This is an electronic portfolio of my English 112 class for the Spring Semester 2004.  It discusses discuss the importance of effective reading and writing in achieving my personal, academic, and professional goals. 

This class introduced me to authors that I had not previously read.  Some of them I understand, some of them I do not, but I have enjoyed the experience.  The first literary analysis I submitted for this class was an analysis of the fiction titled Soldier's Home.  The paper wasn`t my best, but was a major learning experience for me.  The critique received by my classmates helped me learn to organize my thoughts better and prepared me for the critical analysis of Hawthorne`s character Aylmer, in The Birthmark. 

            Effective writing is important to me professionally because, many times, it is the only impression others have of me.  In today s technology driven world, I find that I have worked with people for years and never met them.  We correspond via e-mail and over the telephone, but we have never met.  It is important that when I correspond with others that I present myself well. 

     Effective writing is important to me personally because it is my primary means of communication with my brothers and sisters.  I come from a large family in the mid-west and write my siblings on their birthdays and on holidays, or just when I am thinking of them.  I still believe that hand written notes and letters are the most personal form of communication and really enjoy providing my siblings with the details of my life. 

            Effective writing is important to me academically because, in order to obtain my degree, I must be able to perform research and communicate ideas clearly and accurately.  My writing must be effective so that the instructors will know that I have grasped the material and have an understanding of the concepts and ideas presented.  When given a choice, I like to perform research and write about the places and things that I don`t know anything about.  This way I learn something new. 

             As an adult, I write procedures for technical manuals.  This writing is procedural in nature, documenting operating and maintenance instructions for various equipments.  The required procedures must be specific, clearly written, very dry, and factual.  The process requires that I look at the equipment as a whole and outline what needs to be documented; then work from the bottom, up to document each procedure.  I am actually pretty good at it, which is my strength professionally but my weakness personally.

            I would like to improve my personal writing skills so that my correspondence is more interesting.  I think I can accomplish this by planning a little better.  I hate to think that I`ve got to develop an outline to write a personal letter, but it would help me stay focused so I will.  Throughout this course I learned that I tend to stray from topic to topic without any transition.  The informal composition exercises addressed to classmates were helpful in improving my skills.  I think that my final paper shows the improvement I made in my writing. 

            I still think that Tom in The Glass Menagerie was the worst of the characters I learned about this semester.  I can not believe he left his mother and sister sitting in the dark!  Everyone else thought that Amanda was so overbearing, but at least Laura and Tom knew where they stood with her.  But Tom!  You know Laura and Amanda did not think he would dump them like that.  At the end, when the narrator says ``his memory of his mother and sister continues to haunt him``, you understand that Tom knows his actions were unforgivable. 

Tim O`Briens How to Tell a True War Story was disturbing.  Even now, I can still picture them singing Lemon Tree as they pulled pieces of Curt Lemon out of the trees.  It`s strange; the things your mind chooses to remember, and how things are remembered.  After submitting my thoughts on what the Water Buffalo symbolized, Ashlee V replied with her interpretation that as the platoon hid the dead buffalo, they were hiding their emotions.  I hadn't thought of that before and it made me realize that we all have different experiences in life and therefore read and interpret stories differently.

            My favorite part of this class was the Cross Cultural Poetry Project.  The poem, Sun Burning was my favorite.  To me, Transtromer drew attention to the shadows that occur in life.  His simple sentence ``The shadow arrives`` says it all.  I liked this poem because it mirrors life, where most things occur in the shadows.  This picture reminds me of that poem.

            One of the initial final papers I submitted discussed how people look to their normal routines for comfort in times of crisis.  As I re-read this paper, I realized that it was horrible and had to be re-written.  I changed the title to include both works being discussed instead of just one of them, then got to work on the main text.  I rearranged the information so that it flowed better, eliminated the non-essential superfluous information, and related the personal example I cited directly to the theme of the paper.  I then concluded the paper in the same way I introduced it; by adding the statement "...making their abnormal reality into something normal" and putting the Works Cited in the proper MLA format.  It's a much better paper now.