Herndon 1 Jerrel Herndon Hofmann Writing and Inquiry 11 December 2013 Final Reflection During this semester, I have

not been able to show off my writing ability. A lot of the work that was done throughout the semester was reflections to readings and inquiries about exploring ourselves. I am a much better creative writer and my work is a lot better when I am able to think of ideas and just write. I work best when I am writing narratives, or with my poetry. But these are things I enjoy, so naturally, I would be better at writing them. My best work that I have submitted throughout the semester would be my inquiry into language and literacy. It is my best because I was able to talk about my own literacy and talk about how I feel about literacy in general. I learned some things about myself while doing this piece and I was able to express what I learned. While doing this piece of writing, I realized my feelings toward the people of my own community. Not only did I write down a lot of ideas, but I was also able to learn something, or realize something, about myself. During my revision process, I focus on reducing clutter and making sure my work and ideas flow together. I try to insure that all of the points throughout make sense and dont confuse the reader even more. The person reading my writing should not look for new ideas from draftto-draft, but instead, look for better flow and better organization.

Herndon 2 I hope that the viewer of my portfolio gets that I am the kind of writer that doesnt dance around ideas. I am a very candid writer and I hope that the viewer of the portfolio can see that in my work. The reader should see that I am strong in my opinions and beliefs, but as I put in a lot of my writings, I am open to listen to other ideas and I respect everyones point-of-view. And as a critical thinker, I like to think about the big picture. After reading a passage and responding to it, I like to think of what the writer of the passage was thinking and how he or she feels about what they are writing. This helps me respond because I like to respond in a personal way. The pieces in my portfolio have been influenced by my peer group during this semester. Kevin Johnson, a classmate and member of my peer group, has done an amazing job reviewing my work and giving me feedback on how I can improve my writings. He has given me his opinion on what he thinks is some of my best pieces and what I should include in my portfolio. He has been the biggest influence, but my other group members, Philip Arnold and Samuel Tate, have done a great job with feedback and opinions as well. In producing my entries, I went through the same process with all of them. First was my rough draft where I just needed to get ideas down on paper. I was not just writing gibberish in my rough draft, but it would not have been anything that I would want someone to read as a final. Then I would get feedback from my group members. They would give thoughts about how I could make ideas flow and what I could say to make more sense. If I confused my group members, then I knew that I should change wording because I would confuse all readers.

Herndon 3 Then I wrote the second draft. This draft had better flow and ideas were expressed better. If there was confusion in my word choice from my first draft, I would be sure to change it. This would be close to a final product, but not quite there. I would show revisions for the professor and provide a cover letter explaining what revisions I made and why I made them. My professor would then give me feedback on the draft, and I would make more revisions if needed. The next draft that I do after this is my final draft and what I submit as my final for the portfolio. In my writing this semester, I have had trouble with making my writing as entertaining as some readers would like. I have worked throughout the semester to make my writing more reader friendly, but it has been a challenge for me in the things that I have had to write. But I have given examples of my creative writing in my portfolio so the viewer will know I am not a completely boring writer. In my portfolio, I included three major writings. I included my Inquiry into Language, Literacy and Identity, Community of Practice Paper, and Midterm Letter. My Inquiry into Language, Literacy and Identity, or ILLI as we called it in class, explores my own literacy and my identity. This is the piece that I realized my feelings toward people in my community. By this, I mean how I feel about the African American community. How a person speaks is a big thing in the black community, and it is shameful how we treat one another. I go into detail about this in the paper. In my Community of Practice paper, I wrote about a community of people that admire the work of Edgar Allen Poe. I was interested in this community because I am an aspiring poet and I see Edgar Allen Poe as a huge role model. This was good piece for me because it was

Herndon 4 a community that I was really interested in. A strength of this paper is its detail into the community. Finally, my Midterm Letter was written in all honesty. I was completely honest about my performance and really did some soul-searching while I was completing this assignment. This is a strength of the paper. Knowing that everything that I wrote in the paper was the truth. I chose the layout of my portfolio because it was different from any other portfolio Ive seen. The image in the background of the portfolio is a bunch of boulders. I chose this image because it is a symbol for my brother and sister. I have a picture of my brother and my sister on my home page, and I wanted to stress how much they mean to me. These two are my rocks and they keep me stable, they keep me grounded. My portfolio in general has a different feel and different layout than most others, and this is because I am different from most other people. I wanted my portfolio to be an extension of myself.