Reflection of my Writing Journey and How it is Shown Through my Portfolio

Diana Lee

WRIT 2

March 21, 2024

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Reflection of my Writing Journey and How it is Shown Through my Portfolio

Stepping into the classroom at the Interactive Learning Pavilion, I feared for how the

quarter would go. Before WRIT 2, English was my worst subject in school. I always had a hard

time taking my thoughts and turning them into coherent sentences. This led me to fear all writing

classes because I thought that my level of writing would hold me back from doing well. My idea

of writing essays was structured pieces of text that had 5 paragraphs; one introduction, three

body paragraphs, and one conclusion. However, in taking this class I realized that this was not

the case and instead, there are many different ways that a paper can be written.

Learning that writing can have many different forms, different from the structured high

school essay, initially occurred in the second lecture of WRIT 2 (or from what I remember). The

day we started talking about genre and what counts as a genre made me rethink everything I have

previously learned. The idea that genre is any kind of language that occurs again and again is

different than what I originally thought the definition of “genre” was. After reading Lisa

Bickmore’s article, I learned that “genres are both stable and to some degree fluid and evolving,

just as human communication itself is both predictable and unpredictable”.1 This idea helped me

understand that writing has certain conventions that make the format of the writing unique to a

certain academic discipline, but these conventions can also be changed based on the writing. Not

is ever set in writing, which contradicts what I have thought about writing growing up. This new

idea helped me to change my perspective of writing from a strict paper with many rules to a

more fluid means of creativity. Another reading that helped me to lessen my fear of writing was a

lesson from the book, “Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace” written by Joseph Williams.

Although learned later in the quarter, the different lessons gave me an understanding of different

“rules” authors think about when writing papers. Other than the rules of writing that were taught,
1
Lisa Bickmore, “General in the Wild,” (2016).
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one main thing I left with was to just start writing. In Lesson 1, Williams talks about how these

rules are for after the first draft is made and that “Most experienced writers get something down

as fast as they can”. Only then do authors rewrite the initial draft into something clearer, gaining

a better understanding of their ideas at the same time.2 My main fear of writing was creating a

terrible paper, whether it had bad grammar or contained surface-level analysis. I tend to avoid

papers due to this fear, which ironically leads to mediocre papers anyway. Using this class as

practice, I started to just spill out whatever I thought onto paper, with no outline or time to think.

It helped on get started and ended up making the portfolio for this class easier to tackle as I

already got through the hard part of writing the first draft, even if it was not up to par.

The lessons that I learned throughout the quarter helped me to complete this portfolio.

With the revisions of the two previous essays, I was able to show how much I was able to learn

in this class. Starting with Writing Project 1, my main issue was writing my ideas in the form of

an academic essay. I had trouble citing sources, creating my thesis statement, and expanding on

various ideas throughout the paper, especially in the conclusion. In my revision of Writing

Project 1, I expanded on various points throughout the paper, such as adding more to my analysis

to clearly state the difference between the two articles and creating a longer conclusion to

summarize my paper to the reader. Out of the two projects, Writing Project 1 had the most

significant changes as it was my first paper in the class, so I used it as a learning step in my

future papers. For Writing Project 2, my main problem was with the reflection portion of the

project rather than the translated piece. I focused too much on reflecting on my translation

process, which led me to forget about explaining the writing conventions of the academic and

non-academic texts. In the revision, I made sure to add more information about the writing

2
Joseph M. Williams, “Lesson 1 Understanding Style,” in Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace
(New York : Longman, 2003), 5.
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conventions of each text instead of mainly discussing the process of translating a statistical

article into a website. This led to a smooth integration of citing the translation pieces to further

prove that the writing conventions were true for the texts I chose to pick. In the reflection, I also

had too many run-on sentences and other grammatical mistakes, so I made sure to read through

the essay to get rid of those in the new version for the portfolio. Overall, my main issues with the

first submission draft of the two writing projects were citing and not being able to expand on the

content of the papers. When creating my portfolio these became the main targets that I wanted to

change.

When revising, I mainly looked at the comments on Canvas to help guide me in knowing

what to change. While these comments were starting points, I ended up taking charge and revised

certain points of the essays that I thought could be changed. Looking through the essays with a

new perspective, I realized that there were a lot of mistakes that could have been avoided earlier

on. With the portfolio project, I was glad that I could make additional edits to previous papers

because it gave me time to gain a new perspective before revising it. If I were to revise the paper

right after writing the initial draft rather than at the end of the quarter, I would have had a harder

time creating a better draft. I most likely would not be able to spot the mistakes as easily as I can

now. With the aspect of time, I believe I was able to expand on the content more, citing sources

to support my ideas. If I were to revise this portfolio once more in the future, I would hope to use

more advanced language to make my essays clearer and sound like college-level essays. Word

choice is something I struggle with, but I will have to take it one step at a time.

In the future, whether it be for college classes or my future career, I believe that the

things that I learned in this class will be crucial in aiding my success. Continuing with what I

have already mentioned, being able to switch my perspective on how I feel about writing will
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help me to create better essays. This new perspective got me to understand that to create a

well-written paper, I need to start somewhere. Or rather, I just need to write whatever I think

down so that the fear of starting a paper does not hinder my writing skills. Understanding that

writing an essay is not linear or extremely strict helps me feel better about being more creative

with how I write in my future classes. Another skill that I will benefit from in the future, is the

skill to reflect. Reflecting takes time and effort to see how one can change from past actions. In

this class, I learned to accept my mistakes and not be ashamed of them. Instead of regretting my

past actions, I should see it as an opportunity to grow in the future, which this portfolio project

helped me to accomplish. Finally, the most surprising skill that I learned and will highly benefit

from is speaking up in class. As a shy person, another thing I fear is speaking up, with the same

reason for being incorrect or doing things wrong. However, this class helped me feel comfortable

with mistakes and helped me to participate more than I ever have in a class. I began to think of it

as a way to learn rather than a way to show that you know the topic already. With these new

skills, I am ready for future writing projects, whether that be an email for a professor or an

argumentative essay.

In conclusion, this class has changed my overall perspective on the idea of writing.

Initially, I feared to write down anything because I had the idea that what I wrote down had to be

satisfactory at least. Reflecting on the class and the two writing projects we did, I realized I

learned a lot more about writing than I thought I did. These lessons helped me to change my

feelings about writing to go from fear to excitement. The reason I use excitement is because the

lessons make me excited about what kinds of writing I will produce in the future. I am excited

about my growth in writing, as it has been a struggle I had to deal with for so long. Despite the

difficult time I had creating these essays, I truly understand that making mistakes helps one to
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grow for the future, so I am glad that I was able to learn about my mistakes and have a chance to

fix them later on in the quarter.

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Works Cited Page

Bickmore, Lisa. “General in the Wild.” (2016).

https://pressbooks.pub/openenglishatslcc/chapter/genre-in-the-wild-understanding-genre-

within-rhetorical-ecosystems/

Williams, Joseph M. “Lesson 1 Understanding Style,” in Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace,

1-7. New York : Longman, 2003.