Dear Neil:

Welcome to Rui Yuan’s writing portfolio! Here I have integrated my writing projects that

I have done in your Writing Two class, which represents my highest level writing. This includes

Writing Project 1: Genre Translation, and Writing Project 2: Conversation Project. These two

projects went through the entire writing process, from a sloppy first draft to a polished, well-

developed essay. For writing project one, I translated an academic article called “What is

Different About Online Advertising” to a short story about a person who overcame adversity to

achieve personal achievement in the field of advertising, and how he used his abilities to benefit

his hometown's economy. For writing project two, I presented a conversation between a

discourse community of teachers and researchers who focus on how to provide effective

suggestions for L2 students through Facebook posts. Both writing project one and writing project

two have evolved a lot since the beginning, and I greatly appreciate the comments coming from

you and other peers. I really enjoyed being part of this class and getting prepared for college

level writing. I think I am now more confident in writing, and willing to express my ideas

through writing.

In the final draft of Writing Project One, I made some significant and substantive

modifications from the rough draft. To successfully transmit and teach the key ideas of

advertising to the audience, I rearranged the academic terms of the academic essay into common

language. I also highlighted the development of the settings and the citizens’ shift in attitudes

toward John in order to demonstrate John's success, as well as the importance of advertising and

how it may impact people in many ways.This short narrative is mostly about John's personal

growth, but it also serves to demonstrate the importance of advertising and learning by showing

the audience that John's growth is a result of his passion for and education in the profession of
advertising. In addition, I edited by reflection, which covered my purpose of translating a

scholarly article into a short tale, rhetorical choices I made while writing, articles we studied in

class to assist my thought process, and any other important aspects of the essay.

I also made a lot of changes in Writing Project Two. I adjusted the transition words and

sentences in each comment in order to make the conversation smoother. I mentioned a theory

called Activity Theory, which is one of the main ideas I try to deliver in the conversation.

However, it is difficult to explain due to its complexity, and I have received a lot of comments

from the peer review telling me that this content about Activity Theory is unclear, so I decided to

add an example about how this theory could be applied in life to hopefully explain it in a way

which everyone can understand. My group members also commented to me during the peer

review that I do not have strong counter arguments, which means everyone participating in the

conversation seems to agree with each other. So, I did some more research on other papers

discussing the impact of commenting on L2 students' writing in order to find some other

opinions and make this conversation more interesting. I also arranged the order of the comments,

so that readers can have a clear sense which two authors are debating with each other.

I think I accomplished and improved a lot throughout this course. Before I walked into

this class, I have always had the impression that students only write to please the teacher and get

a good grade. I have been taught to use five paragraph essays only in academic writing because

that is the most efficient and effective way of organizing ideas into an essay during a short period

of time. However, after this course, I learned how to consciously choose what genres I want to

use, and what impact would happen to the readers if I use some kind of rhetorical choices.

Timberg believes that the goal of writing is not only to produce effective work, but also to

“respond in a logical and thoughtful way to questions” readers may propose (Timberg 2015).
That is, we as writers, need to have a process of thinking about thinking to have the awareness of

how, in what ways, the readers may be influenced, and why some of the rhetorical choices are

effective to readers.

As an international student, I have always been worried about my grammar and word

choices while writing because deep in my mind I believe the use of high level vocabularies and

perfect grammar are keys to create outstanding writing pieces. However, after reading The Old

Man and The Sea from Ernest Hemingway, I came to a sudden realization that simple words

could also evoke emotions from the audience, and let them feel empathy. Young also disagreed

with perfect grammar and the only use of standard English in his work of “Should Writers Use

They Own English?”, where he showed us the readers could still receive the message from the

author even if the grammar is broken and the words are misspelled.

Moreover, I would also write perfect first drafts in order to reduce the revision time and

use it for something else. However, one of the “guest speakers” Lamott taught me in this class

that a lot of famous writer do not even produce perfect first drafts because the first draft “is the

child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no

one is going to see it and that you can shape it later” and that is how some writers “end up with

good second drafts and terrific third drafts” (Lamott 1994).

Overall, I think I have changed a lot as a writer. I would now start writing from planning

and arrange my ideas down on the paper. One of my strongest strengths is that I am creative and

love to explore new things. I am also very open to ideas and suggestions coming from others

because I know one’s point of view is always limited. Something I should continue improving on

is to organize my thoughts because it is always hard for me to draw a connection between

different thoughts and make them logical in a paper.

 Finally, this course has taught me a lot about the relationship between reading and

writing, as well as improved my writing skills. Writing Two taught me the value of selecting the

appropriate genre as well as the efficacy of these rhetorical methods. Furthermore, Writing Two

demonstrates my ability to synthesize ideas and use them to generate a piece of writing that may

be useful to others. While neither project is perfect, I believe I tried my best and demonstrated

my ability, and the differences between the first and final drafts of the projects reflect my

personal growth. This course has been quite beneficial to me, and I am pleased of what I have

accomplished. I hope you enjoy looking through my portfolio!

Sincerely,

Rui Yuan
 Reference

Adler-Kassner, L (2015, July 15). Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing

Studies. Metacognition is Not Cognition, Part 1, 75-76.

Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Pantheon, 1994.

Print.

Young, Vershawn (2010). Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies. Should Writers Use They Own

English?, Volume 12, Issue 1, Article 10.