Writing Portfolio Reflection

As a part of my freshman year English class, we each created accounts with the

Weebly website to record our works of literature. My writing portfolio is a representation

of my development as a writer since the beginning of high school. Having kept these

accounts up until our senior year, we have been able to add a variety of our writings to

our portfolios. My website is categorized into 20 Time, argumentative, creative and

reflective, research, and writing of my choice. Being able to take time for reflection

throughout my education has allowed me to see how I have grown personally as a

student, writer, and as a person.

I believe that I have gotten better as a poet through analyzing other pieces of

modern poetry. The analysis process of TPCASTT helped me to examine and interpret

the meaning of specific poems. During our Modern Poetry unit, we were given

coursepacks of poems, each divided into a shared theme. My favorite poem from the

unit is called ​That’s My Heart Right There​ by Willie Perdomo. I was drawn to this poem

because of the emphasis used through repetition of the words “right there” as well as

the title itself. I was able to connect with this poem and the love that I share for other

through compassion in each relationships I have, whether that be family or a love

interest. Reading this poem helped me to connect back to a poem I wrote as a part of

my 20Time project. I stated, “I find myself surrounded by my pieces of peace.” I was

able to go relate to the love and peace you feel when it seems like your heart is right
there. The use or figurative language and emotion became more personal as I felt more

comfortable in my learning to be confident in my writing.

The process of reflection itself is an important type of writing that I will carry into

my future. Since the first day of my senior year AP English Literature and Composition

class, we have had an amount varying from five to ten minutes in the beginning of each

class to write in composition notebook that were given to us. They are a safe place to

share our thoughts and doodles and to have a moment of peace before the class

continues. Every week I like to take the time to go back and see where I was with in my

life when I was writing as well as to see how I was writing. I was able to use the

notebook to gather my thoughts and use them to plan for my 20 Time project writing. In

the future, as I prepare to enter college, I want to use what I have learned in my class

with other writing endeavors, projects, and reflections. I want to set aside the time to

journal daily or at least weekly. This will give me the opportunity to release stress and

whatever is on my mind as well as to practice an grow in my writing skills.

In a reflection of a personal narrative essay I wrote during my freshman year, I

wrote, “I learned this by realizing even more the reason why I went on the missions trip,

and that was to serve others.” Since the time I wrote this essay and reflection, I have

learned the importance of diction in literature and how to use my voice to describe an

event in my life. I am in a different place in my life than I was three years ago, but it is

interesting to see how my values have stayed the same. In my writing and description

of my first missions trip, I can feel how the experiences made me feel and can visualize

those moments through my reflection of the trip. During my senior year I wrote poems
about the trips I have been on since taking the Chicago missions trip. One of my poems

states, “i look to the mountains /in the silence i find my solitude in you.” Being

descriptives in all forms of writing is important so that the reader is able to understand

what I as the author am trying to portray.

Also during my freshman year, I wrote an argumentative essay on the play

Romeo and Juliet​ by William Shakespeare. It is important to be able to identify the

themes within different pieces of text to be able to understand the author’s purpose and

messages as a whole. Learning to write argumentative essays has helped me in other

classes during my senior year. I was able to practice more with this style of essay in my

AP Government and Politics class, and use what I have learned over the years to create

a well developed argument during my AP test. In the argumentative essay reflection I

stated, “​I related the theme to the novel and how it affected the main character.” Having

that foundation and building on how to analyze the themes we found has made better

able to make connections within the text.

Another type of writing I did my sophomore year was creative writing. I created a

character Hope and depicted a scene from her life along with dramatic events that

altered her life. In a reflection of my work, I stated, “I based the main characters beliefs

in God on my own beliefs, I learned how I myself have hope and understand the

meaning of hope in my own life.” I have not read this creative short story in two years

and was captivated into the pace of the scene. I was able to the mindset and see why I

wrote what I wrote by analyzing my reflection on my own writing. From my literary

perspective now, I see how pain can be depicted and felt by the reader. When reading
the novel ​Beloved​ by Toni Morrison, we are taken into the perspective of an African

American slave and were given a glimpse into her thoughts. In the nonfiction story I

wrote, I wrote about the abusive childhood of my main character from an outsider

viewpoint, my sources being accounts from the news. Collecting information from other

sources of literature can help you to become a better writer and use your creative

freedom, while trying to reach out to the perspectives and lives of your readers.

One of my greatest areas of growth was in writing introductory paragraphs. In

the past I found it very difficult to find a specific starting point to any of my essays and

bounced from claim to claim. Since then, I have written a number of essays during my

high school career that needed an introduction. I am glad to say that over time I have

become more confident in my writing with the help of various classes and learning from

feedback given to me. In a reflection of one of my essays, I wrote, “One thing I want

people to notice is the introduction. This is because the introduction sets up the rest of

the argument.” I always had an idea of what the purpose of an introduction was but

struggled with going about writing it. I have now learned that It helps me to set up my

essay before I begin writing. Focusing on the main points I want to hit, along with

finding pieces of evidence I want to use has helped me to connect my claims within

essays to their foundation in the introduction.

Literature helps us to build connection and interpret the world around us.

Creating my writing portfolio was just a glimpse into my literary education and growth. I

find it amazing to connect my growth within analysis of pieces of texts with my personal

decisions and values. If I ever feel as though I am alone or have nothing to connect to,
through literature, I have something. Finding new genres, styles of writing, and themes

that I can relate to or find interesting are what make literature enjoyable. Having a

choice in what you want to read or write connects you to the page. In a poem I wrote I

said, “we are resilient”. I stand by that truth and the power we have in creating and

sharing our own stories. Literature is a way to develop as a reader and as a person.

When reflecting over the years, I have been able to find my points of weakness and

focus my learning on those so I can grow. Four years later I can proudly say I have

developed and grown as both a leader and a writer.