Personal Narrative: My Portfolio

Sample Portfolio Essay #1 My time at Isothermal has greatly affected my life in many ways. Thanks to my time spent at Isothermal, I have decided that upon completion of my education, I hope to be able to work as a Spanish educator at K-12 and college level and as a Spanish-English translator. I have decided on these careers because of my love for the Spanish language and the fact that Spanish educators and translators are in high demand. I also believe that these are career choices with which I will be satisfied even later on in life. I have included a variety of artifacts in order to reflect the fact that my experience at Isothermal has not been focused on just one aspect of learning. The artifacts show my development not only in writing
I believe this because I struggled greatly with grammar and spelling, and found long essays a challenge. While at Isothermal I have taken at least six classes that have directly involved this competency (not including classes that involved it indirectly). These classes have not only helped me improve my grammar and spelling but I have also become a much more centered and concentrated writer. I no longer find long essays so challenging. These skills were improved through constant practice and feedback from my instructors. Now that I am nearly done with my degree, I feel that I perform at a level four. I believe this because my artifacts in reading and writing are graded very highly by my instructors. For my reading artifacts, I chose to include a book review of Rites of Spring by Modris Eksteins, an essay on Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and the study guide I completed as I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I chose these because I feel that they are some of the most complicated books I have read. I also included them because I believe they reflect my strength in reading. I received a 95 for the review, a 94 for the essay, and a 100 for the study guide. Before these classes I struggled to understand meanings of books, but now I understand even the most complex of meanings. All of my artifacts in this section reflect the writing competency. I feel that the ones I have chosen really show my improvement in writing as I advanced through my classes. I especially enjoyed my Thomas Hardy essay entitled "Family as a Factor in Failure." I believe it truly exhibits my abilities not only in reading but also in my ability to express my own opinion through writing. I feel that this competency is important to me because, as a teacher, I will need to be able to write properly as well as understand English grammar in order to properly teach Spanish to English-speaking