4.9: 4.9 Portfolio- Filtered Memories
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Reflect on the composition process.
- Reflect on how the composition process affects your writing.
- Use composition for learning, critical thinking, and communicating in various rhetorical contexts.
As part of this course, you are creating a portfolio of your compositions to show your development as a writer. As you add to this portfolio, you assess your growth as a writer. The portfolio of your work allows you not only to have a record of your compositions but also to reflect on those compositions and the process involved in writing them. In this section, you will write a reflection on the process you followed in writing your turningpoint story, including revision and editing. Consider your original intention when creating your essay and how close your final composition comes to fulfilling that intention.
Reflective Task
Answer the following questions before writing several paragraphs reflecting on the personal turning point you wrote about in this chapter. Consider both the process and the outcome of the writing assignment.
- Why did you choose the turning-point moment or event that you did?
- Which part of the writing process came the most naturally? Which was the most difficult?
- Which parts of the composition do you think are the strongest? Why?
- Which parts of the composition would you still like to improve?
- How did you develop your voice as a narrator as you wrote?
- If you were to write another turning-point story, what would you do differently? (Consider topic, organization, structure, point of view, and voice.)
- How did your story change through the revision and peer-editing processes? Name at least two changes you made, and reflect on how they made the piece stronger.
- What did you learn about yourself, both as a writer and as a person, from this exercise?
Further Reading
The following titles are good examples of essays, memoirs, and poems that tell personal stories.
Akbar, Kaveh. “How I Found Poetry in Childhood Prayer: In the Presence of the Long Faultless Tongue of God.” Literary Hub , 12 Sept. 2017, https://lithub.com/kaveh-akbar-how-i...ldhood-prayer/ .
Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings . Random House, 1969.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza . 4th ed., Aunt Lute Books, 2012.
Baldwin, James. Notes of a Native Son . 1955. Beacon Press, 2012.
Beasley, Sandra. Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl: Tales from an Allergic Life . Crown, 2011.
Bryson, Bill. I’m a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America after 20 Years Away . Broadway Books, 1999.
Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life . Pantheon Books, 1994.
McCourt, Frank. Angela’s Ashes . Scribner, 1996.
O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried . Houghton Mifflin, 1990.
Pausch, Randy. The Last Lecture . With Jeffrey Zaslow, Hyperion, 2008.
Schutz, Samantha. I Don’t Want to Be Crazy . Scholastic, 2006.
Walls, Jeanette. The Glass Castle: A Memoir . Scribner, 2006.
Woodson, Jacqueline. Brown Girl Dreaming . Nancy Paulsen Books, 2014.
Works Cited
Abrams, Shane. EmpoWord: A Student-Centered Anthology and Handbook for College Writers . Portland State U, 2018, https://pdx.pressbooks.pub/empoword/ .
Belcher, Diane, and Alan Hirvela, editors. Linking Literacies: Perspectives on L2 Reading-Writing Connections . U of Michigan P, 2001.
Coates, Ta-Nehisi. “Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Writing Process.” Interview by Martha Teichner. YouTube , uploaded by CBS Sunday Morning, 5 Nov. 2017, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1bOLOmix1Y .
Dickens, Charles. The Pickwick Papers . Chapman & Hall, 1836. Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/ files/580/580-h/580-h.htm.
Ferris, Dana R. Teaching College Writing to Diverse Student Populations . U of Michigan P, 2009.
Guptill, Amy. Writing in College: From Competence to Excellence . Open SUNY, 2016, https://milneopentextbooks.org/writi...to-excellence/ .
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Haunted Mind.” Twice-Told Tales , American Stationers, 1837. Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/9209...9-h/9209-h.htm .
Malcolm X. “Literacy behind Bars.” The Autobiography of Malcolm X , Ballantine, 1964. Northern Local School District, https://www.nlsd.k12.oh.us/userfiles/63/Classes/4521/ malcolm%20x%20-%20literacy%20behind%20bars.pdf.
Twain, Mark. Life on the Mississippi . James R. Osgood, 1883. Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org/ files/245/old/orig245-h/245-h.htm.