Jake Oberlender

FPE
Its really hard to create you e-portfolio just right. With no rules in mind where do you
even start. For me the first thing I did was made the tabs easy to see by having all of the different
pages at the top of the website. I organized it so that every page is interesting to look at it. Each
page has a picture, a draft, and the final product. This helps with understanding each essay better.
Each tab is to grasp the kind of writer I am through the various assignments I have completed
throughout the whole year.
When you first open the e-portfolio you see the home page. It talks about what the
portfolio is all about and displays a picture of what I thought about every time I wrote an essay.
The next page and most important page on my e-portfolio is the final portfolio essay. The essay
that sums up the whole semester and the organization of my e-portfolio in just a few pages. It
expressed my writing process and thoughts on all the assignments I did. Under the essay is an
outline of how I was going to write this essay. I thought this would help me organize my paper a
little bit more instead of just starting to write.
The next page is the blog. I had never wrote a blog before and I didnt really know what
to write. My blog at the beginning of the school year was not very good. My first blog I asked
very short and simple questions, I didnt have much thought into them. I should have asked more
complicated questions like What is the purpose of the RRL instead of What is an RRL. But
going back and reading over them I now I see my blogs differently, I feel that I have become
more open in my blogs. I wasnt so timid and didnt think too much, I just wrote. My fourth post
was probably my favorite because I really got to express my opinion on the writing system in

high school. I started talking about how it was for me in my high school and what I thought we
could have done. We should learn from other writers and their writing style in novels. This will
help out a lot to really understand good writing. I put more effort into them and tried not to
sound robotic. I made it as if I was talking to someone else. My blogs went through a big change
and now sound more generic.
The literacy narrative page is where I have everything regarding my literacy narrative.
The first time I started the essay, my first impression was that I had to write a story of my writing
in the past. I assumed being literate in something meant writing, but then I discovered you can be
literate in many things. The pre-writing artifact on the left of this page explains what was going
through my mind when I was trying to figure out what I was literate in. I wrote down many
different ideas starting from my elementary school writing, but at the end of it I figured out that I
was literate in wrestling, so I chose to write about that. The picture on the write was an activity
we did in class and it went further in depth about the meaning of literacy and helped explain
what the narrative should have been about. I first started with two different drafts on wrestling.
The first one was about wrestling all 4 years in high school and the second was about my last
match as a wrestler. The second draft sounded as a much better story so I focused on that one.
There were many things I need to change like fixing my tenses and adding more dialogue.
Dialogue was a big thing I focused a lot more on. A lot of my sentences changed from being
broad to intense dialogue. From I took over when he finished by saying I had an amazing
season with everyone and that I am really pumped to go out there and win my last game as a
senior and as captain. To This is by far my favorite year in wrestling. I had an amazing season
with everyone and I am glad that I got to be your captain. So lets go out there and win our last
match as a team. My writing changed a lot during this paper, I learned about opening up and

saying every little detail I possibly could. I was too general with every sentence, but I changed
that with dialogue, it gave that in the moment sensation. This was my favorite paper to write, it
resonated my senior year and I got to express everything I felt that day. Finishing this paper
changed my look on what literacy meant to me.
The next page is my portrait of a writer. This essay was a big step up from the literacy
narrative. Our goal was to answers questions without sounding like were answering questions. I
never did this kind of writing before so it really confused me at first. My first draft was exactly
what I was not supposed to do. It sounded like I was addressing each question one by one. I
needed it to flow a lot better so it made more sense to readers who didnt know I was just
answering questions. I really had to take the knowledge I learned from the literacy narrative and
implement it into my portrait of a writer. One brainstorm activity we did in class that helped with
the paper was to write different introductions and conclusions for our group mates. The picture
on the left of the portrait of a writer page shows what my group mate wrote for me. This gave me
ideas on how I could change my paper to sound better. At first I had As a writer in high school I
did not believe this. I was not the best writer back then, it especially showed junior and senior
year. But then I changed it to I never understood high school writing so I did not believe this.
For me, writing was hard and the topics were very boring. I wasnt a very good writer, mostly
because I couldnt come up with anything interesting to say in my writing. These few sentences
were a big step up from the originals. For me, having someone else write my intro and
conclusion was a great way for ideas to flow. I got to look at my paper from a different point of
view and it helped change the rest of my paper. The feedback that she gave was fairly useful, she
said to elaborate more and make things stand out in my paper so I did.

After the portrait of a writer the next page is the wild cards. This page displays my RRL 5
from this writing course and my journal 4 from my freshman seminar class. These items helped
me grow my writing in many different ways. RRL 5 was our last RRL so we got to choose what
chapter we wanted. I chose the changing as a writer. This chapter meant a lot to me because it
explains a lot of what I felt through the whole semester. I was not the best writer coming into the
class but now I say differently. The RRL resonated with me and it is a very helpful wild card.
The next wild card was my journal essay from UCOL. The assignment was to talk about my
process since the beginning of the year. This piece made me think about my adjustment to
campus and how well I was doing in my classes. I especially thought about writing because it
was the one class I thought I had the most progress in.
The Artifact page was next. I displayed two different major artifacts, one is feedback
from the Professor and the other is a notebook artifact. The first artifact is feedback from
Professor Ingram and when reading her comments I felt a mix of joy and disappointment. She
said that the paper was solid and fun to read which was great, but there were still things I needed
to work on. She said the tense was wrong and I needed to add dialogue. This feedback allowed
me to see what I did wrong or was missing and I was able to fix it. The second artifact is RRL 4
and this was an important artifact because it was about two authors giving tips on writing
success. The advice they gave was very helpful when writing my essays. It helped fill in the
blanks on things I could have done and also corrected me on bad habits like procrastination. The
RRL was very useful and made me a better writer from it.
The last page is my midterm. This essay looking back was mile marker on my growth as
a writer. It was the first time in the semester I got to look back and reflect at how much I have
changed. I was a timid writer going in, but in the midterm I expressed different feelings. I

branched out and really explained how the class has made a difference in my writing. Now I can
read it over and see how I can use this in my future writing.
I looked over all of the concepts, but the ones I used in the midterm I see feel strong
about. One concept that comes to mind that I feel I do the best at is the writing process and
revision. It is a pretty plain and simple concept to me. You write the essays in proper format and
express your thoughts and opinions. Then go back and revise your essay to see your errors and
mistakes. They are pretty much the basics of the course that not only I should have the habit of
doing, but the whole class as well. Another concept I feel I am fairly good at is providing and
receiving feedback. I feel that I have given my group members great advice and pointed out their
strengths and weaknesses in their writing. They have also given back some very handy tips on
improving myself. I have taken their feedback well and implemented them in my essay and it
made my essays ten times better. One concept that I still have some trouble with is getting out of
my comfort zone. I dont really know the reason behind my struggles with this, but I have a hard
time pushing the boundaries and getting comfortable with my writing. I feel that maybe over
time and with a lot of practice I will be able to be less uncomfortable about it. Im hoping by
1102 I am able to push those boundaries.
Throughout the semester I learned things about my writing that I never knew. I wrote
essays I didnt expect I could write. But the whole year one thing I did know is that I wrote every
essay as best as I could. I put a lot of effort in all the assignments and I never completed one half
way. I worked real hard the semester and I feel I deserve an A. I am proud of the work I have
done and Im glad I am able to share it.