Kristen Frankena
English 1200/Section 056
Melissa Tetterton
Final Portfolio
May 4, 2011
Dear Professor Tetterton,
For my final portfolio I have choose to revise project two, the blog and annotated bibliography, on eating disorders. Even though I struggled more with the other two projects, I wanted to revise project two because it was the most interesting and beneficial piece I think I’ve ever completed. I started out my revision process by going through my blog and making notes of small grammar changes. Then I let two of my roommates view my blog and critique it. The main things they pointed out were the flow of my blog, detail, and wordiness. Certain paragraphs needed to be rewritten so that the paragraph transitioned better to the next paragraph. To better explain eating disorders and exactly what they entail I needed to elaborate more on certain topics and give more facts. I tried to work on the wordiness by removing certain words I felt were unnecessary but I struggled a little bit with this.
I revised each blog and posted each individual revised blog as a separate page on my actual blog I used for project two. The first page is titled Cover Letter and is located along the top next to the Home link and the other pages continue and say Blog 1 revised, Blog 2 revised, etc.
This course has been a struggle for me because I have never had to write a lengthy paper besides my senior project paper. I have always struggled in English and feel like I was never properly taught how to write a decent paper. I still feel like I need a lot of work and help when it comes to writing papers because I am not good with words, especially when it comes to putting everything together and making it sound right. I lack the use of strong vocabulary and sometimes feel like my skills are at a much lower level then they should be for a sophomore in college. I have definitely improved though because of all the practice I have gotten this year by doing the three large projects and by the elements you’ve assigned to be included in the projects. This course has opened my eyes to a whole new world of writing and I have learned many new aspects and techniques to make my papers even better and make me more encouraged to better my writing. I am glad you chose to use MLA format for our papers because I have never had much experience with MLA and needed to use it this year for a class and I know that I will need to use it in my future classes as well. The annotated bibliography was also very helpful and actually helped me a lot with my writing for project two.
I think that you did a great job as an English professor because you were very open minded and helpful. You gave us freedom to write about anything and everything and accepted what interested us. It made me more excited to write and more motivated. Project two was by far my favorite project you assigned because it was different from the typical paper, allowed us to elaborate on our topic with not just words but visuals, and expanded my knowledge of other resources used to share information.
Sincerely,
Kristen Frankena
