English 134 Portfolio
Final Submissions
Below are links and descriptions of each of my sequence assignment submissions.
Click on the Legos next to each assignment to open a PDF!
Sequence 1 - Personal Narrative
"Writing Battles"
With sequence 1, I got to showcase my inside thoughts and feelings with writing over my academic career. This writing piece is a direct representation of how I think of writing like stepping on Legos with bare feet. In this essay I got to be much more lyrical, with a more flowy and poetic writing style, one I haven’t used to write for an assignment in a while. I got to be vulnerable with my audience and offer support or understanding to others that might struggle with the same writing battles as me. I had a lot of fun reflecting on my writing journey with this essay and thinking of unique metaphors or figures of speech to best explain my thoughts to my audience. Overall, I think this is my favorite essay from this quarter!
Sequence 2 - Profile Essay
"Changing Students, One Machine at a Time"
With sequence 2, I got to get a little bit more out of my comfort zone to do an interview with a person creating change in our community. I got to interview Eric Pulse, a machining teacher I had for two quarters at Cal Poly. The interview was a lot of fun and it was super interesting to get to interview someone that I am really inspired by and was intrigued to learn more about. I got to write about machining, student led shops and Learn By Doing in the classroom- which are all things I am really passionate about and have a lot of experience with. This essay was a true representation of building with Legos, but in a real-life machine shop!
Sequence 3 - Persuasive Essay
"Herding in the Cash Cows: Out-of-State vs In-State Tuition"
Sequence 3 was a very interesting essay, as I got to write an argumentative essay about a topic that impacted me personally. I chose to write about out-of-state tuition vs in-state tuition for California higher education schools, since I am an out-of-state student that struggles to find better ways to pay for my education at Cal Poly. I didn’t have a lot of knowledge on the topic, beside my own personal experience, so it was very interesting to get to explore both sides of the argument. I also got to practice how to correctly cite and find credible research sources to use in my essay. It was fun to synthesize ideas and mix different Legos together when building this essay and I think I was effective in persuading my audience.