Hello. I’m supposed to tell you things I’d like you to know about me, but that’s about enough information for a haiku. I guess I could start by saying I don’t care for haikus. Also, I am willing to bet my writing habits haven’t changed much due to my laziness disguised as stubbornness. Perhaps this has something to do with my haiku-hating ways. On a side note, I liked to imagine my professor looked mildly horrified when she read my compositions, shaking her head and backspacing on the “You muttonhead!”
The knowledge I’ve gained this past eight weeks: I now know exactly what a Chick-O-Stick is, I found out how to spell ‘judgment’ and Aunt Bee correctly, and I learned there are bagpipers in town. I also learned how to use Blackboard and discovered my laptop and I share a hatred of it. The hardest skill for me to learn, yet most worthwhile, was the free-writing.
My strengths: I have a decent vocabulary and rarely misspell my name. The journal-writing proved to be easy for me, thankfully. It was a good thing it was a judgment-free zone because off-topic blathering is my ‘thing’. My ‘thing’ could have been cliff-diving, crop-dusting, gold-panning, electric eel-juggling, or running unsuccessfully for President of the United States, but I’m burdened instead with off-topic blathering. Lucky you.
My weaknesses: I’m self-critical (see?!) and I tend to overanalyze to the point of apathy. Plus, I don’t even know how to ski, build a log cabin, or accessorize.
The compositions I’ve chosen for this digital portfolio are as follows:
- The Wild Card – “The Tortoise and the Hare” which I chose because it was the one I most enjoyed writing. I transitioned between now and age 17 by incorporating dialogue I had with my daughter regarding the high school race. I feel I improved the composition by making the last two paragraphs sound less like the preachy conversation the Beav so often endured, and more like the ridiculously impossible scenarios presented in the first half. I had noticed that change of tone in the original and was never happy with it.
- The Literacy Memoir – “Class Clown” which I chose because it’s cheap psychotherapy for me. I cleaned up the story so it made more sense, and I added details and imagery to better convey the story. I also added a sense of delusional boasting which was purely for my own entertainment, but I like the effect. My favorite line from the original composition is “As she read the third one, I wondered how such sub-par garbage could even be turned in with no repercussion” and that set the tone for the final composition.
- The Review – “A Chick-O-What?” which I chose because the world needs to know this information! I knew I had chosen a good review subject when I read Professor McGregor’s feedback, “Can’t wait to find out what a chick–o-stick is, and I don’t even eat meat!” I loved researching the topic, and had a lot of fun getting opinions on Facebook. I enjoyed bringing in the reviews of my family, especially my youngest. I chose to intentionally misspell the words he used so his manner of speech would shine through, since that was most of the charm. I feel I used sensory detail for this composition much more than in the other compositions and it helped immensely. The biggest challenge was incorporating web reviews into my essay and providing the ‘works cited’ page. I also corrected the errors caught by Professor McGregor, and hyperlinked the web addresses.
I hope you enjoy reading them. If you don’t, just keep that to yourself. I’m sensitive.
Digital Portfolio 