Karen's+Portfolio+Reflection

When I write anything – whether an academic writing, a to-do list, a journal entry, or everything in between – I have to have some idea of where the piece will end up and what the end product will be. A blank piece of paper is an intimidating thing, and many times I spend a good portion of my time just staring at it trying to figure out where to start. For me, seeing the completed product means coming up with an idea or topic (which I feel is the hardest part of writing). The waiting game between thinking and writing can be excruciating. Sometimes I’m so emotionally attached and invested in a piece of writing that it practically writes itself. The words just flow and I can pound out a decent piece of writing in record time. Other times I spend all day in front of my computer haltingly composing something. I think that this is how writing this reflection letter is going to be as I have yet to figure out where I want to go with it.

I feel writing in class sometimes helps to solve this problem but more often than not it doesn’t. If it’s a more “high stakes” type of writing, I don’t have time to over-think and over-analyze what I’m trying to say; I just put pen to paper and start writing. But writing by hand is another problem. My brain works so much faster, jumping from idea to idea, before my hand can jot it down on paper. When I write like this, I think I lose valuable information along with structure. I prefer to write at home, on a computer. I always plan out what I’m going to say and have some sort of brainstorming. I like lists of points I want to make or fully fledged outlines. Usually they are in the format that I can cross completed parts off to see I’m making progress. As I write this, I have a bulleted list of things I want to touch on.

Another thing I’ve noticed about myself is that I have a “one and done” mentality probably learned overtime throughout my years in school. I write as if what I’m writing is the final draft. I revise sections as I go along and make minor changes, but I don’t usually change anything content wise. I think the peer editing we did in class really helped me to see the importance of revision. I got feedback on the content and message of the piece – did the reader understand what I was trying to say – and not simply editing of punctuation and grammar.

Does my writing process work? It certainly gets results, but I’m not sure it’s the best way to write. I’m still growing and developing as a writer, so I have plenty of time to fine tune it and improve. But, I am acknowledging that writing is a process and will never be 100%, and I’ve seen the benefits of major revision.

My example of expressive/reflective writing shows the most evidence of revision. It grew from a simple paragraph brainstorm on the “agony and ecstasy of school writing” written in class into a decent essay. From that initial writing, I took the idea and switched the focus from writing an //Iliad// paper to a narrative about AP and the teacher. The draft shown is actually the second draft of the writing that I submitted for feedback. I had already worked revising the first draft to provide a clearer focus of the topic by changing my beginning and ending paragraphs.

When I received feedback from that draft, I was informed that I had tried unsuccessfully to switch the focus from an AP narrative into a reflection of the teacher who inspired me. At first, I was confused and didn’t see it. I think sometimes writers spend so much time on their writing and are so close to the message that they fail to see the reader’s misunderstandings. I also think the process of writing in academia doesn’t support revision because the writer doesn’t have enough time to distance themselves and look at the piece objectively. With this portfolio, I was able to do that and step back to see the disconnects in my narrative. I thought about what Ms. Murray was like and how she taught, and I just started writing describing her. Before I knew it, I had added an additional two pages of details and ended with a more cohesive piece. I wouldn’t say this piece is the definitive final draft, it could always be tweaked later, but it has been transformed quite a bit from the blurb I wrote in class. This revised piece was also the sample of writing I supplied to my two Skyline students. I explained to them that this piece had already gone through several drastic revisions from where I started and was still open to suggestions for feedback. I think of the writing I did in this class, my unfamiliar genre project was the most successful. It forced me to branch out and try new ways of writing. My favorite piece is “Break-up Letter to a Man” which was one of the first concrete poems I wrote. At the time, I was contemplating how to break up with my then boyfriend. I remember lying in bed one night trying to figure out how I felt. The words for that poem just popped into my head and I scrawled them down on post-it notes. That poem is very emotional to me, but not overly so to the reader. It encompasses everything I felt and wanted/needed to say but couldn’t and in a way provides insight into who I am as a person.