Portfolio, 1

May 7, 2017

Professor Davis
Northern Oklahoma College
English Department
1118 West Hall of Fame
Stillwater, Oklahoma 74074

Dear Professor Davis,

Through this class I have experienced a wealth of knowledge in English composition,

basic grammar, and literature. I enjoyed learning about different cultures through the
books we read and activities we participated in. I especially enjoyed interacting with the
children at the elementary school and helping the students at Lincoln Academy with their
I Believe essays. I am thankful for the interactive learning environment that was
provided to me in Honors English Composition II, and I will use the knowledge that I
gained in my future career. In my portfolio, I will be outlining and describing the
different essays I have included and their attributes.

Who I will not be

In this essay, I was assigned to write about traits or qualities that I would never possess. I
chose to write about bullying, as this is an issue that I feel strongly about. The professor
encouraged us to develop a creative introduction, so I invited the reader to think about a
time when they felt their absolute worst. I then developed the essay around my intro, by
talking about how bullying makes other people feel this way. I used personal experiences
to add interest to my essay. In addition, I used several sources about bullying to add
validity to my paper. Finally, I concluded my essay by describing the character qualities I
would possess. This was my first essay in English Composition I, and I was grateful to
the professor for the constructive criticism she provided.

Cancer Strengthens a Friendship

This essay was one of my favorites because it allowed me to write about one of my best
friends. The topic was Others in our lives. I chose to write about my friend Preston and
my relationship with him. This essay was one of the easier essays Ive ever written,
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because I was telling a story. However, because of the structure of the essay, it was
sometimes hard to stay consistent with the overall mood of the paper. In fact, I was
advised by my professor to consider reordering the paragraphs in my essay to provide
more build for the conclusion. In addition, this essay taught me how to smoothly
transition between paragraphs.

The Dangers of Gaming

Through this essay, I was able to better understand how to insert sources into my writing.
This essay was particularly enjoyable to write because of the wide range of information
about the subject I chose to write about. The topic of this essay was Technology, and I
chose to write about video games and the violence they can potentially create. I wrote the
essay with the intent to portray violent video games in a negative light, however the
information I found caused me to reevaluate my ideas regarding this matter. Though I do
not play violent video games, I was able to better understand the wide world of gaming
through research done for this essay. This was one of the first research essays I had ever
done, and I was encouraged with how it turned out.

My 4-H Career and how it has shaped my life

This essay was for a 4-H scholarship that I have worked towards for several years.
Through this essay, I was able to detail and describe the impact that 4-H had on my life
and my future career decisions. Because of my extensive involvement in this program, it
was somewhat difficult to condense my 4-h experiences to two pages. However, this
essay taught me how to concisely organize my experiences so that the essay appeared
professional. I organized this essay by different aspects of 4-H I enjoyed. Through this
essay, I was able to see my own development as a writer; as I have written many essays
for 4-H. However this essay in particular was the most efficient at describing my 4-H
career in full detail.

Addicted
This essay was written as part of the Lincoln Academy I Believe project. I wrote this
essay on the importance of community service. I used personal experiences and quotes to
add validity and interest to my paper. My favorite part of this essay was my introduction.
I introduced my essay with the question, Have you ever realized that we are surrounded
by addicts? This question not only got the readers attention, but also allowed me to
easily organize my essay around the question. In addition, I concluded my essay with the
addiction comparison, which tied back in to my introduction. This essay specifically
taught me not to use personal pronouns in my writing (like you and our), but to instead
write in third person, only.
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What does Literacy mean to me?

In addition to my writing experience as a concurrent college student, I have also had the
opportunity to work with elementary age children to improve their writing and literacy
skills. For 3 months, I worked with a Title 1 Reading teacher in her classroom at Glencoe
Elementary school. This experience allowed me the opportunity to learn more about
special needs children and how to cater to their disabilities. Because of this experience, I
developed my own program: 4-H 4 Literacy. I organized this program as part of my 4-
H Citizenship project. Through this project, I conducted district and county wide book
drives to benefit Wings of Hope crisis center. At the end of my project, I had collected
over 800 books to donate to the children of Wings of Hope. Sadly, Oklahoma is currently
one of the lowest ranked states in overall Literacy levels. I believe that by encouraging
children to learn to read from an early age we can attempt to fix this problem. In addition,
I believe that Title 1 Reading programs should be given more state funding so special
needs children can be given the opportunity to read as well.
The writings I have included in my portfolio have helped me to become not only a better
writer, but also a more well-rounded student. In our society today, there are many high
school and college students that do not know how to construct an essay, much less a well-
organized email. Through my experience as a concurrent college student, I have been
given a taste of what college students experience every day. I am thankful for this
experience to work alongside college students, and I am excited to start my own college
journey this fall.