ePortfolio content reflection

 

Dear Professor Koning, 

 

I was sitting anxiously in Bookstein Hall Room 2212 when I saw your name for the first time. I was attending the first-time freshman advisement and was so nervous when picking my classes. When choosing my English class I was between picking your class or another section with a different professor. What convinced me to choose your class was your presence as a professor. Out of all the English classes I could select from your canvas profile was the only one that had effort put in. Seeing that you were the only one who took the time to fill in your canvas profile told me that you put in effort to not only your work, but your students so in the end the decision was easy and I selected your class. 

 

As a freshman attending college for the first time, I was extremely nervous because of the many what-if questions running through my mind. What if my professors are terrible? What if I don’t make any friends? What if I can’t handle the workload? The one thing that no other professor did that calmed all my nerves was having a zoom to introduce the class and help their students navigate canvas. When the zoom ended I called my mom to tell her how excited I felt to go to English because the professor was amazing and I knew the class would be too. 

 

Going into college I had no idea what the class environment would be like. I didn’t know whether people would talk to each other or if people would be reserved. I was astonished to see the community that was built in English 115 because it felt so natural. Professor Koning, you made the class feel as if we all had known each other for so long. I think that’s one of the greatest things about your class is that community is established so early on that everything flows when it comes to group assignments and interacting with each other. 

 

When you first announced that we were going to be reading books with a book club I was nervous because I didn’t know how the dynamic would be with my group. Additionally, I was worried about my comprehension and if I would be able to understand what I was reading. I thought back to when I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and how frustrated I felt when I didn’t understand the writing. I didn’t want my experience reading Citizen: An American Lyric to be anything like my experience with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Hence, I put in my all and thoroughly read each line. I feel like the amount of effort I put into Citizen: An American Lyric paid off because I not only understood what Claudia Rankine was talking about, but was able to connect to her writing on a personal level.

 

Being able to connect to Rankine's writing helped me write every exercise and essay with ease because I knew what I wanted to write. In addition, I feel that all those exercises helped me uncover instances where my family and I have experienced microaggressions but had either buried them down or forgotten about them. My favorite exercise I did was the poem because I felt so passionate when writing it and I feel it was very well written. Also, I had never mentioned this before, but when I did the poem I had my laptop open and my little sister read it and said I was being racist toward my family. It made me feel weird when she said this because I am not purposely distinguishing our skin tones, but rather reflecting on experiences we’ve had as a family. What’s a bit interesting to note is that while I am not purposely distinguishing our skin tones my sister constantly tells me how white I am, yet was angry with me for writing about the microaggressions we’ve faced at trader joes because of our differences in skin tone. The paper especially was my chance to explore these topics further using the examples that Claudia Rankine used in her book such as the micro-narratives, metaphorical language, and images. My favorite things to write about Citizen: An American Lyric were the metaphorical language and images. I found that the images were placed strategically throughout the book and being able to uncover the deeper meaning of the images was a lot of fun. As well, Rankine's metaphorical language is so impactful that being able to break down the meaning was difficult, but it felt good. I find that metaphorical language can be overdone sometimes, but Rankine’s metaphorical language was done purposely and carried a deeper meaning that I didn’t need to do outside research to uncover. 

 

For the Progression 2 essay, I struggled a lot with what aspects I felt were necessary to my identity and what aspects I wanted to share. I have always found it difficult to talk about myself because I don’t think I’ve ever been heard. My parents do hear me out when I talk about myself, but they’re Hispanic and don’t understand concepts about mental health. I had to break out of my comfort zone when writing the essay and to properly do that I had to bullet point moments of my life that impacted me. From those bullet points, I wrote paragraphs and then combined them to form my essay. I feel that all the exercises we did helped me write about my identity and have evidence to back it up. What I took away from this essay was pieces of myself I had forgotten about and came up with as I was thinking about myself. Having the time to sit with myself and think about who I am is inspiring me to do that more often and get to know myself better. 

 

I will forever be grateful for the community built in your class, it has been so nice to have. You Professor Koning are an excellent Professor and I have never received this much care from a teacher or professor before. I hope to have some of my work used as examples so I can help your future students and still be a part of your class in that way. 

 

Best Wishes,

 

Valerie Dominguez

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E-Portfolio Design Reflection

 

With the aid of papers and progression exercises, my e-portfolio is a reflection of my growth as a student and writer throughout the Fall semester. My eportfolio is structured as so Home, Outside the Classroom, Goals and Outcomes, Personal Reading and Writing History, Blog, Exercises, Major Works, and Project Statement. I decided to structure it this way because I want the first thing you see when navigating my site to be an introduction to who I am. So as you go along my site you know who I am as you see the work I’ve made. Before you get to my writing my goals and outcomes are there so viewers get a sense of what I wanted to accomplish and then read my work. The actual content is set up so you know a bit about my background as a writer and are introduced to smaller works like the exercises and discussions turned into blog posts. Then the Major works are introduced so readers can see my progress from writing the exercises to writing the essay. Along with the final draft of the essay, the rough draft will be included so readers can see how I further improve on my improvements. The last section on the menu is my project statement, which I feel sums up everything on the eportfolio and is a reflection of the semester as a whole. The project statement also reflects my feelings at the start and end of the semester and not only how I have grown as a student but as a person. As for the design aspect of my eportfolio I wanted my eportfolio to look sophisticated/simple, yet not boring. While I didn’t intentionally have a theme to my eportfolio as I was decorating my pages I found that I gravitated towards flowers and light colors. I ended up sticking with a pastel flower theme that repeats every other page. Since I was having lighter colors on my page I found adding a box with a more muted tone and dark text helped readers see my work. As a perfectionist, I found that I wanted the different flowers and colors to work together and look aesthetically pleasing. I played around with boxes and buttons to help achieve the look I wanted. Along with that, I settled on two fonts displayed throughout my website (Fraunces & Lato Light) which I feel give a sophisticated, yet simple look. The one element of my eportfolio that differentiates me from others is that I don’t have a menu bar on each page. This may seem like it’d be difficult to navigate my pages, but for me, it was a way of controlling how I wanted my website to be navigated. When you start on the home page you have the menu bar and can choose any section to go to, but most likely people will choose the first one. From there the menu bar is gone and to navigate my site you have to click buttons at the bottom of my page that takes you back to the page you were on or to the next page. This way people visiting my page will navigate my website the way it was intended to be read with an introduction of myself at the beginning and all my growth begging displayed with my essays at the end. Though I only provide the option to go back or forward I do provide a home page button on each page for people who prefer to navigate websites with a menu bar. Overall, I feel that my eportfolio not only looks but reflects me as a person and my growth throughout the semester in English 115.