Dear Professor Johnson,

Hello! I would like to introduce you to my Star Wars themed writing portfolio. I

sectioned this portfolio into a home page, project 1, project 2, and a meet the author page. I

added the last page to give you an insight on who I am as a person and what pushes me to strive

for greatness. I am a big role model in my family. I decided to do a Star Wars theme because this

has been my newest and most fun passion. I hope you enjoy and get a bit of an insight on how

I’ve grown as a writer this past quarter.

This class was very enlightening to me personally, as a writer. It was the first time in my

academic career where I got critical feedback that wasn't trying to agree or be friendly with me. I

got raw responses that helped me engage with my writing even further, resulting in a better final

draft. Over my time, in high school and college, the feedback I received tried to sugar coat

everything and only reflected positively about my writing. But this quarter that shifted, and it

helped me look at my writing in a whole new perspective. I understood where the feedback was

coming from and believed it was in the best interest to change certain things. I don't know how I

would've reacted if I didn't agree with the feedback or see that point of view, but I do hope I get

to face this challenge one day. The readings allowed me to critically think about the underlying

process that occurs when I am writing. I thought adding the “How to Read Like a Writer” essay

at the beginning of the course would be so useful. Like Bunns stated, I started to question the

choices other authors made, and my own choices as well. “Choices as large as the overall

structure or as small as a single word used only once—to consider the effect of those choices on

potential readers,” was stated in order to get the reader to truly think about every little thing

occurring in an essay. After reading this essay, I tried to incorporate this questioning in my
readings, though it was quite difficult. We are told to question opinions at an early age, but never

told to question literature and scholars.

I believe that every reading in this course has helped me engage with writing in some

different way. For one, learning how a primary research paper is written, then allowed me to

think like the author. I was able to understand why this course of action was taken rather than

another. The planning of these research papers were also extremely different from other types of

writing plans. We, as readers, were also told the appropriate situation in which these research

papers are valid, “primary research is useful for questions that can be answered through asking

others and direct observation.” This further engaged my understanding of the research process. I

was familiar with research studies but never thought of the situation in which they occur and how

they occur.

Reflection and revision was also a very new topic for me. I never really revised the way I

did this quarter. If I do think of past revisions, it's primarily looking for spelling and grammar

errors. In this course, my two revisions consisted of an entire 180, where I changed A LOT of

my previous work. The first revision for WP2 was a completely different project than the first.

And the second revision of WP2 consisted of photo changes and a lot of excess adjustments.

Downs talked about the positive results in the revision process, and how this couldn’t be possible

by just using one’s first draft. This was extremely educational and eye opening due to me loving

my second and third drafts more than the first. Looking back at them both, the first draft was

incredibly crappy compared to my revisions. Downs also explained that gathering additional

perspectives from my peers will also better my writing in my future drafts. I noticed this when

my classmates and professor had really great feedback that resulted in my new revision to be
better. Overall this revision process was extensively new, but very effective and beneficial to me

and my writing.

And on the contrary, in order to improve my peers' revision processes I needed to learn

good strategies to give proper feedback. This was another eye opening passage, because most of

my feedback was just saying ‘Oh I liked this part’ ‘Maybe add something here’, etc. I agreed

with DePeter about being too scared to give criticism and add questions about other people's

work. This was because of personal reasons and knowing I wouldn’t like someone crossing and

analyzing my writing very harshly. The exercises in this passage allowed me to get a feel for how

my feedback should be, how detailed, how meaningful. I was allowed to use these techniques

twice this quarter, and hope to continue engaging them in future courses.

The biggest reading piece I used in this quarter was “Annoying Ways People Use

Sources.” This piece made me realize the little errors and small, annoying techniques I used in

my writing. I would say this was my biggest weakness because I was never told it was an issue. I

never got corrected until I read Stedmans passages and in my head was like ‘Oh I do that.’ I hope

I have practiced and changed my ways in introducing and adding quotes. But this definitely still

needs improvement.

Work Cited

Bunn, Mike. “How to Read Like a Writer.” Writing Spaces, 2011,

gauchospace.ucsb.edu/courses/pluginfile.php/15288288/mod_resource/content/1/Bunns%20%20

How%20to%20Read%20Like%20a%20Writer.pdf.
DePeter, Ron. “How to Write Meaningful Peer Response Praise.” Writing Spaces, 2020,

gauchospace.ucsb.edu/courses/pluginfile.php/15288484/mod_resource/content/1/Depeters%20H

ow%20to%20Write%20Meaningful%20Peer%20Response%20Praise.pdf.

Downs, Doug. “Revision Is Central to Developing Writing.” Thresholds Concepts of Writing,

gauchospace.ucsb.edu/courses/pluginfile.php/15288526/mod_resource/content/1/Downs%20-%2

0Revision%20is%20Central%20to%20Developing%20Writing.pdf.

Driscoll, Dana Lynn. “Introduction to Primary Research: Observations, Surveys, and

Interviews.” Starting Lines, 2011,

gauchospace.ucsb.edu/courses/pluginfile.php/15288337/mod_resource/content/1/Driscolls%20In

troduction%20to%20Primary%20Research.pdf.

Stedman, Kyle. “Annoying Ways People Use Sources.” Writing Spaces, 2011,

gauchospace.ucsb.edu/courses/pluginfile.php/15288491/mod_resource/content/1/Stedmans%20

Annoying%20Ways%20People%20Use%20Sources.pdf.