My Reading, Writing, & Researching Background:

My reading, writing, and researching background is rooted in a poor long-term approach to these skills. Throughout all of grade school, my approach to reading, writing, and researching was through a "perfectionist" mentality, where I attempted to do everything relating to these skills in one go. To elaborate, I believed the best way to boost my reading skills was to understand everything on the first try, avoiding the need to reread texts, which I considered a waste of time. I took a similar approach to writing, aiming to make my first draft perfect and final, so I wouldn’t have to go through the process of revising multiple drafts, which I thought was inefficient. As for research, I usually took the first answer to a question I had after a quick search on the internet, not diving into websites or sources to uncover more information. My "perfectionist mentality was birthed as a result of my embarrassments and frustrations with my writing skills in third grade, where I had trouble interacting with peers and teachers, and frequently fell behind on classwork. During this time, me and my family had just settled in California after constantly moving back and forth between there and Costa Rica. As a result of me moving, I had few chances to develop my reading, writing, and researching skills in schools. It also didn't help that I had grown up speaking both English and Spanish, and it was hard for me to retain my knowledge on both languages simultaneously. My perfectionist mentality is something I carried all throughout my remaining years in school. It is also something I didn't realize did more than harm to me than good, which is something I will touch in a moment.

My Current Strengths & Goals as a Reader and Writer:

Currently, I am confident with my reading and writing skills. Regarding my writing skills, I am capable of reading and understanding complex texts and critically think about them. In terms of my writing skills, I am able to write cohesively, persuasively, and structurally. Regarding my skills as a reader, I think they need a lot of improvement. I tend to have trouble reading complex texts and critically thinking about the topics they discuss. Although I am comfortable with my current skills regarding these skills, I know that I can push myself to read and write better. For this reason, my main goals for reading and writing are to learn strategies and techniques to perform these skills more effectively.

Learning Challenges I'm Trying Overcome:

A learning challenge I've been working to overcome is letting go of my "perfectionist" mentality. As I mentioned in my background with reading and writing, I’ve always aimed for perfection. However, after doing this for so long, I realized that it kept me “stationary.” Essentially, because I stuck to one method for reading and writing for so long, I limited myself from exploring other approaches. Striving for perfection also meant I ignored the importance of gradual improvement, where steady progress leads to the best final outcome. What helped me move past this mindset was the reading and writing ideas, suggestions, and approaches I learned from two particular assignments for this English 5: Accelerated Academic Literacies Class. These assignments helped me gain a different viewpoint towards reading and writing alike. Also, as I have practice what I learned from these assignments, I have significantly improved the way I read texts and write drafts. What these assignments were, and what I got out of them, are all things I will discuss through the course of this portfolio.

Note:

I certify that the work presented in this portfolio meets my student responsibilities as listed in the CSUS policy manual: http://www.csus.edu/umanual/student/stu-0100.htm.