Greetings Neil,

Welcome to my final writing portfolio! I hope grading all of these portfolios over your

precious break isn’t too taxing and you are getting some much needed rest. This final portfolio is

a culmination of all of my hard work and newfound knowledge that I’ve gained during my time

spent in your class. That's nearly 40 hours we’ve spent together in that fourth floor ILP room!

Even when faced with the grueling four flights of stairs, I never missed a class, rain or shine.

That's how valuable your classes are to me! I’ve used everything that you’ve taught me in our

shared time together to make serious changes to my original drafts. In this portfolio, you will

find my finely edited Projects One and Two that would be almost unrecognizable when

compared to the first shabby attempts. For my first project, I translated the peer reviewed article,

“‘Yes Chef’: life at the vanguard of culinary excellence,” into a cookbook recipe that I titled,

“Haute Cuisine Chef”. Due to my love for cooking and anything culinary related, I had to stick

with my passion and translate my original article into a genre that I love to read. For my second

project, I created a discussion on the different perspectives of how to improve reading

comprehension through an open conversation where researchers explained their research to a

curious barista who’s been struggling with understanding what she is reading. I’ve always had a

hard time with reading comprehension so I was very interested in ways that I could improve my

understanding. Without the feedback that I received from you and my peers, my final portfolio

would look vastly different. After discovering that writing is a process which involves deep

thinking, writing doesn’t feel like an arduous task that I have to suffer through anymore. The

knowledge that I’ve gained through this class is second to none and I know that I will use the

skills that I’ve developed this quarter in my future classes and research.
 Upon submitting my second draft for Project 1, I was confident that what I had submitted

was polished with little to improve upon. Once I received all the feedback, I realized that what

obviously made sense to me was not clear to my reader. Due to my lack of context, my readers

had a hard time understanding the overall point to my genre translation and how the list of

measured ingredients provided evidence of the hostile work environment haute cuisine chefs

were produced in. When revising my draft, I took this into careful consideration. I added a notes

section, which is a genre convention of recipes, to elaborate on what the measurements meant in

relation to what goes on in the kitchen. The higher the quantity of the ingredient, the more often

this specific type of abuse occurred. This helped the reader understand the purpose of the

ingredients and how the different types of mistreatment come together to produce a haute cuisine

chef. In my introduction section, I also addressed the reader, telling them that the purpose of this

recipe is to educate homecooks and aspiring chefs on what really goes on inside the kitchens of

fine dining restaurants. A major improvement that I made throughout this genre translation was

weaving in pieces of personality into my recipe. Modern recipe readers don’t just read the recipe

to make a specific dish, but they also read it for entertainment. I tried to develop a more personal

relationship with my reader by adding somewhat witty comments to my introduction and

throughout the translation. Some of these comments include: “Spoiler alert, it's mostly yelling

and screaming with the occasional crash of a pan being thrown,” “This may be one of those

dishes that truly changes your life! I can guarantee, it’ll be love at first bite,” and “You won’t be

able to put your fork down!” These were just some examples of how I brought more personality

to my recipe. In order to improve my final product, I made significant changes to the overall

formatting of my project. I completely redesigned the look of my project, creating a more genre

accurate representation of my translation instead of a google doc. I also added significantly more
visual elements to my project including more photos and small cooking graphics that helped

breathe life into my recipe.

In my second project, I made significant changes to the overall content and formatting of

my piece. The first reframed the original question Sarah asked the researchers. I posed the

question of why so many people struggle with reading comprehension. This was done to give a

stronger reason for why this research is being done in the first place. This helped identify the

problem that was trying to be solved by each of my authors' perspectives. I gave more

clarification on why Larry believes a cognitive organizer method is better than a directed reading

question method. This expanded on what was already discussed and gave more reasoning to why

it is better than the other. I also included whether or not the methods were provided by the

teacher and how that affects the results. The methods that had the students actively involved in

the mapping processes had better results. I also changed minor coherence issues by making sure

each topic of the conversation set up the next one. I tweaked my formatting by spacing out the

changes of the speakers to make it clear who was talking and to make all the text easier to read.

Throughout this class, I have improved my writing in ways that I couldn’t have imagined.

Going into this class, I was skeptical about how much this would truly change my writing habits

and my process. I was clearly proven wrong! Before going into your class, I was convinced that

if my first draft wasn’t perfect, there was no point in even trying to write anything else. This

would keep me in a vicious cycle of immediately deleting whatever I wrote because it wasn’t

good enough. I would spend hours going over a few paragraphs, constantly making changes and

edits as I went through. This would prevent me from fully laying out all of my thoughts onto the

page because I was constraining myself on the idea of ‘perfection’. I thought that good writers

never struggled with this and whatever came out of them was immediately perfection that was
ready to be published. Clearly, this cannot be the case. After reading Anne Lamott’s, “Shitty First

Drafts,” my vicious writing process and outlook subsided. I discovered that, as it turns out, good

writers also write shitty first drafts. Reading this gave me a serious sense of comfort and that I

wasn’t alone in writing shitty first drafts. This gave me the freedom to put perfection on the

backburner and to write what I wanted to write, even if it was down right horrible.

Straying away from my perfect first drafts, gave me the opportunity to revise my work

after the fact. The reading that gave me a whole new outlook on revision is Lenne Irvine’s

“Changing Your Mindset About Revision”. Before this reading, I fell victim to all the flawed

concepts about writing and revision. “One shot drafts” were all that I would write. I think my

experience writing timed essays in highschool shaped my perspectives on revisions. I would get

everything that I thought needed to get down and just tidy up minor details at the end all for the

sake of finishing it. Grammar was also the most stressed part of academic writing in my lower

education experience. The focus on the wrong priorities of grammar weakened my overall

writing ability. After discovering that writing is a process of inquiry, my writing ability and

overall process has significantly improved. Being able to sit with what I’ve written and deeply

think about it has made writing an enjoyable experience.

I wouldn’t know where to start on my revision process without the help of peer review.

The reading that has helped me develop how to provide meaningful feedback to my peers as well

as use their feedback to improve my own writing is Ron DePeter’s “How to Write Meaningful

Peer Response Praise”. I always felt that I didn’t know enough about writing to provide

meaningful feedback to my peers. The peer review process in my other classes were always

pushed aside and somewhat disregarded as unimportant. I was always hesitant to be critical of

my peers' work because I understood that they’ve invested significant time and effort into their
writing. After reading this article, I’ve discovered that I am a reader that likes concision and

clarity in what I am reading. This has helped me understand what works for me and why exactly

it works. This has helped me give more meaningful feedback and have the ability to receive

feedback graciously. Without my peers' feedback, my final drafts would not be nearly as put

together and understandable due to their unique perspectives as my audience.

A definite weakness in my writing that I’ve struggled with throughout my writing career

is peer reviewed feedback. I am a little too prideful when it comes to my work, especially when

the work is something that I am very proud of. This is not a very good trait to have as it leaves

me with a very narrow minded perspective on my work. If I completely disregarded feedback

from my peers, I know my writing would be much worse off. I just struggle with accepting that

my best effort most definitely needs improvement. When receiving feedback on my Project 1, I

was given quite low scores from my peers. I was somewhat offended by their feedback as I put a

serious amount of effort into creating something that I felt was unique and not the obvious route

for a translation. Instead of disregarding what my peers were suggesting, I took all of their

responses into consideration and improved upon my work. Without their feedback, I wouldn’t

have been able to get my purpose across as clearly and connect with my intended audience as I

wanted to. A strength in my writing ability is my overall tone. I am able to convey the intended

tone through my writing. This is seen in Project 1 by the addition of personality in my text. I am

able to make my writing engaging to my reader. This is seen in my translation of my somewhat

bland academic conversation on reading comprehension. I was able to make the conversation

engaging and hopefully not a bore to read through my tone and language that I used when the

speakers were conversating. My sense of my own ability has changed throughout the course
significantly. Before this course, I wouldn’t have been able to convey my strengths or

weaknesses at all. Now at the end of this class, I am able to clearly articulate them.

If I had more time to improve my drafts, I would have liked to play around with the

conversation structure of my Project 2. I would try to move the orders of my speakers to see if it

helps the flow of my conversation. I also would’ve liked to explore a different format for my

conversation that was more eye-catching, instead of a black and white google doc.

Thank you so much for everything you’ve taught me Neil. I haven’t had a teacher here at

UCSB that cares so deeply about seeing their students improve at an individual level. You made

the learning environment a safe space to share our thoughts and to improve with one another. My

writing has improved drastically thanks to your guidance! Have a wonderful Spring Break!

Absolute Best Regards,

Jacob Bilodeau
 Works Cited

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JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40170550.

Burrow, R., Smith, J., & Yakinthou, C. (2015). ‘Yes Chef’: life at the vanguard of culinary

excellence. Work, Employment and Society, 29(4), 673-681.

DePeter, Ron. “How to Write Meaningful Peer Response Praise” Writing Spaces: Readings on

Writing, Volume 3

Guri-Rozenblit, Sarah. “Effects of a Tree Diagram on Students’ Comprehension of Main Ideas in

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pp. 236–47.

Irvin, L. Lennie. “What Is ‘Academic’ Writing?” WritingSpaces: Readings on Writing, pp. 3–16

Lamott, Anne. “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life” NewYork: Pantheon, 1994
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on learning outcome, self-evaluation and enjoyment through training and learning.” Frontiers in

Education, vol. 7, 20 June 2022

O’Donnell, Angela M, et al. “Knowledge Maps as Scaffolds for Cognitive Processing.”

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