Final Profolio

University of California, Irvine

Writing 39A Portfolio

Wenjie Song

Professor Bliss

Jun.5.2015

Writing 39A Portfolio

Wenjie Song

Professor Bliss

University of California, Irvine

Table of contents:

Cover Letter

Assignment 1 Final Draft (A Flying Dream)

Assignment 2 Final Draft (Positive Turn)

Assignment 3 Final Draft (The Heirs)

Assignment 1 Draft1

Assignment 1 Draft2

Assignment 1 Draft3

Assignment 1 Draft4

Assignment 1 Draft5

Assignment 1 Draft6

Assignment 1 Draft7

Assignment 1 Draft8

Assignment 2 Draft1

Assignment 2 Draft2

Assignment 2 Draft3

Assignment 2 Draft4

Assignment 2 Draft5

Assignment 3 Draft1

Assignment 3 Draft2

Assignment 3 Draft3

Assignment 3 Draft4

Assignment 3 Draft5

Assignment 3 Draft6

Assignment 3 Draft7

Professor Bliss

Writing 39A

Wenjie Song

June.3.2015

Cover Letter

Dear Jackson：

              This quarter I have made great progress in writing. After finishing my academic courses, I only knew how to write in a formal way. However, in WR39A, I recognized that there are different tones, languages, styles and dictions that I could use in writing to improve my papers. I changed my style and wrote lots of detailed descriptions in A1; I used quotes and wrote effectively to convince my friend in A2; I showed and analyzed evidences to argue in A3. I could always learn something new in writing each assignment.

        I mainly changed from first person to third person to make it more formal in A1. In the first draft, I wrote a small story happened in my hometown. I used some dialogs and made some specific descriptions in my second story. Based on my stories, these changes might change a little of my interpretation. I realized the language in the first two stories was more casual but I was not comfortable using those words. I have been taught to write formal and academic since I started learning English. After reading several articles, I knew the stylistic characteristics of the four authors. Junot Diaz and Toni Cade Bamara both used casual language. Diaz used second person in his story. The vocabulary was verbal and a little bit rude but readers were like stay in the story and had a real conversation with the characters. He also not only used English but use multi-language to make the story real. Bamara tends to use slangs, which makes the story go into life style. Jhumpa Lahiri and Yiyun Yi both used more formal language. Lahiri used lots of descriptions and wrote a great background at the beginning of the story. Furthermore, his title had double meaning, which made readers think more. He also wrote lots of detail, which made his characters more physical. Yi used dialogs and she usually used some simple words. Although his words are not complicated like lahiri's, readers could easily know her thoughts. So I just wrote my first story using third person, which was more like a story. I used lots of descriptions and dialogs to make it more vivid. I found that it could create a closer connection between readers and the writer. I thought my ending is good. “ The plane was like a flash of lighting split the sky. That’s how your dream come true.” The words were effective and the end of the story left much room for imagination. That’s the first part I have learned in this class. What’s more, I learned about using actions and emotions to vividly create a main character. In my A1D3 I described my character’s emotions and actions when he was laughed at “ Zhang just bowed his head, rumbled out a few words, which was too low to hear playing his own airplay” this can help readers picture the character and feel how they feel.

          A2 was a letter so I used first person, which was I learned from the first essay. My structure was not clear because I did not use evidence in A1. I spent lots of time introducing the author. For example, I wrote “Zaide Smith is a creative writer and White Teeth is her first novel after she graduated.” in my first draft. The background of the author was not so important and also it was not a strong evidence to convince a person. After peer review, my friend Able wrote a full page of suggestions and brainstorm in red. He said “ your examples are not strong, especially the 2nd one. There is no relation between you thesis and evidence.” So I showed some other evidences to convince my friend to read the novel in A2D3. For example, the author was a good observer. Although they had different culture background, races and even accents in the book, she intergraded these various kinds of people in a warm-hearted way. She could describe people by writing their acts and languages. She used lots of descriptions to write. The plots were rich because of some interesting stories. I cited some her unique language. “ Go mad, go gibbering through the town like a loon, waving your hands, tearing your hair?” I cited this sentence to show that the author’s language was powerful, which would make reader think about their lives when they faced challenges.

          I think A3’s prompt “who are we” is pretty abstract. I thought I need an outline to make it clear. So I went to the writing center, which was also required for this class. I got some suggestions from a tutor. I wrote a thesis statement for my A3, which I had not in my first draft. I realized a good thesis should include every part that I wanted to discuss in a brief sentence. I also noticed that analyses were indispensible. After showing some evidences, the analyses should appear in a convincible way. In my opinion the key words in A3 are “ Change” and “evolve” so I try to show that people’s identities were not permanent. For example, two of my topic sentences were “ people have different identities in different situation” and “people’s identities evolve because of the changing of their opinions.” I not only used the resource form the White Teeth but also from my research. One more important thing was that I noticed that the ending of an essay should avoid cut-and-past. This was what I have learned in the A3.