Portfolio Introductory

     The choices I made for my writing were to make my writing better for me.  I don't care what anyone else says about my writing I just care what I think about my writing.  I did a process work for my Inquiry because I feel that was when I got to write at my strongest point.  The changes I made in all my writing were based off what I felt were best for my writing.  Just because Ms. Andrews edited my papers and told me to change or add something in doesn't mean I did.  If I didn't like how the changes sounded or went with my paper I didn't change them.  I did learn how to better use rhetorical techniques this semester though which i am grateful for.  Overall I enjoyed english 1102 this semester and will hopefully used some of what I've learned this semester and last semester during my life.

Theory of Writing

I believe writing is a beautiful thing.  Writing itself can come in many different forms and have many different meanings.  I think without writing we would have nothing.  Just like language, writing is a necessity for us to survive.  We learn so much from writing and I hope to contribute to that.  I hope that my writing teaches someone somewhere something.  When writing though we need to consider a few things first.  We need to consider what it is we are writing and how we want to portray the message.  I don't believe we need to think of an audience because writing is an art and any art should be portrayed in the way the artist wants.  Writing goes hand in hand with beauty is in the eye of the beholder, because just because someone thinks a piece of writing is trash doesn't mean everyone does.  No piece of writing is hated by everyone because if it was hated it wouldn't have been written in the first place.  I just believe writing is an art and should be treated as such.

Writer's Profile

    At this point in my life I feel as a writer I am at my strongest.  I love to write poetry and unfortunately we couldn't write any in class, but I can just express things extremely well through poetry.  I honestly don't think this class has improved my writing at all.  I really haven't seen change in my writing since I was a senior in high school.  I used to write really small points and have choppy paragraphs, but being in college in general has helped me to write much better than I did.  I'm not saying your class wasn't beneficial, but I just feel I literally learned everything in this class last semester in English 1101.  Writing all these journals and blog posts though did keep me writing through out the semester so when I was required to write for other classes it wasn't like I hadn't written anything all semester.  It made it easier to organize my papers in other classes and write them much faster.  Overall as a writer I see myself as average compared to others.  I don't write anything outstandingly well or absolutely terrible either, which I am okay with.

Class Introductory

I am a pretty quiet chilled out person.  I am friendly with everyone and don't have beef with anybody.  From reflecting on my life I most likely became the way I am because of the environment I was in and probably because of music I listened to.  Where I lived was a relatively nice middle class neighborhood, but a little down the road was where my best friend lived who I went to school with.  To anyone from Greensboro they know that over near Summit Avenue and close to Lee st. are not the best places to be hanging at, but it was where I practically lived at.  I spent alot of time down the road over there and saw things most middle class white kids don't see.  I saw alot of violence, drug dealing, people getting jumped, street fights, the whole nine yards.  From being around this environment you begin to have to adapt to it, so resorting to violence always seemed to be the answer.  It has followed me my whole life.  I always react when I hear people coming up behind me, from seeing others get jumped.  I began to hate violence and started listening to all kinds of music that had messages that relate to people in the streets.  I listened to Tupac, Bob Marley, Albarosie, and many other artists that sent messages to me to stop violence.  I learned that sometimes violence may be the answer though.  If a man tries to take something I worked hard for, I'm not going to just let it go, I'm going to fight for it.  By looking at me you'd never guess that I had been in that sort of environment because I hide it and not many people know the things I've seen or experienced.

Small Stakes assignment

Personal Creed

I believe in love.  I believe everyone just needs to love each other.  We all just need to sit back, chill, and vibe out to some sweet tunes, because music has the power to change emotion and with chill music we all can just chill out and express no signs of hate.  Right now I am on a journey trying to find out something.  I still don’t know what that something is, but I do know that I have learned more on this journey than I have in my whole life.  This journey isn’t just any regular journey, it’s a spiritual journey and I’m learning about myself and the world around me.  I’m learning that everything has a meaning and value, but everything also is manmade.  Because everything is manmade, maybe if we took away material possessions like money, jewelry, tvs, computers, etc. then people would start to look at themselves as people rather than looking at themselves through what they have.  The most important thing a person can do is to stop every once in a while and look deep into their soul and study themselves.  This journey taught me a lot and may not be a journey most people have the want to go on, but I did and I can say it taught me three very valuable lessons. I learned to live, love, and laugh and I can honestly say that’s all one needs to make it through this life.

Reflection: 

This piece was my favorite piece we did.  I was able to write my beliefs down and my basic outlook on life.  I liked being able to put down what I really thought on paper because it helped me to learn a little bit about myself.  I was able to express how we need to stop judging others for what they have and stop judging people all together.  I liked being able to write almost whatever I wanted without being marked down for it.  I felt as if I could express myself the most freely which resulted in good writing.

Journal Entries/ Blog Posts

Hall and Morrow Response:       I dont believe in these article's definition of good writing. i think good writing is based solely on matter of opinion from the individual. Someone's writing style, in my opinion, can be compared to someones music style. That person can be in love with their own style of music along with some other people, but not everyone will like that type of music and they don't have too.       Shakespeare can be easily compared to country music in this way. Alot of people say country is garbage as do many people also say Shakespeare is stupid garbage. While some may think this, others may be absolutely in love with country music, or Shakespeare.      To me, good writing can't ever really be proved by anyone. Good writing is a matter of opinion, but the way our world works with a system of hierarchy means that a highly ranked scholar, or writer or whatever could literally write some bull on a piece of paper and consider it absolutely genius and other people would agree just because hes a higher ranked scholar than they are. People today are afraid to have their own opinions and i believe that students arent given the freedom to decide on their own whether or not a piece of writing is good or not. So basically these two articles were a waste to read because i don't even base good writing off what they say. Good Writing: Good writing is writing that can display your own opinions, or views.  Good writing also has good grammar and good organization and structure.  Bad writing is writing that is poorly organized, poorly structured, and contains poor grammar making it hard, for others to understand your point.

Last Lecture: The last speech was a great speech to me.  He had many powerful points that had an impaxt on me.  Many of his ideas and points i could relate to my own life.  His brick wall quote was the easiest for me to relate too.  i have had a few times in my life where i have hit a brick wall.  His quote meant to me that when you hit a wall youll still get over it.     Ive hit brick walls in my life that ive hit and had to get over.  i got over them in success and they gave me much. onfidence.  I feel that his last speech was about finishing strong, and since this was his last speech he got the chance to finish hard.

Fox: The argument does have some rhetorical techniques that is uses to make people join a side. They use kids to get at people's ethos and make them feel sorry. Overall though I thought the whole argument coming from Fox's side was soft. The only thing they had was kids, they didn't seem to use many other techniques to outdo the other side. The other side of the argument with the blonde lady was, in my opinion, the strongest side. She may have not gotten at people's emotions etc. but she used facts which to me are more important than techniques. Quote Journal: This line from the song Boss D.J.  by Sublime is connected to me because it describes me well.  I'm funky, not a junkie, but I know where to get it.  It means I'm not a drug addict junkie, but I'm funky and burn plants most people don't ha ha.  The way the words are put is sort of a rhyming pattern where funky rhymes with junkie.  This quote draws me in because it describes people who are literally like that. Reflection: These posts and journals were what I felt to be the best ones I had written.  Not all of them are my best pieces of writing ever, but out of all my journals and blog posts these were the top 5.  Rereading each piece I could see how my writing changed over the semester and how I began to expand my ideas of writing altogether.

Inquiry Reflection

    I thought the inquiry was very interesting.  It was unlike any research I've had to do since I've been in college.  I never thought about how language practically impacts everything about our society.  Without language we would have no communication, no news, nothing.  Without language we wouldn't be able to survive.  The steps of the inquiry got really confusing about halfway through and I got real lost, but never asked for help stupidly, and ended up just kind of ignoring it until I started to see how others were doing theirs.
    The blog wasn't as bad as I thought.  It was really easy to become accustomed to, and once I figured it out it was a straight shot from there.  Although I didn't understand the purpose of the blog at first, I see now it was to save everyone the time of having to make a whole new e-portfolio when 85% of our work was already posted here.
    Overall both were a learning experience and has changed my outlook on language as a whole and how without it we would fail as a society.