I’ve tried to keep a diary before, but my writing usually stays at the level of narrating facts, and there is no reflection process. After reading the “Portfolio Keeping”, I realized the importance of self-reflection, which is essential for me to practice reflective learning and self-assessment. Besides, I was attracted by how the stories our parents tell affect how we develop as individuals in the memory article. I found that open-ended questions, lots of detail, and don’t drive the narrative are helpful to memories. I’ll thy to apply this to my story telling in the future.
Month: September 2023 Page 13 of 14
My biggest takeaway from reading “Portfolio Keeping” was the emphasis on self reflection. Before reading the book I initially thought of a portfolio as a collage of all the work done throughout the year and a few pictures attached for aesthetic purposes. Now, I realize that a portfolio isn’t just assignments crammed onto one website, but instead a blog in which a journey is told. Even when you’re finished with a piece of writing, a portfolio gives you the chance to analyze, revise, and reflect upon your assignments and the journey that you took to handing in the best work you could possibly present to others. Rather than presenting just assigned essays and projects in a portfolio, it’s important to ensure that you add personal reflections in your portfolio while self-reflecting throughout the entire process of building your portfolio. By reflecting through the step by step process of creating your portfolio, the project will become better organized, easier to manage, and constructed in a more well thought out manner. By reflecting on comments your classmate or instructor made on your portfolio or assignments, you will be better at understanding which strategies of building your portfolio are more successful. For example, if you don’t understand most of the comments left on your work, you might be better off having someone else to comment on your work. In some way, reflecting is a tool for revising.
Memory is the awareness of emotions, conflicts, and events that occurred in the past. Not only is memory just that, but it is a tool in which people develop self-reflection. As said in the articles, storytelling unlocks a space for intellectual and emotional growth for children. An example of this is when parents tell their children stories. As a result of this type of storytelling, children are able to connect with the feelings of their parents as well as practice the storing of information (memory). I can relate to the significance of storytelling in my life by the stories I heard from my grandma. When my family traveled to my grandparents house in New Jersey once a year, my grandma loved to share stories of her childhood in Ireland. I specifically remember her telling us stories about the frogs that lived in a pond near her house and the adventures her and her friends would have there. Although I can’t remember her stories to a tee, my grandmas stories helped me to reflect on the differences between our childhood lives while learning something completely new about her life.
When listening to stories, memory can be constructed and shaped earlier as a child. By listening to stories or telling stories ourselves, for example telling a story about your first day of school, children can gain a better sense of who they are, their experiences with others, and they’re connection to a storyteller (family, etc).
It’s the summer of 2022, my forehead is dripping of sweat and my teammates and I had just finished our 6 mile run. This entire summer we were focused on success going into the upcoming cross country season. This success consisted of winning our League championship. Last season, due to a combination of injuries and a small roster, we were unable to see our team on the school banner in the gymnasium. With similar goes in mind, we made it our goal to have not just better training, but training that consisted of consistency and focus. Six days a week we would meet at the track to run miles and get to bond with one another.
Fast forward to the day before the league championship, our team is sitting in a circle surrounding our coach. In our hands are packets with the exact positions we would need to place in order to beat our rivals Somers. This year, the league championship would be as competitive as it could possibly get. For half an hour our team was discussing all the in and outs as to how we could accomplish our goal. The veterans gave some motivation and everyone insisted that we would get good sleep the day prior to the race.
With all the hard days of practice, and essential focus our team won the league championship, and only by a point. Our top runners placed high as expected but it was the effort of the backend that brung us to victory. One of our veterans, had one of his best races of his career, and our last placing runner competed to the line to place ahead of an opponent by the smallest margin. With hard work and one goal in mind our team was able to place ourselves into a position for success.
Portfolio Keeping was definitely an interesting read. I was honestly unaware that there were other types of portfolios besides maybe art or financial portfolios before taking this class so I really went in not knowing anything. However, after reading the book, I have a solid understanding of writing portfolios. You can create a physical or digital portfolio and it generally is created with the intention of presenting the portfolio or using it as a tool to track your development. I also learned these portfolios can include a variety of things besides writing pieces such as pictures or music. Overall I think it will benefit my writing and I’m excited to start.
As I was scrolling through other people’s prep notes, I read Nicholas Javier’s note and he mentioned journaling and how he related that to a writing portfolio, which really struck me. I also have kept a journal for almost a year now and it has been super helpful to just get all my thoughts out there but it has indirectly tracked my growth as a person. I went back and reread some of my old entries and it is apparent how much I have matured since I first began the journal. In the same way that my journal demonstrates my personal progression, I know my writing portfolio will show my journey as a writer which I can reflect upon and see my growth.
I also found the articles interesting. I was surprised by the fact that we actually form some level of identity by age 2 and begin creating memories but we forget them completely by age 8. It was also interesting to see the correlation between a strong family and more resilience in the child. My favorite of the two articles was definitely the one about campfire stories. I didn’t expect there to be such a history behind campfires and how they resulted in more storytelling. The study conducted also surprised me. The fact that 81% of the conversations held at night were storytelling as opposed to I believe 6% during the day is a huge difference.
After reading the Portfolio, albeit falling asleep several times during my session due to Sleep Deprivation, it adds an additional depth into how I look at organizing my structures. It was also in a sense familiar, and it redefined my idea of what a portfolio is. When I thought of a portfolio, I thought of it simply as a collection of art works, or in the financial context– never before could I have imagined that the definition could extend to writing entries, short stories, and other variety of documents and materials- or that it could be used to gauge growth and development.
When reading it, I thought back to earlier this summer when I started journaling. I’d think and organize it in a rather structure that emphasized self-reflection, about how to make tomorrow better, self-criticism, and although I never had it peer reviewed like it mentioned some portfolios were- I began recognizing during my journaling that the tone and subjects had significantly developed and shifted. They were initially started as a coping mechanism for what was emotionally a difficult time, and I recall when I mentioned that when days would feel like “a 3… a 4…” several times in a row shifted towards “7… 8… 9” on various occasions. Although still different from the essence of the Portfolio book, the book itself woke me up to how writing can be used to demonstrate growth and change.
In terms of the articles, I found them also interesting. They were coupled with a few naps in the library, but as I read through them- the additional depth especially in terms of the fire and observing it calls back to this summer as well, where I had personal talks at the fire with my dad with bonding- but also to when I would sit at the camp fire with friends. It also raised interesting questions for me over technology uses.
It is easy to make a link to something in our blog or to something outside of it. Here’s how:
1.highlight text to link and then click the link symbol in the bar above the post
2. a box will open and you can insert a URL there OR you can click on the settings wheel to the right of the box and it will show you a list of all posts and pages on the blog !
I think linking really helps us all to navigate the blog well, so when it makes sense, link!
Here is a first draft of our commitments, based on the lists you wrote on the board:
Storytelling and Identity Fall 2023 Community Agreements
We commit to ground our community in respect. We will do this by:
- Saying hi and checking in with each other before class, using each others names
- Listening to hear first, and waiting to think of a response
- Not interrupting when someone is speaking
- Showing that we are listening by keeping eyes open to give full attention, and not looking at computer or phone while someone is talking.
- Avoiding side conversations when someone is talking
- Not leaving the classroom for a break unless absolutely necessary; being on time and not leaving early
We commit to learn together by:
- Checking Weekly Schedule and preparing for the class to come by doing the assignment there (reading or writing or listening) and posting a prep note on the blog
- Helping each other in and outside of class
- Bringing the text to class so we can be specific and analytical
- Taking good class notes and responding when assigned
- Valuing ideas, staying curious and open
- Looking for opportunities to respond and give appropriate feedback (acting as a peer, or as a reader of a draft, etc. but not as a judge)
I added this:
Professor Dolson commits to:
- be available for office appointments
- facilitate class discussion
- post assignments to weekly schedule at least 48 hours in advance of class
- always make a rubric available for any graded item
- listen
- call students by their preferred name
- give feedback when asked
Reading Portfolio Keeping was eye-opening for me. It should me all the complexities that can come within a portfolio in matters of presentation, appealing to your audience, having variety, and demonstrating the learning process/growth. But it also made me realize that I have many questions surrounding the expectation of our portfolio. Is this a portfolio to showcase presentation or learning? What does our professor expect of us/hope to see? When are we supposed to begin? Will our whole class have the opportunity to peer review or see our portfolio? How are we supposed to cite sources? And I could go on. I am hoping we will have some class time to work through the process and expectations a little more.
Out of this novel, I think the concept I am going to try the hardest to showcase in my portfolio is reflection, and finding people to peer review with. I am going to work to constantly be going back and looking at my artifacts/portfolio, and always making note of how I am feeling about it, what I want to improve, and doing the same with other peoples work.
With the two articles we read regarding memory, the statistics about what percent of conversations are about telling stories during the day compared to being surrounding by a camp fire a night were very interesting, and definitely significant. I also liked learning about how you can work to improve a child’s memory by reviewing what you did during the day through open ended questions. That this helps them efficiently process their memories.
I also began to read Writing Our Way Out and I am truly loving it, in fact it was difficult for me to put down. Reading the prologue and introduction helped me get a more thorough understanding of the work David Coogan has and is doing in regards to the justice system, working to help improve society, and telling people’s stories. Many people regard prisoners as different, unlabeled people in this society. Coogan called them “blurry shapes with glaring eyes”. As people, we have to separate them from us. because if we don’t, then maybe we would get too close to realizing that in reality we are all people, and we are all connected in some way. Coogan teaches us by sharing their stories, putting names to ex-offenders/prisoners, that everyone has a story, helping us to connect in a deeper way. Helping us realize and understand, that most of these people have been going through trauma since they wore born, opening our eyes to how sheltered we are in comparison.
These men need empathy, education, and rehabilitation. Not punishment that makes it worse, causing them relapse into the same crime they had committed before being punished. Coogan has already helped me see that we are more connected than we think, and everyone must do something no matter who you are, if we want anything to change.
After reading the Portfolio book, I better understand what to expect for my portfolio this semester. I have taken a creative writing class before and at the end of each term, we created our own digital portfolios that consisted of our work from each term and any improvements we would want to make to the pieces. I never found it necessarily helpful since each piece was graded individually, but I look forward to this portfolio because I already have somewhat of an idea of what I want it to look like. While the book did talk about digital portfolios, I thought of ways to organize myself throughout the semester, so that when it’s time to put everything together it is one place. I honestly am just excited to make the final product and see how my writing has progressed through this class.
I found the articles about memory and storytelling very interesting, and almost relatable. When we shared stories about our injuries during Roadmap, I was able to tell my story based on a series of images I had in my head. I feel like I have heard the story so many times, that I can easily recite it when people ask. I thought this related to the article because even though I cannot remember exactly what was said, done, etc., I have heard my mom and dad tell me enough times to piece the events together.
During high school, I also took an AP Psychology course and learned a lot about memory and development. This article brought a whole new component, storytelling, and how memory and “the self” impact each person’s recollection. I believe an important part of storytelling lies in the passing down of stories from generations. I have learned so much about my parents, grandparents, and their parents that I would never have known if my parents didn’t tell me. I find it helps to talk about stories with one another, even if you can’t relate to them, it’s always good to listen.