Portfolio Reader

English Department
Cal State Northridge
18111 Nordhoff Street
Northridge, CA 91330

December 10, 2020

Dear Portfolio Reader:

Welcome and thanks in advance for taking the time to read my portfolio. As part of the English 115
course, I was instructed to create a website showcasing my portfolio in which I would insert multiple
written papers. The following papers contained in it are this cover letter which will explain how my written
work in the course reflects the qualities of effective writing as outlined in the course rubric. It also contains
a final draft followed by my first draft of the same first out-of-class essay done in the course as well as a
blog, and a progression exercise.

To go more in detail about my written work, the second and third piece following this cover letter are a
final and first draft of an out-of-class essay which I titled “The Controversy behind Gender Equal Rights.”
This paper is an argument-based essay on whether gender equal rights is a dangerous idea according to
Steven Pinker’s definition of it which states that it is an uncomfortable idea for people to discuss due to
prejudices which are likely to be true, but not accepted by everyone. Hence, the idea of gender equal
rights which is a controversial topic due to the different views on women’s rights and LGBTQ rights.

The fourth written work is a blog responding to a “Black Lives Matter” article published in the Gale
Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection which I titled Blog #1 as it was one of three blogs assigned during
the course. This fourth piece is about the injustices faced by African Americans and the importance of the
black lives matter (BLM) movement with a specific focus on the American Dream. Although some may
believe the BLM movement was started for the purpose of creating chaos, it is important to know the
reason for it which was to create awareness of police brutality for the purpose of having every single
human being get the opportunity to live a better life as advertised in the idea of the American Dream.

Lastly, the fifth written paper is on an article titled “Black Men and Public Spaces,” by Brent Staples on
how black men feel about being perceived by society. For this assignment, I titled it “Progression Exercise
#2.2: Letter to a friend” and it’s a paper intended to inform and explain, to a friend, the main ideas of the
article as well as why the article is so important. When it comes to appearing tough to avoid looking
approachable, due to fear, one performs a hunch posture, but forgets to think of how the other person,
like African Americans, feel in that situation. Because of this, I wrote a letter to a friend explaining how
important it is to know both sides of a story because not knowing can make one unaware that by
performing certain actions to look unapproachable, we are setting African Americans aside, playing into
the idea that they are dangerous when they are just another person, and furthermore, making it harder for
them to be treated equally.

Moving on to describing the strengths of my papers based on the English 115 rubric, for the out-of-class
essay, I believe I did an effective job of writing a thesis and responding to the prompt chosen with enough
evidence to support what I had to say. I clearly stated my stance on the topic by saying that “gender equal
rights continue to be a controversial topic and therefore a dangerous idea” as well as including how I
would support my stance by mentioning how women’s rights and LGBTQ rights are not supported by all. I
also did a decent job of responding to the assignment as I made sure to analyze the situation rather than
input my opinion of how to improve it. In addition, I kept my overall essay well-organized and followed the
order as stated in my thesis as well as did a good job of persuading the reader that gender equal rights is
a dangerous idea.

In the blog, I responded to the author by pointing out the main points which are the injustices made
against African Americans and how it is being confused as a movement that encourages “violence
against law enforcement.” I, then, went on to describe, in great detail, how important it is to be educated
on a topic like this one because if you understand the why, you are more likely to support the movement
which in the long run is fighting for everyone to get the opportunity to live another day. Like the last written
work, I also think I kept my response organized in the way that I summarized then responded rather than
go back and forth between the two.

As for the progression exercise, I did a good job of summarizing the main points of the article in order for
my reader to understand my response to it. Following that, I responded to my reader by reminding them
of similar situations when we had performed the hunch posture to appear unapproachable. Then, I
informed them on how doing such posture could endanger African Americans and how change about
views of them should begin with us by using the appeal of pathos to remind her of peers in high school
who have passed due to similar inconveniences.

On the other hand, the areas of my writing, after the course, that need more work, are being descriptive
enough and structuring my sentences to avoid awkwardness. Before taking this class, I had trouble
writing a thesis due to overcomplicating it, often making it difficult to find it in my introduction in past
essays. Aside from the thesis, I would also have trouble with grammar, structuring sentences, being
descriptive enough, and organizing my thoughts because I would easily get away from the topic at hand
and end up confusing my reader. However, out of all my writing problems, I believe writing well-written
sentences is one of my most persistent problems when it comes to writing due to not always getting a
second opinion on my writings resulting in an essay that sounds too wordy or repetitive since I might not
catch it when I am reading my own work.

With my writing problems in mind, strategies I used to make my writing more refined, are assistance from
peer editing activities, focusing on mistakes that were often pointed out to me, and using tools such as
Grammarly to help with mistakes within my essays. Peer editing activities gave me feedback from a
second set of eyes on the content of my essay and additionally helped me identify what writing
techniques I needed to work on. When mistakes were pointed out to me often, like awkwardness present
in my sentences, I focused on getting to know what an awkward sentence was to fully understand what I
was doing wrong so that it would be easier for me to catch or avoid doing it in the future. Lastly, I got
Grammarly to help me with my mistakes while writing the essay.

Next on the list of topics discussed in this cover letter is the advice I would give my future self, what I
need to know to write successful papers, and any recommendations I have for future English 115
students. Future advice I would give myself is to start doing pre-writes to get my thoughts flowing and to
read my work out loud in order to catch some of my mistakes as well as ask someone else to read my
work for the same purpose. Additional advice includes getting to know your topic because the more you
know, the more interesting the topic will be, and the better your essay will come out. The better it comes
out, the higher chance you’ll get of writing a successful paper which presents a clear and thoughtful
thesis, is free of grammatical errors, has well-organized paragraphs that follow a clear thought process,
and includes many details. To achieve such a paper, however, I have learned that it’s important to first
gain a better understanding of the individual parts of writing a paper and how they work to ensure clarity
and organization in order to create an essay that is superior and well-polished.

To finish off, recommendations which I will give future English 115 students is to do pre-writes if they tend
to get stuck when starting essays, to not be afraid of writing about their own opinions on topics as this
class is big on listening to each other. To relate, if possible, articles read in the course to your own life to
make the readings more interesting to write about and to have someone look at your work to ensure that
what you are turning in, makes sense and has minimal mistakes. Be open to feedback, get a good
understanding of individual parts that make up an essay and how attaining one part can help build the
rest, and to overall take full advantage of everything taught in this course as there is always room for
learning new tricks and techniques for becoming a better writer.

Sincerely,

Ana Garcia-Godinez