Reflective Letter -portfolio

Trevor White

This fall quarter my writing process has developed from writing word webs to outlines and using They Say/ I Say in my essays. This writing process has changed the way I formulate my ideas and how I stay focused on the topic at hand. For example; learning about Bacon's Rebellion first, before choosing a topic to write about definitely helped improve my thought process. I began with the topic that I thought most, interested me. I believe that using this writing process, helped the way I wrote my essay, the quotes that I used made my ideas and thoughts shine. For example; from essay #1 Bacon’s Rebellion, “Smoking was the most common form of tobacco consumption in the late 1700s, and smokers needed far more than tobacco to light up. They needed pipes, and hundreds of pipe makers supplied them with millions of ceramic pipes.” (P.81 Roark) I used this quote to establish more information about how colonists and Europeans demanded more tobacco and why it was common. Overall using this writing process compared to previous learned writing processes, has made me grow into a better writer and has taught me to use database research and of course They Say/ I Say.

Since I've been writing about history lately it has changed the way I learn about History. Writing about history changes my perspectives of what happened. I think that history is important to how we operate today. One of the huge occurrences that changed history was the Newspaper. Historical events that happened were often written in the newspaper. Mainly to form public opinion, which changed the way people thought. I think that I would’ve believed what was written in newspaper too, because it was new and interesting to read. I take writing about history as an advantage because you get to put your perspectives and views of what happened with what other people have said. Using this in my writing was also difficult though, I often found it hard to find beneficial research and information to back up my views. In essay #2 I gathered information from online databases that I used in essay #1, but I struggled a bit getting the information necessary for each topic. Although, I did pick the pace up and gathered my info as quickly as I could essay #2 was just as hard. The only advantage I had while working on Essay #2 was the fact that I got to write about myself so to speak, rather than giving information as a 3rd party person. It gave me a chance to use my imagination and basically write a story. That's another thing that I noticed, how essay #2 gave us the option to write a letter or story. It also gave me the freedom to do basically what I wanted, but of course by following the rules given. If I were to write this paper all over again I would have used my time more efficiently and having a concrete outline and have all the research done, with explicit citations for the paper. Now at the end of the quarter I feel more confident in my writing skills and can use what I’ve learned in future classes.