Writing portfolio reflection
Upon reading through my writing portfolio, I’ve realized that this semester has challenged me in terms of the types of writing that I’ve been doing. I was used to my writing being strictly academic in nature, essays consisting of themes or thesis with supporting evidence that typically came from texts with basic analysis. I was used to the 5-paragraph rule: intro, body one, body two, body three, conclusion. This semester was different. My writings became more frequent and casual. I was no longer writing long essays but shorter reflections on the pieces that we looked at in class and the topics that we were discussing. My voice became the strongest part of my writings, rather than the topic I was writing about. Reading my pieces, I’ve discovered the important parts of my writing that make it mine. I think that my punctuation and sentence structure are the most unique parts of my writing. Something that I tend to do is change the length of my sentences; I’ll switch from long sentences, made cohesive with punctuation, to short small sentences that break up my writing and place emphasis the points I’m trying to make. For example, in my Hannah Montana reflection I wrote “I can also say that there is not a single Hannah Montana song that isn’t an absolute bop. They’re all good. The Climb specifically, it’s synonymous with Hannah Montana at this point. You can’t think of one without the other.” I go from a standard-length sentence to three words to another standard sentence that’s broken up by a comma. Using that small sentence catches the attention of the reader and makes the writing more dynamic. I also used commas to lengthen my sentences, which keeps my ideas together.
I think that the strength of my voice is the best part of my writings. It’s hard to determine what makes your writings good when good writing is subjective. I can read a piece and think that it’s good and another person can have a different opinion. In this case, I think the strength of my voice is what makes it good while another person could say that it’s detrimental to my writing. I noticed that my voice shines through in not just casual reflections or creative writings but in pieces that are more academic. In my “The Orient” essay, I use both short and long sentences alongside punctuation to prove my point. “The irony of this is that she has sex with other men anyway, but the reader understands the point. Actually, the fact that she still manages to have sex with other men further proves the point that women should be repressed because if they are having sex with men while they are being actively repressed then what will they do if they aren’t being repressed?” The second sentence is extremely long and is posed as a question at the end. The length of this sentence has the same effect as the shorter one that I mentioned earlier, it grabs the attention of the reader and stands out in the paragraph. The only notable difference between these two pieces is the tone, one is laid-back and feels like a conversation while the other is serious and is pushing an agenda.
One of the things that I’d like to continue to improve on is my essay writing, specifically when it comes to making deeper analysis of the pieces that I’m looking at and how it relates back to the thesis that I’m posing. In class we worked on analyzing pieces verbally, but not very much in our writing. I think that it’s important to be able to make deeper analysis and I struggle with that.
