Final Portfolio

Matoaka Berry
ENG 241
May 10, 2010
English Portfolio

This class was one of the last English classes I needed in order to graduate this spring. I went in thinking that this will be another boring English class with all this reading and writing, little did I know what I had walked into. It started off different than any other online class I have taken before. It made me look beyond what was in the reading. This class helped me to develop my critical thinking skills and writing skills. It has also helped me to look at myself in a different way. With everything that has been going on with me during this semester this class has allowed me to see that things are not as bad as it seems. I have gained the respect for history and have learned how rich in history Richmond Virginia has. I have also gained a since of respect for the struggles the country has went through in the past because it has helped me to understand some of the struggles we are going through now.
My portfolio is designed to showcase the growth that I have gone through this semester. I will show all my hard work to complete and keep up with the weekly assignments and blogs. I worked rather hard in this class because the level of thinking and the level of knowledge that was in this class to gain. This portfolio will show why I believe that I have worked for and deserve an “A” in this class.
The first assignment was to write a letter to someone who plans to immigrate to America and let them know what it means to be an American. They only know about the country by what they seen on television and heard. Well when I first read this assignment I thought to easy, I have lived in America my whole life so this is going to be a piece of cake. Well I was so wrong about that. The reading came from the Heath Anthology book by J Hector St. John de Crevecoeur. The question “What is an American” came from his reading. I must say when it came down to me writing out what I thought an American was I was lost for words. It was kind of hard to explain to a person who has never been here what an American is especially when you don’t know if what they heard was good or bad. So I begin to think if I was going to move to another country that I knew nothing about; what would be most important to me to learn before I get there. This is when I came up with the subject of knowing the history of the country; this way you can understand how the country works and what to expect from the people. Next I came up with the fact that America is a place where dreams come to. I hear from people all the time that they came here to become a model, a singer, an actor/actress, or to be able to provide for their family. Then I concluded that when you come here just enjoy every experience. It may be a lot to take in and a lot of adapting but it is a great place to live.
This assignment was a great way to start this semester off. It allowed me to look into myself and see what America meant to me. It showed me how life would look to others from another country. I enjoyed this writing so much because it made me look at life in a whole different meaning. It made me think about taking this place for granted and just being so stagnate. So now I have vowed to go learn more about this country and at least the state in which I live in.
The next assignment that has helped me through this emotional semester was the sublime experience assignment. It made me go to this place that I have kept shut out for a while. I must say that I am not a very open person but this semester has allowed me to open up and speak out. I guess I am open when it comes to writing and this class has really shown me that.
The sublime experience was very emotional for me. I decided to write about my aunt and her cancer diagnoses. This is an area that is very soft to me because it is still new and it is something that I am still going through and it is a up and down battle. Even though this is not me who is sick I am still feeling the effects of it because of the warning that it causes on the family to. I chose this topic because even though it was not a great experience mentally it was a great experience to learn from. As for now in my life there is nothing that has happen to me that will take the place of this. What she has gone through has shown me that I have to be strong for her, for me and for my family. She has been through so much and I have been right there beside her. So this assignment has been very helpful to me to see what I have gone through and that I have been strong through it all.
The next assignment was living a full life. This was a fun writing for me because it really let me express myself. I have set the standard for myself that when it is all said and done for me I want my full life to consist of me leaving a positive name for myself. I want to help with the girls growing up that come from single family homes. I want to show them something different that they are not use to. Being able to provide for me and my family is also going to contribute to me living a full life. Right now I am working on finishing my degree program so that I can be able to provide. To me living a full life is more than just the material things and being able to live to see 80. I would love to see that age and beyond but also I want to be known as the person who helped out in my community, who made a way for the youth to grow and who just did all I could do to better myself.
We then moved into the next month where the learning continued. This assignment made me look more into myself. I have always thought about myself and making sure that I am the best at the things I do, but when it came to this assignment I was lost on how to write about myself. I just feel that the best me is strong and independent. I have been this way for so long that it is just time for me to keep it up. I have to be strong for me and my family, they depend on me. My independence was learned at an early age. In this assignment I used quotes from the story so that I can relate it to my life now. I felt that the story we had to read had things in it that reflected in my life. With everything that has happened to me this semester I have to be strong. It felt like every time I took a step forward I get pushed ten steps back, but this is okay because I have made sure that I am on track with school so that I can graduate this May. So even now when I look back at this assignment I still believe that the best me is strong and independent.
My next assignment I felt may have been a little controversial. The assignment was entitled “Is it Fixable.” I chose to write about gay marriages. I personally don’t have a problem with them getting married but I also see the religious part that people are complaining about. One thing I say is that it is not something we will have to deal with in the end so let them have the same rights as everyone else who gets married. This is the only thing that I think they want more than anything. I was very uncomfortable when posting this because I didn’t want to offend anyone with my words. I didn’t want to make people feel that I was coming off to strong because I have been known to be a little too strong on my opinion. I did like this assignment because it allowed me to put out my views on one of the topics of today. No it may not be right but I am not here to make all the fuss over it, I have too much going on in my life to worry about that. I know that people feel strong about certain things especially when it comes to religion.
The last assignment that I am going to share is the assignment of the virtues. This was very interesting because there can be a lot of things that you can use but when you put a number on the important ones it gets hard. I feel that the list I came up with is very good. The one that I picked that I need to work on was the one with self-respect. This one is very important in my community because the youth is losing this. They have no respect for themselves but then wonder why no one else is respecting them. This is also why I want to get a group and help the youth get this back. This is very important because you have to respect yourself.
This semester has been full of new and exciting experiences. I have grown in the field of critical thinking. This semester has made me think so much harder about things and how I feel about certain issues. I have also learned more about myself and the fact that I am more expressive on paper. I have also learned about my history and how to put it into play when it comes to what is going on now. This semester has also made me more away on people thoughts. I have also enjoyed the discussions in our groups. It was very interesting to see what people had to say about certain things and to see that there are people out there who think like you. This was my favorite because I thought that when I wrote something no one would agree with me. This was a great class and I believe that my hard work will pay off when I see the grade that I get out this class. I believe that I have shown how I learned and grew this semester and why an “A” is what my work shows and what my participation shows.

A Semester Overview

This semester has been a world wind of new experiences starting with the first assignment: “What is an American?” I really enjoyed this writing because all these years I thought I could answer this piece with no problems until it was right in front of my face. This assignment was fun because it made me think on a whole new level. Yes, I was born and raised an American so this should have came naturally to me, but it didn’t. I had to think about all the things that I felt was important to me to be an American. One example that I used in this blog post was that America was a place that dreams come to. I feel that this is so important because in many countries I hear that the reason they came to America was for opportunities. After really sitting and thinking about this topic it made me change the way I viewed the world and the people coming here. I am now more interested in learning about different countries and cultures and understanding them. This topic has shown me that even though I have always been an American it is a little harder than I thought to write about it and explain it to people who have never been here.
Another reading and topic that I enjoyed writing about was: “My sublime experience.” This time in the class made me tap into my more emotional state of being. I wrote about my aunt and her having cancer. This is such a soft topic to talk about and write about because it is something new to me and it is still happening to me. This was and still is an experience that nothing else in my life can take the place of. It may not seem to be a moment or time of greatness but to me I have come to realize that this turmoil that I am going through is making me realize how important family is and making me put things into perspective.
Another way that this class has helped me put things into perspective is with the assignments: “Virtues for living the good life,” and “The current social practices.” These two assignments were great writings for me because they help me think differently. The one with the virtues for living the good life was amazing. I can also tie into this the week that we had to write about living a full life.
These two topics to me now can go hand and hand.

I have had a busy semester and a lot of negative things have occurred in my life this semester and it has made me want to quit but after I started writing the thirteen virtues that I felt were important I realize that I have come too far from where I started from to give up now. Some of the virtues that I had in my blog that I hold onto now are: determination, commitment, strength, confidence and self-respect. These are important to me because I have to stay committed and determine to reach my goals, even when the road is rough.

The more that I look back now I realize how this class has helped me keep it together. It has shown me things that I might not would have seen if I didn’t take the time in this class to do so. It has also shown me how as a person I am growing and that I have a long road ahead that I have to keep moving towards. I am not sure if this class was meant to do this but it has been a great source of strength and confidence to me. God shows us things in strange ways and I have learned to keep my eyes open for me because they will come at any time.

This has been a melting pot of experience that I have learned from. I have also learned that history does just repeat itself. One example is the week we did the reading and writing about history. I chose to name my blog “History………..then and now because of the fact that the same things we are going through now, we have already been through before in history. We are just a new generation that is receiving it. It is funny how when things happen in the world we think that it is so new to us but really it isn’t. When I wrote my blog I chose to write about healthcare now and how people are getting made because of the new bill that will give everyone the chance to get health insurance. I feel that this is such a good thing because I work at a hospital and I see how things are when they come into the emergency room with no healthcare. People take for granted their health and feel that if they are healthy now then they won’t need the insurance. What they fail to realize is that tomorrow may bring something new and you may need to have health insurance just to be seen. So my argument is that even though I changed the way I looked at it that politics are not going anywhere. It is something that fuels this world.

So no matter what I thought about this class when I was signing up for the class went out the window when I did the first assignment. I knew that this class was going to be more intense and make we work harder to write. I felt that before this class I was an ok writing and interpreter. Now after taking this class and going through everything that this class has to offer I realize that I have a lot to learn and that I am not as deep of a thinker that I thought I was. So I enjoyed everything that I went through with this class and hope that I can have other professors who makes me think outside of the box and then be able to put it to words and then to paper.

Learning Reflection

This semester was full of growth and understanding. I feel that through it all I kept up with the assignments rather well. It was a lot of reading in this class to keep up with and some of the reading was a mouth full but I felt like I made it through. I read the stories and even use the internet to help me understand parts when I was still confused. Then I went through and broke it down into parts that I felt I understood the most and went from there. The assignments were long depending on the week; or maybe they just felt that way because of all the other things that were going on with me this semester. If I had some better time management skills then I would have done a lot better when it came down to how I was doing the assignments for the class. I do feel that with everything that I went through this semester and the course work that was giving I was able to keep up with the reading and give it the best shot that I had at that present week.

My participation in the discussion was great. If I remember correctly, I was able to do all but one of the discussion questions. This part of the class allowed me to see how others viewed certain things and how they choose to write about them. Even though I felt like my opinion was different and not as deep as others I still gave my opinion and then commented back on others. This way I allowed my group members to see how I felt about things and how I felt about what they had to say. It was a great way to keep the class in some kind of connection even though this was an online class. So I feel that was participation was a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the better grade.

Posting to the blogs was different for me. As I have stated before this has been my first class where I had to write a blog. I found this quite interesting and once weeks went past I was able to see all the assignments that I did and see how well I was doing in the class. I do feel like this was a way to see if I was keeping up with the assignments and I was. If I missed a week I was able to see that when I went to my blog and see that a week was missing. I also enjoyed being able to see other people blogs and see how they chose to design them. Then I was able to read some of their work and see how it relates to mine or if it didn’t relate I got to see their views. This made things very interesting. I felt that was able to keep up with the blog and that I enjoyed writing them even though sometimes it was hard putting my thoughts on paper.

Beliefs

I feel that my beliefs are a little different from what I read. These days religion is important to people but it is not shown too often in public. People don’t have religious talk at work because some places don’t allow it due to the fact that there are so many beliefs. This is another difference in today and back then. Now you have so many different religions and it is not looked down upon because it is different from yours. I find it very interesting to hear about different religions. I think it is good to learn and be exposed to different things so that you can broaden your horizons.

Now as far as some of the similarities, I can say the biggest is the belief in Christianity. This is still around today. Teaching the children about religion is something that I think is similar to todays life. People bring their kids to church and/or children church so that they can learn about their religion. This is a big plus to me and I wish that I would have had the opportunity to do the same when I was growing up.

I am not really sure how this story compares to my belief because I am still finding my way. Because I had to be the one to take myself to church and want to learn about God, I can’t say much about the comparison and the contrast. I can say that now I feel the world is a little more excepting to religion and the different beliefs.

The Big Picture

This semester has been a learning lesson for me in this English class. It was my first online English class and the first class I have ever had to do a blog for. I must say it was fun writing the blogs, even though sometimes I was unsure if I was doing the assignment right. I have had some hard times trying to understand some of the reading for the blogs and keeping up the comments on our discussion pages. I must say that to me the big picture of this class and doing the assignments was to take us out of our box of reading and understanding. I cannot speak about everyone else in the class but I can say it has opened my eyes up to a lot of things. I am not a big reader so this was wonderful for me. It has taught me to look outside the box. See beyond the big picture that is always in our face. One of my favorite works that I think made me think about things was the blog that we had to write about what it meant to be an American. I have never thought about this topic until this class. I felt that I lived as an American everyday because it was all I knew but I didn’t quite know how to explain it to someone else especially someone who has never been to America. This was a fun post and I really enjoyed writing about it and I believe that I did a fantastic job on it. It has also made me think about taking things for granted and that no everyone knows about the American culture. This has also helped me at work as we are taking classes and going through all these diversity courses.

My profession of change

While I sit back and think about things that occur, I have to say that change has to come for my youth. I sit and talk with people all the time about how as a young lady I see things that need to change with the way we think and the way we handle things. I see that there is no more foundation in the homes and that the youth are acting out for attention of any kind. I say that this maybe because are babies are having babies and not giving themselves time enough to be a child before they have to play the role of an adult.
I have taken a pledge within myself to help the youth move forward. I see the struggle within them. I see that they want to learn different ways and want someone to help provide a backbone for them. So I plan to one day turn this into reality and help the youth move in a new direction. So I am here today to write my profession of change.
I believe that we can change and move forward; and no one can take that belief away from me.
I believe that if we take our time with the youth and provide for them things that they are not use to then this can encourage change. This kind of change will not happen overnight so the people who are working with the youth have to be patient and understanding. They have to allow some setbacks and teach them that with setbacks you have to push forward so that you can catch up to where you where meant to be.
I also believe that this place that will provide this change should grow and expand so that more youth can be affected. This way the program can provide more positive ways for the youth to grow and tell others about it and want to get into the place of change.
I believe that once this program is up and running and the youth are proving they can change then this will take place all across the city.
I believe that if we have people in our community that is committed to the youth then they will see that there are people who care about them and wants to see them head in the right direction. They will then learn that they can have trust in someone who will not let them down but will not always be around so they have to learn to believe in them.
I say if we all come together as a community and put foundation back into the youth then they have no choice but to move forward.
Now with all my beliefs come my disbeliefs. I have to share them because I believe a person has to no both sides of the story before they can fully understand you.
I do not believe that the way the youth is today is the way they will stay. People like to say that certain things can’t change and that what is going to happen is going to happen. Well I believe differently and I say that things can change if you want it to. Change has to happen within the person first before they can learn to change their thoughts and actions.
I do not believe that this program will fail if all the people in the program want to make it a success. So you have to make sure that the people want to make a change and be successful. They have to be positive people who can change themselves. You will be surprise how helping someone else might cause a spark in yourself and help you make a change.
It is impossible to say how this will all take effect. You have to have realized that some negative things will take place in all this change. There will be people who will not be so excepting to change and think that this will be a waste of time. You have to push those people and thoughts out your mind and continue to move on. Then you have to know the type of youth you are working with so that you know how to treat them. All youth are not the same and they will require different things but in the end you are still looking for the same results and that is change. Change is something that in time will happen and this will happen giving it some time for change.

"Virtues for Living the Good Life, pt. 2"

I plan to cultivate this virtue by opening a center for young girls and help them restore their self respect. I feel that the young girls these days need to see that first there are people out there that care about them and their well being. Then I will provide workshops to help them grow. They will learn more that self – respect, but this will be their first step to becoming a young adult of value. This is just my small way of cultivating this virtue.