Reflective portfolio

 

Wadha Nayef Al-Zaabi

Dr. Raghad Elkahlout

ENGL 153

5 May 2024

Final portfolio 

As a student who had some idea of what this course would benefit me and add to my knowledge, I expected a lot to be honest from this course due to my eagerness to obtain all the talents that could make me a better writer, a better student, and a better teacher in the future. I expected this course to contribute to solving my difficulties that I have always tried to resolve but couldn't due to my confusion about where should I start? and how should I start? some of what I expected this course to benefit me with is the ability to conduct a solid outline, reflect on my process and see where it got in a curtain point, the ability to choose a perfect topic for a research, and the skill of working with a partner on a review.

The first noticeable change in my process of getting ready to write is making a good solid outline that I can build my Argumentative essay on, which will make the writing process easy and will allow ideas to flow in an organized way right into place. By building this outline, I was able to conduct an argumentative essay that demonstrates ability to support my claim and reinforcing it with the correct type of evidence. Throughout this procedure I have acquired and fulfil the first outcome of this course which is (Develop an audience aware argumentative essay that demonstrates ability to support claims with different types of evidence and citing counterarguments in a conventionally and rhetorically right way.) CLO-1.

To prepare an outline ahead of writing an essay wasn’t an easy task to me to be honest due to my negligence of doing it my earlier courses and even in school, and that is because I have always seen outlines as a waste of time. And I thought that an essay is its own outline, and as I tried it the first time, I had a hard time of getting it done because I didn’t like the idea of it. Surprisingly after using my outline to guid me through my main essay, I found out how amazingly it could make my work a lot faster and easier and much more organized. And by seeing this effect of an outline it made it much easier for me to write outlines for all my essays and of course the class activities also made me overcome my struggle of seeing an outline as a burden instead of a guid.

Reflection essay was a huge part of this course and a huge part of my improvement, we had 2 reflections after each project we finished in each reflection I revised my own work criticized some of it understood where my flaws were and finally learned from it and this process was assembled in a reflective essay. I honestly love reflective essays due to its huge impact on improving my skills and abilities as a writer, that’s why I didn’t struggle at all going over my work checking my mistakes and pointing out what can I change or remove or add to improve my future essays. What mainly affected my reflective writing is the professors notes and tips such as the steps of how to revise and her notes on my previous essays which helped me find the flaws in my work. This part of the course and this assignment help fulfil the sixth course outcome CLO-6.

A research paper isn’t an easy task at least to me especially and mainly choosing a topic from a very wide range of topics and proposing my topic to the professor. My main issue and primary struggle were choosing a topic, due to my interest in many fields such as poetry, social problems, diseases, and many other fields. By writing a research proposal I was able to make my mind and choose a topic and what made me more relieved is that I will show it to my professor, and she will give me her feedback about it. This will allow me to know if I’m on the right track or no. What was a very helpful thing to me is the professor giving us a lot of examples before I chose my topic which made me choose it. By completing this step, I have already finished the hard part which led me to accomplish half of the second course outcome which then led me to completely achieving it CLO-2.

Working in pairs was never in my comfort zone due to a lot of past experiences with working with other people, who may or may not be responsible which will affect my own progress. In these assignments two peer review papers were required which were two students partnering up with each other and exchange their work then revising and critiquing each other work accurately according to the rubric. I didn’t find really any difficulties making the paper itself, but I have to say I’ve had some issues with both partners from the two assignments. In the first assignment my partner didn’t submit an essay instead she gave me half a paragraph which gave me nothing to work with. And my second partner didn’t give me her work at all until there were a few hours till the submission deadline. I resolved this problem by turning to the professor and asking for another partner in short time, where she delightfully accepted and asked my classmates if anyone needs a partner. By completing these two courses works I can definitely say that it helped me achieve the third course outcome CLO-3.

I would finally note that I need to change and alter some of my strategies and ways to help advance and enhance my performance. And if I was given another chance, I would practice from an early time how to draw a good outline with a solid structure, that I definitely know for sure would remarkably improve my work. Another thing that I would change is choosing a partner wisely before working with anyone. And in case of working with an irresponsible person I would either confront them or adapt which is a social skill itself. These two main changes that I would only do if a had the chance.

This course helped my grow as a writer by challenging me with a lot of assignments, essays, outlines and reflections, which had a remarkable positive outcome not only in this course but also in other courses such as introduction to literature 2. After this course I will still push myself out of my comfort zone and I will encourage my self to write more make more mistakes fix them and be always a better writer than myself yesterday. My weaknesses such ass trying helpful things such as writing outlines and working with others won’t stop me, due to my many strengths such as never giving up reflecting on my work and finding new uncovered topics to research to benefit the world as a writer.

To conclude I finally can say thank you to my professor Raghad El Kahlout as a great guid a great friend and an amazing professor for making me a better writer then the writer I was before taking this course. Thank you for teaching us these skills these topics making us try and fail and try again and succeeding.

google drive link: portfolio