Jaye's E-Portfolio
Portfolio Reflection
What I've Learned
Blogging and inquiry writing have been the newest adventure for me during this course. Learning the different styles of blogging and the research that it takes to write an effective inquiry have help me to understand their purposes in the literacy world
I've always read and responded to blogs but never have I written one. I now have 8 blog post varying in subjects that I'm quite proud of. If I wanted to start my own blog site, I have the tools, knowledge and capability to do so now.
Inquiry writing has proven to be a challenge and also a great way to explore ideas. Finding reputable content to support an inquiry was the challenging part. Learning more about a subject helped build a better understanding. My inquiry project allowed me to research and explore questions about topics that interest me.
How I've Improved as a Writer
After reading Stephen King's piece, "What writing is", I started finding ways to improve the way I approached my descriptive writing abilities. He explains how writing is telepathy in a sense that you can put an image into a persons mind with written words.
I usually write an instruction manual to describe the smallest irrelevant details, that's why I chose, "Let Me Explain" for the three-word phrase that describes me during our classes first work group. Now I write out what I want the reader to understand then go back and take out extra gibberish that didn't really contribute to my idea.
My main goal in this course was to speed up the time it takes me to write. I have a hard time putting ideas down on paper. In her piece, "Shitty First Drafts", Anne Lammot suggested just writing whatever is on your mind and letting it flow, no matter how terrible it is. You can always go back and edit.
This technique worked best for me and I saw my writing time diminish over the course. Hopefully it will improve further into my studies.
What I Can Futher Improve
Inquiry writing was new to me, and it allowed me to question myself on how accurate my content is. How do I the statements I'm making accurately supports my ideas? How do I know they are factual?
This is prompting me to do more research before I start writing to allow me to cite and reference material to help support my thoughts. For me, this logos approach is most effective in writing because of the evidence it sometimes points to. Citing also is a good point.
This is the first time in my life I've cited the work of others. I've used foot notes and citations to better understand work from others, but never have I cited. I need to become more familiar with the different citation formats and how to cite certain material. I had no idea an image could be cited.