You are laying on a soft towel with your feet buried in the warm sand, a gentle breeze tickles your arm as the ocean’s wave playfully washes up near your toes. After months of hard work, you are finally getting your well deserved rest.
But how did you get here? A vacation doesn’t plan itself! You need weeks of stressful preparation to create the perfect and relaxing vacation. But isn’t it counterintuitive to be stressed out about your vacation?
With this four step vacation planner, you do not need to stress about a stress free vacation! The foolproof planner will create the perfect relaxing getaway for you and your family. The limits do not stop there! You can use it to plan birthday parties, create a restaurant, or even write the perfect college level essay!
I used the skills from the vacation planner in my essay writing! My name is Shana Sourish, a senior at Kentwood High School, and I am eagerly looking forward to a nice vacation after a tiring four years of hard work. Because I am going to the University of Washington next year, I knew it would be important to take UW 111 Literature to save money and get credit for an English class.
I did not know what to expect coming in into UW 111, what types of writing pieces would we create while studying literature? In the previous semester I took UW 131, where we created essays based heavily on research, detailed analysis and non-fiction writing. I believed this class would be the same, and I was confident that I would need nothing more than a slight refining in my writing skills.
This expectation was squashed like a bug within the first couple of weeks. Before this course, I had written timed essays that were sufficient enough for College Board and research papers that were acceptable for entry level college courses. I did not have the capacity for such critical thinking and incorporations of multiple aspects in my writing. With UW Composition 131, I developed the skills necessary to create an evaluative essay that considered stakes, multiple perspectives and my own analysis. However, the composition pieces I was writing for this class were based on non-fiction readings and published scientific papers. But in UW 111 Literature, the evaluative essays were about pieces of published literature. I was challenged to break free from the structural constraints that I learned in UW Composition 131 and explore more creative approaches to essays.
The skills that I learned from the four outcomes in UW Composition 131 had to be altered to fit with UW Literature 111. Instead of coordinating, negotiating, and experimenting with various aspects of composing—such as genre, content, conventions, style, language, organization, appeals, media, timing, and design—for diverse rhetorical effects tailored to the given audience, purpose, and situation, I would have to evaluate how the author of the book we read did so, and the effect of such rhetorical choices.
Through the semester, I grew increasingly frustrated with my writing because I felt as though I could not grasp the altered outcomes and concepts. I found it difficult to evaluate an entire book and it’s rhetorical choices as well as consider different perspectives on the effectiveness of the book in my writing. However, as I look back on my short essays and major papers, I see the gradual integration of the four outcomes in my composition pieces.
This portfolio serves to demonstrate the skills I have learned in UW 111. Four of my best essays will showcase these skills and my understanding of the four outcomes. To show how I mastered Outcome 1, I will be showcasing Major Paper 2. This major paper will demonstrate how I composed strategically for a variety of audiences and rhetorical situations. For Outcome 2, I have decided to showcase the SA 2, the Synthesis paper. This short assignment will show how I worked strategically with complex information to generate an inquiry and create a conversation across texts. To demonstrate how I mastered Outcome 3, I will showcase Major Paper 1. This major paper will show my ability to craft complex, inquiry driven claim while understanding and incorporation multiple perspectives while accounting for stakes. Finally, I will be showcasing my Sudden Fiction piece. This composition piece shows my flexible strategies for revision by incorporating peer and teacher reviews into my writing.
Each one of these essays encompass the complexity that the UW Outcomes set up. This portfolio is a true representation of progress and current writing skills. UW 111 has guided me in the transformation from an evidence and literal writer into a analytical and creative using the outcomes as milestones.
The end of the year is within our grasps, let us begin to analyze my progress as a writer and plan the perfect vacation to the destination of our choice!
Sincerely,
Shana Sourish