Reflection

In Portfolio #1, Portrait of a Writer, the assignment was to write an essay that draws from personal experiences in development as a writer, in order to teach an overall lesson an audience could take away from reading the essay.  My essay, Sculpted by Authors, recreates my journey towards becoming the writer I am today and showed how these experiences have “sculpted” me as a writer. From reading the essay, as it follows my progression from a reader to a writer, an audience could learn that while reading may seem a tedious task, there is a lot of power and knowledge to be taken away from reading other authors work in order to develop yourself as a writer. In the essay I was able to vividly recreate the scenarios that taught me the personal lessons that developed me as a writer, all while effectively connecting these scenarios with the concluding purpose of the essay. The essay effectively completes the overall basic necessities of the assignment, yet it is relevant to say that this was my first essay in college; in result old habits of high school writing had still lingered with me throughout writing the essay and are reflected in the final draft. Sentences in the essay were awkward to read since I used too many descriptive words in a sentence, as well as basic grammatical errors that, with more proofreading, could have been easily fixed in order to make the essay flow more effectively and smoothly. The completion of the assignment reminded me of the value of proofreading final drafts as well as created a good foundation on how to effectively write papers in a college curriculum that targeted a specific audience while delivering a clear message.