Writing Portfolio Cumulative Self-Assessment

What is the easiest part of writing for you? Developing a thesis? Creating description? Organizing?

I believe that using description is the easiest part of writing. For me, I think it comes naturally to say what I feel and describe the things I see.

The most difficult? Spelling? Punctuation? Finding support?

Using the correct format with my writing is something I definitely struggle to do consistently. I usually have to go through a second, third, or fourth time to see if I formatted things accurately.

As you look over your writing, select one particular essay with which you are satisfied. Below, discuss the specific effective traits of your piece. In other words, what did you do well? What does this particular essay have that the others don’t? BE SPECIFIC! Support your answers with excerpts from your essay.

The best piece of writing I think I have submitted to Mrs. Reidenbaugh was my essay called “Mystery Men” that discussed the book Their Eyes Were Watching God. My use of description and multiple vocabulary and transition words make reading the paper smooth and interesting (or at least in my opinion it does, you may think differently). I also think that I succeeded in really trying to understand and describe the characters and their personalities or tendencies. The following excerpt of my essay supports my claim. “Joe or 'Jody' Starks was a man who fed off of and hungered for power, supremacy and ultimate control. He seemed to have his own ideas of who Janie was and who she should be.”

Over the past year, in what ways have you grown as a writer? What sorts of things do you now do more effectively? What specific skills have you learned? Do you have the “hang” of the five-paragraph essay? Will you be prepared for the OGT?

Knowing and understanding what a paragraph is has been something I learned as a freshman. I feel ridiculous that I didn’t know what a proper one looked like until this year. Writing essays has definitely become simpler as a result of this. I believe that I have been prepared for the OGT next year. There will probably be more that I need to learn before I take it, but as for this year, the knowledge I have gained will definitely aid me when I take that test.

Set a goal for next year. What do you still need to work on? What areas of your writing would you like to strengthen?

I would love to advance my creativity, imagination and vocabulary. I’m interested in becoming an author so developing those skills next year is really important to me.

One Body

One Body

Big brown eyes and a heart that'll steal yours.
Why can't I keep you forever?
One smile from you and my heart dies
But your laughter brings me back.
Back to this dirt floor you call a home
Let me take you back with me.
How can laughter have a presence
In this sadness, this prison, this broken family.
These were my first thoughts.
You taught me. You helped me. You showed me.
God placed you here. A lack of walls but abundant in love
Your joy is a choice. You chose well.
We gave you a fence for protection.
We fed you food for your lunch.
We offered you arms that would hold you.
These things I consider nothing
To the lessons you unknowingly taught us.
No scholars could have captured this mind.
5 years old 5 years old 5 years old
Pay no attention to numbers
They do nothing but deceive
Languages, countries, lives, struggles
Body. We are a part of only one.
Play your part.

So It Goes, Slaughter-House-Five Essay

Sarah Johnson
Mrs. Reidenbaugh
Humanities 6/7
April 2, 2008

So It Goes

I believe that war's foremost purpose is this: to kill one for another's "survival". Vonnegut very strongly expresses his hatred towards war by leading us through the life of Billy Pilgrim. By reading into Billy's life we learn the severe effects that war has on one's everyday life. Through the many random and seemingly irrelative examples he provides, we can more easily discern the true characteristics of war. I believe that nearly every comment Vonnegut has made in this book is relative to the huge concept of war. While having only read this book one time through, I was able to make only a few connections, but I am sure that I will learn to recognize more in my future readings of this book. Slaughter-House-Five by Kurt Vonnegut has undoubtedly achieved its goal in expressing the disgusting attributes of war.

"How nice, to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive." When participating in war, one may experience nearly every single awful and gruesome thing this world could possibly offer. As a result, living life after being in war without those traumatizing and eventful experiences can hardly be called living at all. When on the battlefield, you experience raw evil firsthand. After clearly seeing what this world is really made of, appreciating and recognizing what good there is in the world may be easier said than done. To the world, a soldier may seem dead in spirit. I believe however that in reality, all of their emotion and feeling is left on the battlefield.

Vonnegut's clear description of what true beauty is (quietness, trust, and sharing) aids one in their realization of war's disgusting characteristics. Gunshots, crying, screaming, and arguing complete the soundtrack of war. Quietness is something that it lacks, which contributes to its ugliness. When fighting in a war, countries are constantly suspecting each other of wrong doing. Trust is something they can not afford in battle, which again paints even more clearly a picture of war's hideousness. Different countries unwillingness to share things such as land only feeds their selfishness. This selfishness results in war and hatred between countries.

Vonnegut provides for us a very powerful illustration on the full intensity of war by explaining war in "rewind". One certain illustration describes the dismantling of bombs and how the dangerous minerals that they contained were 'hidden cleverly so no one would ever find them'. I think that this specific detail is very important because it uses reverse psychology to highlight America's vicious and cruel tactics in war. The illustration also talks of high school students who had been American fliers. This fact reveals the extremely young age at which people were being made to fight and also the educational benefits they were forced to leave behind. Vonnegut does not simply rewind back to the very start of war, but he traces humanity back to the very first human beings on earth; Adam and Eve. This addition portrayed the innocence that humanity had first started with which then provided a clear scale of just how destructive the world had become.

In reading this book, my own dislike for war has been strengthened and has grown into hatred. While it deprives many of being physically alive, it also hinders more from being emotionally alive. "So it goes."

Mystery Men, Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay

Sarah Johnson
Mrs. Reidenbaugh
Humanities 6/7
March 7, 2008

Mystery Men

In every man, there is a mystery waiting to be solved, a world ready to be explored, and a surprise hoping to be discovered. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, we read earnestly as we wonder who Janie will succeed to understand and connect with. Through each one of Janie's marriages, hardship and conflict exist, but success in love belong to only one man. Through the process of trial and error, Janie begins her journey of discovering what it means to love another and be loved herself. Desire dwells in every human being, but what people choose to feed that desire with differs among people. We see in each of Janie's husbands a different thing that they yearn for. Only one of these men's desires matches that of Janies, which ultimately is the cause of their love's success.

In the beginning of this book, we understand that Janie compares love, marriage, and passion to a pear tree. Janie's first husband, Logan Killicks, according to her was "[…]desecrating the pear tree[…]". Why, then did Janie marry Logan and what exactly was her reasoning? Nanny's thoughts of love and marriage included wealth, high social rank, and stability while Janie's consisted of openness, passion, excitement, and fun. After hearing Nanny's incessant demand for their marriage, Janie became open to the idea foolishly thinking that marriage meant love no matter who the person might be. After belonging to a marriage with no respect, ardor, or happiness, Janie left Logan for a man named Joe Starks who had promised her a better life. Through her failed marriage with Logan Killicks, Janie learned "[…]that marriage did not make love."

Joe or 'Jody' Starks was a man who fed off of and hungered for power, supremacy and ultimate control. He seemed to have his own ideas of who Janie was and who she should be. In the beginning of Joe and Janie's romance he offered adventure and excitement, but he quickly became one who tried desperately to hide Janie's voice while she was trying to find and express it. Joe constantly looked at Janie not as a person, but as an object; she was just another "accomplishment" that he could flaunt to the other townspeople. Selfishly, he repeatedly beat Janie down in an attempt to build himself up. We see towards the end of his life that Joe's power struggle is no match against death, although he fights to the end in vain to beat it. After years of Janie's voice being hushed and silenced by Joe, she learns to speak her mind and expose her true self.

From the moment we see Tea Cake come into the story, we see him as someone who pushes Janie to live her life to the fullest. Tea Cake's excitement for life and respect for who Janie was turning out to be made her fall head over heels in love with him. He understood that his loyalty was to his wife, and that understanding was something that Janie's previous husbands had lacked. Tea Cake and Janie's different personalities and actions both complimented and shaped the other's character. They went through and experienced both the good and the bad things of life together such as work, play, and the hurricane. Janie once told Tea Cake, "Once upon uh time, Ah never 'spected nothin', Tea Cake, but bein' dead from the standin' still and tryin' tuh laugh. But you come 'long and make somethin' outa me. So Ah'm thankful fuh anything we come through together". Their love was not solely a feeling, but a choice as well.

I believe that people learn or try to love by following the examples that the people surrounding them have set. The one example that I constantly go to for guidence is that of Jesus Christ. His sacrifice of his own life is payment for everyone's sins who is willing to ask Him for it. Jesus' death on the cross was the ultimate act of love. Just like how Janie looked to her Nanny and Phoeby ended up looking to Janie, I look to God and am satisfied with his example of love. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails.