t home for them.

Throughout the semester I learned so much about myself as a writer. I feel as if I

mentioned it so many times before already, but before this course I would always say how much

I hated writing essays. My thing I always used to say was I’d rather do 100 math problems than

write an essay. I hated it. The problem was my whole life I’ve only wrote MLA style, very “one

right way” type of essays, I never bothered trying to write any other way. This class really

allowed me to explore my creative writing and I was able to learn what I was good at. I’m a

creative person, and I can confidently say I love creative writing and being able to use my voice

in my writing. I’m able to make it sound as if I am speaking and you can hear my voice through

my work. I realized that I don’t actually hate writing, I hated writing structured essays. In this

course I realized I’m good at writing about myself and my feelings, and poems. I really like

writing poems; I find them to be a good reflecting exercise for emotions.

The biggest difficultly I had during this course was with my research project. Apart from

my worries of using my own voice, there was so much information that could go with each topic,

it was hard to pick the ones I deemed most important to put in the project. I was scared I that I

only really touched the surface for each topic and didn’t go in enough depth. At the end of the

project, however, I feel as if I was able to give just the right information and the able to pic the

most relevant information for each topic.

Lastly, technology played a big role this semester, as it was done remotely so we were

fully online. Although we couldn’t meet face to face and have discussions on certain topics, I
think we all did a good job with the weekly meetings and covering everything we would discuss

normally in class. Another thing would be the feedbacks, we did them through canvas, as we did

any small exercises for any certain topics we covered. In all honesty, I don’t think there was

much of a difference then there was if we were in person. I do miss the human interactions we

would’ve and connections we would’ve made in class, and for me that’s the biggest difference in

this semester.

Therefore, I feel as a grown a lot as a writer and in this course. I hope that everyone can

read my portfolio and see life through my eyes.