This portfolio contains two writing projects, WP1 and WP2.

In WP1, I chose an article

about how social media impacts teenager’s mental health. The main argument is that the vast use

of high visual social media such as Instagram, Youtube, Snapchat, etc. affect teenager’s mental

health. Teenagers are more likely to have anxiety, depression and lack of confidence. We should

be more aware of their mental health. In order to convey this message from the author, I

translated the article into a printed poster on a magazine. I used big and bold headings, a big

picture that expresses the central ideas of the article that are straightforward to the audience, as

well as smaller subheadings that demonstrate the main argument that concluded from the studies

in the article. In WP2, I chose several articles around the topic about how reading is related to

writing skills. The articles all used different approaches when conducting studies, but the results

are quite similar. They showed there is a significant correlation between reading and writing. The

more proficient a person in reading, the better their writing skills will be. Reading also promotes

metacognitive awareness, which is also beneficial to improve writing skills. I chose to translate

those articles into a student’s reading diary. She records her improvement in her writing skills

through one month of continuous reading, and the result is that her writing skills became more

advanced the more she reads. I added the comments section under her diary posts. This is to

mimic a discourse community, which creates conversations between users and how they support

each other’s arguments.

Throughout the quarter of reading and writing, my skills have gradually improved. At the

beginning, I thought writing is just about making perfect grammar and fancy vocabulary. But

after doing the readings in the course, I realized that a good writer and good writing is not only

about grammar and vocabs. More importantly, it is about the thinking, writing and revising
processes. A good writer puts time and effort into every process to make their work more refined

by small progress.

At the beginning of the quarter, I read the article from Bunn on how to read like a writer.

According to Bunn, to read like a writer is like putting ourselves into the writer’s shoes, and try

to understand their purposes, certain choices of words or a specific detail they added (Bunn). It

was from that time I realized writing is an organized and complicated system than I simply

thought just about grammar and sentence structures. It was also from that time I started to pay

attention to the author’s intention and try to stand at their perspectives to think about certain

small details that are not that even outstanding to the audience but makes a difference when

reading and comprehending the paragraph or the essay as a whole. To be a good writer, I should

start to develop the critical thinking skill as Bunn described, from small things. In the future

when I’m doing reading for other classes I will also be applying the reading skills I have

developed and learned now.

In the middle of the quarter, I did peer-review response with my classmates. We read

each other’s essays and gave feedback for each other. The process of peer feedback also

provided me insights of how one can improve their essays, because the suggestions from other

people is very important. According to Straub’s article, Straub expresses, while we’re praising

and criticizing other people’s writing, we’re also doing the thinking (Straub p.137). The peer

feedback I received from WP1 really helped me on revising my essay. As suggested by Straub,

they are not very critical while also giving useful suggestions about different aspects of my

article, like genre, style, and rhetorical thinking. I liked the process of peer-review. It allows me

to read my peer’s work and substitute myself in their perspectives and think about their
intentions. Sometimes reading other people’s work also provides new insights and solutions for

myself, and I can make improvements based on their feedbacks.

Lastly, toward the end of the quarter, we had the articles about revision, because we spent

time on revising our projects during the last two weeks of the quarter. Revision sounds

insignificant but it plays an important role, and it is the last step to make a good piece of writing.

In Harris’s book about rewriting and revision, he explains that the revision is a form of rewriting

because it is a process which writers are redeveloping (Harris, p. 98). Through the process of

revision, I have been rethinking and reorganizing the words, thoughts I had, changes I can make

to let the rhetorical purpose clearer and how I can improve some limitations in my work based on

the feedbacks. Revision takes a lot of time, because it requires as much effort as when writing

the first draft. Understanding the importance of revision would also remind me in my future

work process that I would always look back at my work and rethink about the choices I made.

I see myself having certain strengths and weaknesses in different areas. In WP1, my

strengths were being able to identify different genres and how they help communicate the

message through different conventions. However, I was not very good at targeting the intended

audience. When I was translating the article into another genre, I was not very specific when

identifying the intended audience for the translated genre. But I was good at standing at the

author’s perspective and thinking about their intention and purposes. In WP2, my idea of the

genre translation is good for representing a conversation, but my weakness was unable to

recreate the discourse community well. After receiving the feedbacks, I started my revision

process, spent time to rethink and reorganize my thoughts.

Throughout this quarter of practicing writing, my understanding of writing and my

writing skills have changed. I am more aware of the writing process and every intention behind
each step. Those are the realizations I did not have at the first class and they have changed a lot. I

feel being closer to a good writer and I am very glad that I persisted through the quarter to learn a

lot about my strengths and weaknesses.

Works Cited

Bunn, Mike. “Writing Spaces.” Writing Spaces, https://writingspaces.org/past-volumes/how-to-

read-like-a-writer/.

Harris, Joseph. “Revising.” Rewriting: How to Things with Texts, University Press of Colorado,

Urban Institute, 2006, pp. 98-122

Straub, Richard. “Responding—Really Responding—to Other Students’ Writing.” The Subject

Is Writing, edited by Wendy Bishop, 2nd ed, Boynton/Cook Publishers, 1999, pp. 137-146