Rachel's Writing Portfolio

To Whom It May Concern:

Welcome to read my writing portfolio! This is a collection of my selected works written for the Academic Writing course of Fudan University in the spring of 2007. During this semester, the class concentrated on the book entitled “The International Story: An Anthology with Guidelines for Reading and Writing about Fiction.” Both our class activities and written homework revolved around four stories of different times and national backgrounds. I enjoy reading the stories and taking this course because I have improved my ability to write in English.

Although English has always been my favorite subject, I used to think of writing in English an intimidating task because I did not consider myself good at analyzing and interpreting and it was difficult to convey my exact ideas in a foreign language. However, by studying the particular book and listening to the teacher’s instructions, I realize that there are certain rules and steps to follow when writing an interpretive essay. I have learned the importance and strategies of making a strong thesis statement, how to incorporate quotations more effectively, and the usages of punctuations, to name but a few. I am excited whenever I absorb such knowledge, trivial as it may appear, because it dispels my fear of writing an interpretive essay, as well as makes my writing more formal than it used to be. What’s more, my teacher, Mr. Corio, always gives me encouraging comments and useful advice, which helps me become more confident in my writing ability.

The first three drafts in my portfolio deal with one of the assigned stories. This is the first time I have done process writing, and I find it both interesting and effective. Writing the trial draft appeared to be tough at first, but the routine practice of free writing helped my ideas flow. Since the trial draft did not have to be perfect, I was fairly relaxed when writing it, so the process was not as stressful as I had expected. During the three stages, I found editing a crucial step because it polished my essay. When I finally finished draft three, how satisfied I was to see the improvements!

Timed-writings are indeed very challenging. I feel the tension whenever I think of it. However, I managed to get through the three timed-writings in this semester, with positive comments from my teacher. Though there is plenty of room for improvement, I am quite satisfied with what I have been able to accomplish because there are not many grammatical mistakes in my timed-writings, and I am able to allocate time efficiently in order to form a fairly good organization of my writings.

The reading log deals with the story “The Grass-Eaters” by Krishnan Varma. I chose this one because it was typical of the style of my reading logs. Writing reading logs was my favorite assignment because I was supposed to be honest with my feelings about the stories, which prompted me to read them more intensively. And I had a good time communicating with my classmates in the online discussion room of nicenet.

All in all I learned many things in this class and I enjoyed taking this course. Thank you for taking the time to read my writing portfolio. I hope you will find my writings interesting and worth reading.

Sincerely yours, 

Rachel Zheng