LEARNING GOALS: By completing this assignment, you will demonstrate how you have achieved the Core Learning Outcomes for this class, which are:
Process: Apply writing processes (e.g., pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, proof-reading) and collaborative strategies (e.g., discussion, peer review, critique, conferencing) to a variety of writing tasks, including the use of writing as a tool for inquiry.
Focus: Develop a controlling idea/thesis for the personal essay.
Development: Through the close analysis of diverse model texts, identify strategies for supporting, developing, clarifying, and extending the focus of an essay, especially through the integration of cultural perspectives and personal experience.
Rhetorical Strategies: Analyze a variety of rhetorical situations to respond appropriately to diverse audiences, purposes, and genres.
Conventions: Identify common formats and conventions (e.g., structure, tone, mechanics) for different genres of writing, including electronic texts.
TASK: Your portfolio is the culmination of all you have learned in this class so far. Your job is to show off what you have learned about writing in this course. How? By compiling your two best pieces of writing from the course, a new reflective essay, and other artifacts from the class that represent important steps in your learning this term.
Your two best pieces of writing should be major writing assignments that have been significantly revised, such that they are the absolute best writing you have produced for a class. (Most students choose to do further revision and editing to the pieces they have revised for the two revision projects.) These assignments should feel complete and finished, and you might think of the portfolio as a “publication” opportunity.
Likewise, your reflective essay should be carefully composed, revised, and edited — it, too, should feel complete and finished. (See below for more specifics about the reflective essay.)
The trickiest part of this assignment might be gathering “artifacts” of your learning. What counts as an artifact? Well — just about anything! Consider including any of the following:
Early drafts of your major writing assignments, to illustrate your growth
Writer’s Journal entries that were particularly useful to your writing process
Copies of discussion posts that helped you to understand important concepts
Copies of peer or instructor feedback that you found especially helpful
Copies of peer review letters you wrote
Many students find it useful to think of their portfolio as sending a particular message about what they learned in this course. In the “Writing Processes” mini-lecture for unit 7, you will consider a number of approaches to talk with the selection of artifacts, arrangement of the portfolio, and approach to the reflective essay.
LENGTH, DESIGN, & FORMATTING: Your portfolio should be created as a single document, in a .doc, .docx, or .pdf file. Your portfolio should contain:
Your two best major writing assignments, further revised, edited, and improved
A reflective essay that discusses your learning
Class artifacts that illustrate important steps in your learning this term
A table of contents
Use MLA guidelines for document design. This includes using 1-inch margins, double-spaced type, and page numbers in the upper right corner. Each writing assignment and the reflective essay should have its own Works Cited page, if necessary.
To allow your instructor the ability to post marginal commentary, you must submit this assignment as a .doc, .docx, or .pdf file. You can save files in these formats with most word processors, including Web-based programs like Google Docs, Word Online, and Open Office. If you are using a web-based file storage system like Google DriveLinks to an external site. or Dropbox, be sure to learn exactly how to transfer files from your storage system to Canvas.
REFLECTIVE ESSAY: Your reflective essay should be a newly written personal essay in which you discuss your growth as a writer this term. Many approaches are possible:
Highlight the most important moments for you in the class
Describe why you have chosen each assignment and artifact for inclusion in the portfolio
Tell the “behind-the-scenes” story of one of your major writing assignments, including reference to early drafts and discussion of your decisions as a writer
Discuss what growth and improvement you have seen in your own writing, as well as opportunities for further growth in the future
Look back at your history as a writer, discussing significant moments in your “writer’s autobiography”
Whatever approach you select, your reflective essay should be at least 800 words, and should develop its focus with appropriate rhetorical strategies. As always, quality is more important than length. Your reflective essay should feel complete and finished. Peer review in unit 7 will help you to achieve this goal.
INSTRUCTOR RESPONSE & GRADING: You can expect your instructor to provide substantive response and feedback to your portfolio within 6 days of the deadline — in other words, in the final few days of class. Please review all instructor feedback, including marginal commentary, which you can access by clicking “View Feedback” once your assignment has been graded.
Your portfolio will be graded using a common rubric used by all EN 105 instructors to grade all EN105 writing portfolios. Your scores will be used to assist the English department and Park University with assessment of course offerings, teaching strategies, and student learning.
My two papers below
Desmon Montgomery
Professor Dineen Picerno
English 105
4 September 2022
A Work Ethic Like No Other
A work ethic beyond his years, Kobe Bean Bryant. I have been a sports fan for many years. I
have never seen anything like Kobe Bryant’s will and desire to be the best and commit to
himself. It helps to know a few things about Kobe in general to comprehend his work ethic.
August 23, 1978, marked Kobe Bean Bryant’s birth. He was a member of the National
Basketball Association (NBA). He is a member of the LA Lakers. Following Shaq’s departure
from the LA Lakers in the 2003–2004 season, Kobe Bryant was the team’s lynchpin. Because of
his will to excel, he is considered to be the only player in club history to have scored the
second-most points. Bryant was a slam dunk champion, five-time NBA champion, the NBA
Most Valuable Player in 2008, and the NBA Finals MVP twice. Kobe Bryant was a role model
for many people during his career and an inspiration to many fans. At the end of the day,
Kobe earned his stripes as one of the greatest players to ever step foot on the floor. But none
of this came without a price. Kobe had a strong desire to succeed in his career, and he worked
Montgomery
4
hard to achieve that goal. Here are all the ways Kobe’s work ethic made him a sports legend,
from his gym routines to his ability to overcome injuries.
When Michael Jordan was dismissed from his high school basketball team, Kobe then found
out about it. He discovered how it inspired Michael to outperform everyone else and convince
his coach that he was deserving. Bryant’s work ethic has been mentioned in folklore for
years. Here are some examples and insane instances of Bryant’s work ethic, including his
early morning workouts, long shooting sessions, and unwavering desire to get better.
Kobe developed the habit of working out by himself after regular practice hours starting at a
very young age in Italy. While in high school, Kobe showed up for training as early as 5:00 am
and would be there for two hours before getting to school for his classes. This practice, of
course, would make it easy for him to be fully committed to his career after being drafted into
the NBA. You could discover an 18-year-old Bryant shooting in a pitch-black gym before or
after high school games.
Kobe’s work ethic has been admired by many sportsmen, amongst them golfer Tiger woods.
Woods says that Kobe guides his team steadily through matches. He calls Kobe’s preparation
second to none because he spends time studying the defense mechanisms of opposing teams
and their offenses, making his work ethic phenomenal. Kobe was a player who consistently
performed under any conditions. He continued to work despite being hurt or dealing with
other difficulties. Many considered him to be Michael Jordan’s “Air apparent” when he was 22
Montgomery
5
years old. Kobe, though, found it offensive to be compared to Jordan in this way. The best
basketball player in history was his goal.
Even though Bryant won championships, scoring titles, and MVP awards throughout his
two-decade career with the Los Angeles Lakers, Bryant decided to pursue a career in
filmmaking once basketball was no longer his main focus. In 2018, he won the Oscar for Best
Animated Short Film. Life after basketball he composed a short film and poem.
Dear Basketball,
From the moment
I started rolling my dad’s tube socks
And shooting imaginary
Game-winning shots
In the Great Western Forum
I knew one thing was real:
I fell in love with you.
A love so deep I gave you my all —
From my mind & body
To my spirit & soul.
As a six-year-old boy
Deeply in love with you
I never saw the end of the tunnel.
I only saw myself
Running out of one.
And so I ran.
I ran up and down every court
After every loose ball for you.
You asked for my hustle
I gave you my heart
Because it came with so much more.
I played through the sweat and hurt
Not because challenge called me
But because YOU called me.
I did everything for YOU
Because that’s what you do
When someone makes you feel as
Alive as you’ve made me feel.
You gave a six-year-old boy his Laker dream
And I’ll always love you for it.
But I can’t love you obsessively for much longer.
This season is all I have left to give.
My heart can take the pounding
My mind can handle the grind
But my body knows it’s time to say goodbye.
And that’s OK.
I’m ready to let you go.
I want you to know now
So we both can savor every moment we have left together.
The good and the bad.
We have given each other
All that we have.
And we both know, no matter what I do next
I’ll always be that kid
With the rolled-up socks
Garbage can in the corner
:05 seconds on the clock
Montgomery
8
Ball in my hands.
5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1
Love you always,
Kobe
His experience offers us all valuable insights that will help us progress. My goal is to be able to
illuminate these teachings to motivate people and improve their lives.
“
If you want to be great at something, there’s a choice you have to make. What I mean by that is,
there are inherent sacrifices that come along with that. Family time, hanging out with friends,
being a great friend, being a great son, nephew, whatever the case may be.” — Kobe Bryant
Talent is a myth. One of the worst fallacies in human nature is the tendency to assume that
someone with exceptional talent was simply born with it. Without witnessing the
innumerable hours of effort it took to bring them there, we just see the rewards of their labor.
Kobe Bryant is the ideal illustration of how willpower, not skill, is the key to greatness.
Bryant has refused to be outworked ever since the day he returned home after being
embarrassed by better players at his basketball camp. He will be remembered as one of the
best basketball players of all time as a result of his unwavering tenacity.
Montgomery