An old high school English teacher gave me some advice my sophomore year that I still find useful even today. This teacher told me whenever I was reading for a class that I should annotate the text. I used to think all annotating did was give me more work to do, but the more I progress through school I am finding that advice more and more significant. From the format of the essays, presentations, and lectures in this class I have found that annotating the readings was necessary. I needed to analyze, ask questions, make connections to other works, and just get as involved with the texts as I could.
The more I did this, the better I was able to see all the different components to writing. I was able to better separate main ideas from the supporting, analyze connections between them, and better sift the important information from the less significant. This helped me become a better reader and consequently a better writer and communicator. The Rhetoric section of my portfolio includes examples of in-class writing, reading responses, and journals to demonstrate my connection to the work this semester and how much I have improved as a writer.
dplisik 
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