Tom Nobles

Susan Ingram
English 1101-022
27 September 2014

Midterm
A. After looking back at my original blog post, all of my questions have been answered. One
of my questions from the first blog post was Do the major assignments have a max/min
length requirement? The answer to this question is that while there might be minimum
length requirements, it really is up to the writer on how long to make the assignment.
Whatever length you believe is necessary to result in the best/strongest paper is totally up
to the writer. Another key question I had was Will we be able to get the major
assignments reviewed by students? What I realized is that we will be in peer groups that
will help us correct our literary narratives for the first few drafts, and then the paper will
be turned in to Ms. Ingram for another review. After this we can still change parts of the
paper by ourselves or with other students if we would like. Because the assignments
arent actually graded until the end of the year when our e-portfolios are due, we can
spend as much time as we would like on the paper until we get the desired result.
B. The two key concepts that I feel like I am struggling the most with would be the writing
process and revision as well as providing and receiving feedback. I feel as though I have
not really been able to receive too much out of the peer group revisions. The part that I
have been struggling with is that because everyone wrote about their own story, I often
find it difficult to know what parts of the paper to change. I can look for grammar
mistakes as well as sentences that dont necessarily sound correct, but other than that it is
difficult for me to determine if that paper flows well or not. Along with having difficulty
revising others papers, I also fell like I have not received much feedback on any of my
papers. Whether it be that the group ran out of time or just not knowing what to correct, I
am unsure of my strong vs weak areas. Despite this, I do feel like I have improved on is
getting out of my comfort zone. I have never attempted to write an entire paper about a
single, particular moment of my life. For the second attempt at the Literacy Narrative, I
was able to work on this skill. Although I still need improvement, I really do feel as
though writing about a single topic is a really persuasive way of writing.
C. The part of my writing that I often have trouble with is using descriptive enough words.
A great example of this is in my second Literacy Narrative when my dad mentioned to
me a possible car I could buy. Because I am a big car fanatic, I got really excited after my
dad mentioned it. In my first essay, after my dad told me the possible car I could buy, I
wrote I got really excited when my dad told me this which is not a descriptive sentence.
The reader would not have actually been able to determine how happy I actually was. To
improve the strength of this sentence, I changed it to My eyes immediately lit up with
joy when my dad told me this. While this does not directly change the meaning of the
sentence, it does add more emphasis to how happy I actually was. By adding more
descriptive terms, I can really improve the strength of my writing.
D. I reviewed the 6th e-portfolio example and did enjoy looking through it. Although at the
time, Noah green was not actually on the cross country team for UNCC, he still was

running with the idea that he might join it next year. In terms of the rhetorical triad, the
Author was a runner. The purpose of his writing was what I believe to incorporate as
much of his running knowledge into his writing, and as well as incorporate the overall
idea that he was a hard worker just like the town of Iten is. Because he included the
running ideas into many parts of his blog and e-portfolio, I feel that the audience of his
work in not just for runners but as well is for people who would like to know more about
some running facts and the people of the extremely hard working town of Iten. While on
the e-portfolio, only text was used, Noah will still able to communicate in different ways.
These include texts meant to inform (Academic Journal Article), as well as texts about
personal reflections (Exploratory Essay). I definitely believe that this e-portfolio was
successful. Not only did he have a well-organized blog, and some interesting writings, he
also included many examples. With all of the various forms of writing he had done
throughout the semester, it would be much easier to see the improvement in his writing. I
also really liked how he was able include drafts and ideas that he wrote on paper to help
figure out his thought process through various papers.
E. After reviewing the work I have done so far in the semester, I feel as though my effort
level has been an A but I do feel as though some of my writing assignments have not
been A standard. I have definitely been working on improving parts of my writing,
which I believe is apparent in the RRLs throughout the semester. I have included more
examples from the text to help support my opinions and help strengthen my ideas.
Overall I am happy with the improvements I have made so far and have done a good job
in keeping my drafts so that I can prepare an excellent e-portfolio when the time comes.
What I still would like improve as the year progresses is increasing not only the clarity of
my writing, but also working to improve the strength of my vocabulary and sentence
variety. I feel as though I end up using many of the same general words as well as the
sentence structure. Fortunately, I do feel that I will be able to improve this part of my
writing. The peer groups enable me to read different ways of writing and should help me
to incorporate a variety into my writing.