Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Table of Content!
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BLOG TABLE OF
CONTENT
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Post # 1
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Introduction
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Post # 2
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Acknowledgements
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Post # 3
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DEDICATION
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Post # 4
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Course
Placement Essay
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Post # 5
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Final
Project # 1
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Post # 6
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Blog post
of Project # 2
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Post # 7
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Final
Project # 2
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Post # 8
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Final
Project # 3
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Post # 9
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Social
Activist Group images!
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Post # 10
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Final
Project # 4
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Post # 11
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Biography
(Works Cited)
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Introduction!
INTRODUCTION
College Writing 1111 is not the actual name of this course, the real one
is: “Ways
of Seeing, Being, and Representing: “Self-reflexive Critique” in Writing as
Social Practice" not coincidentally but because its exactly what we have
been through this last months. In this course the focus wasn’t really learn how
to write better essays, with less grammar mistakes, and how to us punctuation
correctly, it goes very further than only that. We encounter ourselves in this
course in front of highly complicated readings such as the one from Butler,
Rodriguez, Wiseman, and other writers and we focus through out the semester on
the UNDERSTANDING of each sentence, the meaning of each word and on deciphering
the real message that the author is trying to gave us. On each of our projects
we use different focus, and each of them was about a different topics, problems
or situations, but on each new work that we work on, we should be able to apply
what’ve learn on the past one; and that was the magic of each project. Even
thought projects where about different ideas, we where able to find the
relationship of them and our original focus “An Account of One self”: A reading
that we though that was almost impossible to read, but that we end up loving
it.
This portfolio that I have created has a
specific order of things, and it is not by coincidence neither, but because I
made it in a way that my audience, new College Writing 1111 students, can
observe how on each on each project we where ask to speak back to a specific
idea, and how we always go back to the previous project. Something t could be
really hard to understand this type of essays without reading the original
source on which our work is based on. But even thought of that with this essays
that you’ll find next, our focus was for our audience to understand what they
are reading without the need of knowing what my original source was.
Each project below is in order on which we
made them, from the first one that we develop in September being number one, as
the last one being our Final Work. Besides that you will also find among the
projects some images, blog post, and other things that help me in the
construction of each project, so I also post so you can understand the
improvement as you go.
As you keep reading, take into account that
this was not an easy course, thinking a lot and very deeply was the require #
1, and as the tittle of the course said, we where ask how each reading make us
see, feel and act, in other words how each author like Butler persuade us.
Adorno, Foucault, Wiseman, Rodriguez all of them where able to persuade me, but
each of them in a different way; and that is exactly what I would like you to understand
as you read my project, I would like you to feel what I felt while I was reading,
I want you to enter my mind and see what I see and think about each essay,
reading or Account of the self that we read.
Acknowledgements
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
“I never did anything
alone. Whatever was accomplished in this country was accomplished collectively.”
Golda Meir
First of all It would be very unfear If I start to
post my final works by only giving credit to myself and without mentioning all
the persons that help me to developed, correct, polish and improve on my work.
To start with I would like to thanks to all my
classmates whom together we made the elaboration of many peer reviews to help
each other on different aspects such as grammar, topic sentence, thesis
statement, and many other things that we discuss in class. To my group for the
first Project: Melanie, Ivonne and Sean; I have no words to thank them for the
magnificent mutual respect that we show to each other on the different meeting
that we had. With the combination of the four of us, we made possible the
elaboration of a high quality project, we learn to work together, to not only
hear others ideas but to also accept them, and specially to understand each
other strengths in order to distribute the amount of work in a efficient way.
To James and Alon, my peers for the second project, especially from them I
learn a lot regarding grammar mistakes. Since James is an excellent writer, he
helped me to understand how to localize when there is a sentence transition
missing and the connection that I had to develop between one paragraph and
another.
To my college writing professor
Benjamin Doyle I had no words no thank him for the amazing work he did with my
classmates and me. From hard lectures, readings, grammar, punctuation, to his
personal experiences; all this journey in order to achieve the goal of being
better writers. The patience, dedication and way of teaching and speaking that
he had with each one of us is something to admire. I wanted to thank him
specially for always being so able ask any type of question, and always for
sending his feedback and comments on EACH WORD AND LINE of our drafts.
Professor: You make me understand something very important for life that I will
never forget: I should never be afraid of expressing out loud my opinion, since
is mine and it could never be wrong. Each of us has a different way of thinking
and seeing the world, and as long as we support with good and valid argument
our points of views, we’ll do fine!
Last
but not least I cannot stop mentioning the writing center. I really appreciate the
help that the writing center was able to give me when I need it. They not only
revised me my essays and help me to correct my grammar mistakes, but besides
that they also teach me amazing lessons and tricks that would serve me a lot in
my professional future.
I
would like to finish my acknowledgement with a significant phrase that Helen
Keller once said:
“Alone we can do so
little; together we can do so much.”
Dedication!
DEDICATION
As well as everything that I do, I
would be honor to dedicate this Final Portfolio to my parents. The two persons
that gave the tools and values necessary to be where I am standing today. My parents
support me on every step I make, and decision I take; but is necessary to understand
that they let me take my decisions alone in order for me to learn from my
personal mistake and as my father says to “learn and grow from each seatback”. I
will never finish to thank my father and my mother for all the opportunities
that they have offer and gave me, for all the teachings that they have told me
and for every advise that come out of their mouth. I am so graceful with them
for trusting me that I would do a Good job in the university, and letting me
come to achieve a higher education.
So that’s why I dedicate this Portfolio
to my parents, whom expect my effort on every thing that I do, and I think that
this Final Portfolio is the perfect image and reflection of my effort and hard
work on my first semester on the university.
Mom & Dad: I hope that I can make you proud, the same way
that I am proud of having both of you as my parents and as the compass of my
life!
Course Placement Essay!
My Experience in Reading and Writting!
Writing
and Reading has been a part of my life for many years now. I started out in the
second grade when I lived in Panama and I have been doing it ever since then
whether it is for school assignments or pure pleasure.
The first type of writing I was
taught was expository and narrative writing, which required me to use a lot of
imagination. That is part of why I enjoyed it so much because as a young kid,
it was something that would allow me to escape my reality and make my own
stories, my own dreams, an alternative world. Although I wasn’t very good at
it, I felt it was something that came as an easy task and that I could do it
anytime I wanted to. Writing was sometimes a hassle at the moment but once I
finished what I was working on, I would always feel good about it and feel like
I could do better on the next one and keep on going that way.
As the years passed I started writing
in my spare time but it wasn’t essay writing or stories, I wrote lyrics and
ideas I had on my mind. I found it interesting and a good way to enjoy my spare
time. Instead of watching TV or lying in bed, I would be expanding my
vocabulary and broadening my mind. I did get to learn a lot of vocabulary but I
didn’t feel like I was writing to my fullest potential. I searched for English
writing classes in my school but they were only offered in Spanish so, I would
just read as much as I could and learn from there.
High school started, and writing in
English class started to became an essential part of the academic requirement.
“Students you have 2 weeks to turn in a 3-5 pages essay”; these words were the
ones that scared me the most. At first I was frustrated but I started focusing my
time on learning how to distribute the ideas I wanted to include in my writing in
the introduction, the body and the conclusion. All my life I have had a Latin
education and have studied in Spanish so grammar has always been difficult for
me. Many words are similar in meaning yet they vary in the way they are used in
context and this only made things harder for me and it is something I have
struggled with since but have improved with the years.
Then as we start to become seniors
in High School, and future college students, High School teachers start to
challenge us a little bit more to be better prepare on writing. With this I
started to realize that writing in English was essential for life, and that as
hard as grammar could be for me, I knew that with more practicing I would be better.
As I grew up more and more my
teachers, professors and parents explained me the real importance of writing.
The told me that writing its not only about knowing how to write, but its also
a comfortable way to express myself, let other people know what my thoughts are,
and sharing the ideas that are floating through your mind. Even I understand
that its not only about that, but that its also about knowing how to organize
my ideas in paper, and at the same time gaining knowledge of a more big
vocabulary.
My
experience in Writing its just begging, and I hope that someday I could be a
good writer in English, a language that its not my native language. My writing skills
have improved with the pass of the years, and I know that hopefully they will
continue improving.
On the other hand, reading has been
a big and important part of my academic years. I started to learn the Alphabet
in Spanish since I was 2 years old. As I started to grow up I learn how to read
faster and understand more and more. Then my English classes on school begin;
at the beginning was kind of hard to understand words and meanings on this
language that wasn't my native language. I was still a little boy and my
parents, whom had a good background with the English language, decided to start
talking on English to my brothers and me, on which in the long run helps us a
lot. My experience on reading its kind of good, all my high school years my
English professors help me to develop better skills, basically on pronunciation
of words, etc. Sometimes what makes difficult for me is when it comes to
reading comprehension, meaning that when It comes to reading books, novels, or
even newspaper the vocabulary could sometimes get harder.
There
are some aspects that I look forward to improve on my writing and reading, and
one of them is vocabulary; the essence of writing. Vocabulary is everything, it
can make a full sentence or story sound so much more interesting than it really
is. Exploring different types of writing and gathering ideas from every one of
them is something I would like to do because I always stick to one type of
writing and always stick to topics that are not so challenging. Writing
involves reading comprehension as well and I feel like I do not dominate that
part fully. By understanding what you read, you can collect ideas, learn new
things and of coarse broaden your mind.
If I can accomplish all of this in
this class it would be great. Everything a good writer needs, one already has,
the only thing to do is bring it all out, express him or herself, not be afraid
of one has to say and jump at every opportunity one gets to learn more create
out of himself the best writer he can be.
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