My name is Hannah Stevens and I am an English major at North Dakota State University.

Throughout my
undergraduate career at NDSU I have taken many classes which have emphasis in both literature and
composition allowing me to further explore both, and hone in on my strengths. This portfolio revolves
around both English 458: Advanced Writing Workshop, and my Capstone Experience which I will address
within another letter. Through English 458 I have been able to explore both digital writing and how a
mentor text influences writing, both of which I hadnt had much introduction to until this class. These
new composition techniques have allowed me to enrich my writing, and I will show how I have met
English department outcomes 2, 5, and 6 within this class and my others during my undergraduate career
at NDSU. As follows, I will include introductions to my assignments from this class: 7 th grade Literacy
Narrative, Life and Literacy Narrative, A Blarg Assignment, An Audio Essay, and a Crafting Digital
Writing Assignment. I will explore how these assignments, and a few others from my college career, meet
the departmental outcomes.

Department Outcomes:
Students wishing to explore an English major at NDSU are presented with a list of Outcomes from the
English department, which are considered important towards being successful throughout the course of
the major. Within this portfolio I will explore outcomes 2, 5, and 6 and explain how my work exemplifies
how successful my years at NDSU have been.
Outcome 2 is as defined by the department: English majors will be able to read (analyze, interpret,
critique, evaluate) written and visual texts.
Outcome 5 is as defined by the department: English majors will be familiar with a variety of theoretical
lenses, learning to recognize them at the 200-level and learning to use them by the 400-level.
Outcome 6 is as defined by the department: English majors will be familiar with literatures as culturally
and historically embedded practices. This outcome includes goals such as familiarity with major writers,
genres, and periods, and technologies of writing.
From this introduction of the outcomes, I will begin to preview my assignments for English 458 that I
believe coincide with each outcome starting with outcome 2, the ability to read, analyze, interpret,
critique and evaluate written and visual texts.

Outcome 2 Written Example

Within English 458 we talked extensively about mentor texts and how they can influence written work. I
have chosen a piece that I believe is a prime example of how I was able to analyze a text and interpret
what it was saying in order to apply it to my own piece within the class (Outcome 2). A mentor text that
influenced my writing for Advanced Writing Workshop was the Ted talk: The Danger of a Single Story
by Chimamanda Adichie, who speaks about how she found not only her authentic cultural voice, but also
warns the audience of critical misunderstandings that can occur when we allow ourselves to only hear a
single story. Adichie tells her own narrative about stereotypes that surrounded her because she was from
Africa, including the opinions of her roommate, who was confused when she knew how to work things
like a stove and had the latest music CDs. She comments on the dangers of knowing only one single
story, like that of her roommate, who clearly only knew Africa as this impoverished country where they
were uncivilized. Adichie also comments on finding her own voice through going through these trials and

explaining to people to truth of her heritage; finding what she wished to write about and letting that single
story influence her to write multiple stories.
My Life and Literacy Narrative is entitled: To Read or Not to Read: Shakespeare was Peer-Pressured Out
of me. I believe this text inspired me to not only find my own voice in overcoming my intense hatred of
Shakespeare, early on in my college career, but to not believe everything I was pressured to believe
initially. My Life and Literacy Narrative follows my own story as I progressed from being enthralled with
anything and everything that had to do with literature, including the works of William Shakespeare. My
illusions were shattered when my classmates in one of my English classes, not only didnt respect the late
playwright, but also hated anything that he wrote. I knew that I had to make a choice and unfortunately, I
decided to be peer-pressured into hating anything that Shakespeare wrote (Life and Literacy). I lost
myself within that classroom and allowed myself to be caught up in that single opinion, that single story,
of Shakespeare. I removed myself from this single story and inserted myself into Shakespeares writing
again by taking the Shakespeare course at NDSU and learning to love the playwright and all he does once
again. I learned what I wished to do with my life because of the effects of a single story, and a single
opinion, much like Adichie explains in her Ted Talk.
Outcome 5 Written Example
Outcome 5 speaks on being familiar with a variety of lenses and while I am familiar with multiple from
when I took Literary Analysis, the one that has followed me throughout my undergraduate career is
Feminism or Feminist Literary Theory/Criticism. First, I explored this lens within English 318: American
Literature II with my paper entitled My Antonia: Elements of a Feminist Novel. Within this paper I
explore the dichotomy of the female and male characters within the novel My Antonia. My analysis
surrounded the character of Antonia as she disregards cultural norms and becomes the protagonist of her
story, thus creating a feminist literary lens in which to read and recognize the novel (Outcome 5).
The example that becomes the strongest within my undergraduate years is my Capstone project entitled,
Shakespeares Leading Lady: Juliets Strength Mirrored in a Young Adult Novelization. Throughout
this project I studied feminism and feminist literary theory in order to defend the character of Juliet from
Romeo and Juliet from the patriarchal context that the play is usually read in. Through this project I close
read speeches made by Juliet and placed emphasis on each speech in order to show that she isnt a nave
teenager as previously thought by many critics, that I also quote within my paper.
Throughout Advanced Writing Workshop I also produced work that can fit within this category. Within
this class we wrote summaries of mentor texts that all included various lenses perhaps one of the most
interesting being the article on multimodal listening: Educating the Senses by Steph Cesaro, which I
also did a presentation on in Advanced Writing Workshop. In writing these summaries, I was able to
interpret what the author was saying and as the outcome states: learning to critically use lenses in order to
influence my own writing, as typical of a mentor text.

Outcome 6 Written Example

Throughout Advanced Writing Workshop, we explored various genres as well as looking back at different
periods in our life in order to successfully create different forms of writing. Through both our Life and
Literacy Narrative and 7th Grade Literacy Narrative, we explored a different period in our life, as well as
the genre narrative, which at times seems informal and frankly difficult to write. Exploring this genre
allowed a creativity that was at time foreign, but presented the class with successful forms of narrative
writing.

This class also introduced students to different genres of writing besides the narrative. Both the audio
essay, and Crafting Digital writing are both genres that are rarely explored within English classes, but
throughout this class digital writing was emphasized, especially throughout the textbook for the class
which was the base mentor text for digital writing. My prime example of outcome 6 focusing on emphasis
on technologies of writing is my Crafting Digital Writing assignment in which I researched a new writing
technique called Twitterature. Twitterature is the process of writing out a novel, play, poem, or perhaps
characterization of a character from a piece of literature, within tweets through the social media platform
Twitter. My Twitterature followed the character Hamlet from Shakespeares iconic play Hamlet: Prince of
Denmark. Through these tweets I furthered characterized Hamlet as a contemporary teen, as I research
through another class his contemporary response to the world around him. Through tweet, and pictures
outlining the play I furthered explored the use of modern technology as it applies to literature. I believe
this was a successful exploration of a new form of literature I was otherwise unfamiliar with.
In addition, through my paper To Control and Be Controlled: Themes of Flowering Judas and When it
Snowed in Kitabamba I was able to emphasize my ability to see the history of a piece and how it affects
the reading of such. This particular paper looks closely at the historically accurate depiction of virginity
and what it means for a womans place in society. This paper illustrates clearly my ability to see literature
as a culturally embedded practice, one of which affects literature read and written today (Outcome 6).

Process
This was one of my only composition classes at NDSU, and I was surprised with how successful I think I
was, in regards to many different genres of writing. The narrative writing was especially hard for me
having written so many academic papers in my time at NDSU, it was difficult to remove myself from the
formal writing and move into perhaps a more informal. My process to combat this discomfort with the
writing style was to explore, and eventually write my own rules for writing in order to stay both focused
on which form of writing I was to produce, as well as to not overwhelm myself with the potential
unknown of narratives and audio essays.
Overall, I am very pleased with how this class ended, and I am proud of the work that I have produced
having felt so much discomfort at the beginning. Through this class, I believe, I have surprised myself
with the ease of writing in different forms, that I was unknowledgeable about. I have also found
something that I would like to study further which is digital writing, as I was so enamored with my
Twitterature project and how writing like that can combat the discomfort students feel towards classic
literature such as Shakespearean plays.

Strengths
I believe my biggest strength within this class is a mixture of narrative and digital writing. I think my
narrative writing is strong, but I also believe my digital writing, especially blog writing, that because of
the short word maximum, required me to hone in on what I was trying to say more effectively.
Throughout my first piece of writing, 7th Grade Life and Literacy, it was instilled upon me to consider
including more metaphor and description, which I did as you can hopefully see from my rough drafts to
my final draft. This decision, however uncomfortable as it may have been, allowed me to explore my
ability to write more description, as I havent been a descriptive writer in the past, especially with fiction
writing. This strengthened my ability to switch between the description and the persuasive, as I believe
needs to not be as descriptive, with the narratives and the blarg.

What I Need to Work on

Overall, I believe I need to work more on my ability to switch between writing styles. It is important for
writers to have a style that they are interested in, but have the ability to write in all different styles if the
occasion demands it. This class allowed me to reach out of my comfort zone into the relative unknown,
but in order to remain a successful writer I believe I need to reach further and practice all styles of
writing. Narrative writing is perhaps the genre that I struggled with the most; the idea of a slightly less
formal type of writing and closer to fiction.
Also, one of my biggest weaknesses is letting others, especially peers, read my work. I am uncomfortable
with the thought of criticism, and need to work to better my comfort level in giving my writing to
someone and accepting their constructive criticism. This class has begun that process for me with my
writing group, but I still have a road ahead of me. I believe I have many strengths as a writer, but with that
being said I have a journey ahead of me, as writing is a never-ending task, not to sound negative. This
class has helped me break out of my shell and I am thankful for being given the opportunity for that.

Best,
Hannah Stevens