A photo of my mother Patrice when she was a model in New York City
A Picture of my mother and step-father when they got married two years ago
The Theme of My Portfolio
For this portfolio, I was asked to identify the overall theme of my work. When I was working on constructing my theme, I had to figure out what would be a common or overall idea that would connect all my work together for anyone reading my portfolio. I was also asked if there is a symbol or metaphor that I will be using to represent my thinking and writing this semester.
Everything that I write in my portfolio is related to topics that interest me. Wether its movies, history, news, or sports, I always try to write about topics that I find interesting. The question that I asked myself while going over my portfolio was " why am I interested in these topics that I am writing about? What is the inspiration behind my writing? Why do I feel a certain way about a certain topic, concept, or idea?" I finally came to the conclusion that my family has had the most influence on what my interests are, the way I think about certain concepts, and in this case, my writing style.
I chose my family sort of as the theme in this portfolio because I used inspiration from my family in almost every part of this project. Here are just a few examples to stress my point. One example would be concerning my father and how he influenced what I liked to do. My father was a boxer and he got me interested in the sport when I was very young. It is for this reason that I have been interested in boxing for most of my life. When we were told to write a rhetorical piece, I chose to do mine on the movie Rocky. I almost did it automatically, without even thinking why I chose to write about this movie or why I would think it as something interesting. I realized that my interest in boxing is what made me want to write about that movie.
As I looked at all my other work in my portfolio, I realized that for each topic I chose for the assignments that I wrote, somone in my family was responsible for making me interested in that chosen topic.
Another example of this is my interest in movies. Several sections in this portfolio are related directly or indirectly to certain ideas or concepts expressed in movies. I chose to write about movies because I find watching and analyzing movies very interestimng. I remember that my sister was very interested in movies and film production. That is what she studied at New York University. After a while, she got me very interested in watching, analyzing and talking about movies. In conclusion, each topic I write about in this portfolio was in some way or another inspired by one of my family members. I can link my at least one of my family members to at least one piece of work I did in this portfolio. The following is a small example.
Bernard
Bernard is 26 which makes him the oldest out of us seven siblings. From an early age, he always liked to study history. He especially liked military history. Since he was the only older boy in the family for me to look up to, I would always try to copy what he did. I became a history buff by middle school and now I still love to study this subject. I can link his influence on me to one of my blogs that talks about how mass media was used to spread propaganda in World War Two.
Bridget
This is Bridget. She 24 and the second oldest in my family. She recently graduated from New York University where she studied film. She was alwas fond of creating, watching, and discussing movies. Iwas not interested in movies until she started teaching me what she learned about movies at her univeristy. I became very interested in all types of genres and we would watch movies very often and later analyze movies. I noticed the influence she had on my creativity when I looked through my portfolio and discovered that several of my topics are related to movies. One of my blog posts talks about her favorite movie, V for Vendetta. I also noticed the how I chose the movie Rocky for my Rhetorical analysis. I enjoyed writing about this movie because we would analyize similar movies all the time. I would not be interested in in movies and therefore, have them in my portfolio, if it wern't for her getting me hooked on movies.
Max
This is my younger brother Max. He is currently 20 years old. He is a student at Western Carolina University. He is very much into both watching and playing sports. His favorite sport is track and field. Being around him got me more involved in sports. Started watching sports at first before actually being competitive. He would watch ESPN and football so much, that I could never walk into the house without seeing a game on the telivision. I eventually started going with him to track practice when I was 18, and since then I have always been involved in some kind of sport. I almost immediately noticed how my interest in sports was reflected in my portfolio. I wrote a blog where a sort of poked fun at baseball and the odd rules it has in place. I did a rhetorical analysis on a movie about my favorite sport, which is boxing. Finally, I did an inquiry project concernig sports and sports media. If my brother had never been interested in sports, then I would not have developed an interest and therfore, anything sports related would not likely been involved in my portfolio. Is interest in sports has influenced a good portion of how I constructed my portfolio.
Mary Kate ( M.K )
This is my sister Mary-Kate. She is 9 years old, which makes her the youngest in the family. What she lacks in age, she makes up for in personality. She has a very funny sense of humor and is very clever for her age. She is able to make me laugh when I least expect it, and in the most unlikely situations. Her good mood and sense of humor always remind me how good it is to laugh and enjoy comedy. If she were not around, then I think I would not laugh as much as a do. Eve n as I was working on my portfolio, she started talking to me and making suggestions as to what I should include. In my portfolio, it is ver y easy to spot comedy or humor. One good example of this would be the video I have of Will Ferrell in my blog section. She has a mind-set that lets her allows her to be funny in almost any situation. I have done something similar with my portfolio. I have tried to iclude several sections of funny videos or quotes to get the attention of my readers. We both have a similar sense of hunar and that is how I think she has influenced my writing in this portfolio when it comes to comedy.
My grandmother and grandfather in thier wedding day
What teachers Who Don't Like My Writing Often Ask Me...............
This page is designed to help my readers have a better understanding of what I have written throughout my portfolio. I want this page to help me achieve some of the goals that are stated on my home page. The most important one being that my readers can be able to walk away from this knowing that they have learned a new idea, concept, or approach to thinking. I hope this page helps and a especially hope you keep reading my portfolio
-James
On the left, is my mother Patrice with my step-father Dave. This is a picture of them when they got married two years ago. On the right, is a picture of my grandmother and grandfather. These four people probrably had the highest influence on me as far as the teaching of character, virtues, values, and morals are concerned. They were the ones who wanted me to know what was considered morally right or wrong. They always would not hesitate to give me advice on doing the right thing. Not only would they directly teach me about ethics, morals, and virtues, but they also would teach me through leading by example. Honesty, patience, kindness, humility, charity, love, compassion, fairness, determination, and fortitiude are qualities that they would exemplify in thier everyday lives. The are a few sections of my portfolio that address theses deep ideas of what can be morally right or wrong. One example is in my blog section where I talk about how media sensorship and manipulation. I discuss how trying to manipulate people through mass media is ethically wrong. I go on in another blog to talk about a speech given by Charlie Chaplain on how mankind was meant to treat one another. In the speech, he talks about how each human being is meant to love eachother. I talkes about mankind has lost some of its values and morals. He emphasizes that hate is a monstorous thing that only un-natural people do. I really like how this speech talks about justice, virtue, and how mankind should act in a moral way. I am really interested in this deep philosophical thinking, and I have my parents to thank for that. My parents would often have deep conversations and debates on morals and what kinds of things could be considered ethically right or wrong. The idea of discussing morals and asking questions concerning them is what made me enjoy writing those blogs and listening to the speech by Charlie Chaplain. This idea of morals and values is how my parents and grandparents influenced my creativity when writing these blogs. If they never razed me to be familiar with such things as ethics then I probrably would have wrote something completely different for those blog posts.