JAYMIE GOBEILLE'S E-PORTFOLIO

To be honest I have always hated writing. You can give me any book and I’ll read it but tell me to write a paper and I dread it instantly. I don’t know what it is. I think I just get aggravated because I feel as if I can never translate my thoughts onto paper. I’m also not that creative so my essays always turn out really boring. Before this semester started I thought I was done with English and writing essays forever and then when I found out I had to take English 1102 I was less than thrilled. At first I never really understood why I had to take English in college anyways. I’ve been taking it for the past 12 years I think I know how to read and write thank you very much. The first day of class I wasn’t really expecting much. English 1101 was a breeze and I was assuming 1102 would be as well. Not so much. I think 1101 was based on easier concepts. The things we wrote about seemed simple and not really all that complex. This past semester in 1102 I have been able to write essays and partake in group discussions about real life controversial topics. It has forced me to think about things that I wouldn’t necessarily think about on a day to day basis. I think before I came into this class I just wrote an essay to get it done and not because I had any actual investment in the topic. But when we were told were going to be writing essays like the This I Believe essay I actually didn’t mind writing it. I hate to admit but I actually like writing when I’m allowed to say what I want and not be constrained by having to follow a bunch of rules. As I look at my portfolio I see that I have become more comfortable with my own writing. I’m not really afraid to have my own voice in my essays, even if the tone is really boring, it’s still my own thoughts and opinions. I actually enjoyed writing these reflection pieces because I am able to see how my thought process has changed over the past few months. Like I said I normally would just quickly type up an essay and get it over with but throughout the semester I found myself actually looking over my essays to make sure they were giving off the right message or reflecting myself as a person. I’m obviously not the next J. K. Rowling but I think I’ve learned to appreciate writing and what writing can do. At this point in my life I don’t really have any huge future writing goals but I do appreciate what I have learned so far. As for challenges, I don’t think I was faced with too many challenges except for the whole I hate writing thing... I guess that’s a big one though. Like I said before I think I overcame this challenge by actually caring about what I wrote and investing my time into it. Other than that I didn’t face many other challenges. I think the part of this class that has helped me the most is the class discussions. I’m normally not one to want to talk in front of a group of people but in this class I found myself sharing my opinions with others and bouncing ideas off of other people. I think that helped a lot when it came to writing my essays because I already had all these thoughts and ideas bouncing around in my head. I also liked hearing what others had to say (sometimes). I think the group discussions also allowed me to kind of break out of my shell and talk to people which again is something I don’t normally do. I liked the assignments that didn’t necessarily have much to do with writing but somehow still tied in to what we were talking about. One of my favorite speeches that we watched was the one about single stories. I thought it was really powerful and helped me to open my mind and look at things through different perspectives. My overall favorite assignment was the inquiry project. Maybe not the digital part so much because that was extremely aggravating, but I liked researching a topic and trying to answer a question that isn’t easily answered. It was a lot more interesting to research a topic that didn’t have a definite answer because that way I was able to look at it in different perspectives. I think that particular assignment really required a lot of thinking because I could’ve went about it in multiple ways which was another reason why I like this assignment. It gave us a lot of freedom and really allowed us to show a little bit of our own personalities which I thought was great. Another big aspect of this class was peer response. I’ve never liked reading someone else’s paper and telling them that what they wrote isn’t good enough or that they need to change something. I just don’t feel like it’s my place to do that. I feel like if someone wrote something then they wrote it for a reason and who am I to tell them to change it? Even after this class I still have that same opinion. I don’t mind others giving me suggestions, but I more than likely won’t use them unless it’s from the teacher. I know that sounds mean but it’s the truth. I felt like during these peer reviews I never really got any useful feedback except maybe spelling or grammar. I think others have the same opinion as me where they don’t like to give others suggestions on their writing. When I actually got suggestions it felt like they were almost forced, like they were just giving me advice because they had to. I didn’t mind though because most of the time I liked my writing the way it was. When it comes to “good writing” I still don’t completely know what should or shouldn’t be considered good writing. I really think it just depends. Something that I consider bad writing could be a masterpiece to someone else. But I guess if I had to give my own definition, good writing to me is when the writing has meaning and isn’t just a bunch of random words on a piece of paper. I think I still need more experience with writing before I can decide what’s good or bad. Overall I had a very good experience in this class. I appreciate what I learned and what I was able to accomplish. At the beginning of the semester I was dreading this class but eventually I learned to like it. I think I now have more of a love-hate relationship with writing instead of just flat out hate… which is a huge step that no other class or teacher has been able to accomplish so thank you very much Ms. Andrews. I truly do appreciate the time I have spent in this class because it has helped me to become more confident in my own writing.