Course Porfolio Letter

December 4, 2012

Dear Ms. Mullinax,

In reading this letter it is my hope that you will gain an understanding of the projects in this portfolio. I enclose four projects that I have completed in my English 1301 course at Cisco College. The four enclosed writing projects in my portfolio are a literacy narrative, the essay waiting for Guffman, a textual analysis essay, and a literacy analysis essay. I chose these essays because they show both my strengths, weaknesses and how much my writing has improved. As you read further in this letter you will see descriptions of each essay, and my strengths/weaknesses of each essay.

I wrote the literacy narrative "Reading in Colorado" essay to tell about a personal experience that influenced my attitude towards reading. My intent in writing this essay was to explain how much my grandparents influenced my reading. The purpose of this essay was to write a narrative that features your personal attitude towards reading or writing. My intent while writing the essay was to explain my attitude towards reading not just tell a story. While writing this essay I found myself writing more of the personal side to the narrative rather than how this experience influenced my attitude.

I think that this paper could be improved two different ways. First, is the way I organized the essay. It skips around from one thing to another. Secondly, I need to stay on topic better because I tend to ramble sometimes in this essay. This essay is great at keeping the reader drawn in. It also has a good introductory paragraph.

The in class exam essay waiting for Guffman we had to analysis the movie "Waiting for Guffman". We wrote about the terrible silence that plagued the town. How they kept it at bay and how they ultimately triumphed over the silence. When I wrote this essay I tried to answer the three questions as best as possible. You can see this in my outline which is behind the essay. I was writing this essay I lacked organization.

My essay has a lot of organizational issues. It doesn't have a clearly stated thesis. This was definitely my weakest essay out of all the others. This essay has many issues other than the ones already stated. It has several run-ons, grammar issues, and many structure issues. This essay does have a good thesis.

The textual analysis essay is an essay where you analyze anything visual like billboard ads, movies, newspaper ads, artwork, etc... . I chose to analyze Chick- fil-A billboard ads because they're silly cows always seem to catch my attention. While writing this essay I described how these billboards get your attention. You can see pictures of these cows behind this essay. I also talked about why the cows are on the billboards

This essay has a great thesis you'll find it answered throughout the story. It also has a great sense of organization and clarity. Not only was this essay easy to read it had humor and it was very informative. In the essay you'll find good grammar and punctuation. As well as smooth transitions from paragraph to paragraph.

The literary analysis essay was written over "Desiree's baby". I had to analyze the short story and a character. I chose Armand to analyze because I think he knew his true race all along. In this essay I showed two different sides of Armand. You'll find several context clues in this essay whether it's from reading in between the lines or in the story itself.

This paper needs to be a little more organized. It also needs better grammar and punctuation. It has a good introductory paragraph and a really good thesis. In this essay the use of text evidence quotes from the story are used properly. The essay itself flows very well.

Overall my writing skills have improved through each essay. I feel I did well in this course. I have never been good at writing, but this course has given me more confidence, in my writing than any writing class I've ever taken. This class has helped make me a better more confident writer. I have truly become a better writer.

Sincerely,

Alexis

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