Jesus Arevalo Merino Portfolio

 Here is my final reflection: Jesus Arevalo Merino Deana Nall English Composition I 7 December 2020 Reflection             The first major assignment was the “Where I’m from” essay. In this essay, I wrote about my hometown and all the positive and negative experiences I lived there. I also described the places where I spent most of my time when I lived there. As I explained in my thesis, although I lived many bad experiences in my hometown, it will always occupy a special place in my heart. For this assignment, I wrote about the happy memories first, then I wrote about the bad memories, and in the end, I described the current situation my hometown is going through. The reason why I also wrote about the negative experiences I lived in my hometown is that I wanted to be realistic. No matter we come from, we all remember at least one bad experience. It was hard to start typing because although I had a lot to write about, it is always hard for me to talk about myself, but once I

 This is the reading response I wrote after reading "Salvation" by  Langston Hughes. "Salvation" is about the time the author went to church and was pressured by everyone to see Jesus, go up to the altar, and be saved. He eventually lied about seeing him and just went up to the altar. Here is my reading response: Jesus Arevalo Merino Deana Nall Composition Review 10 September 2020 “Salvation” by Langston Hughes Reading Response             In “Salvation” by Langston Hughes, the author talks about one of his childhood anecdotes. He talks about the time he went to church with his aunt and was pressured by everyone in the church to see Jesus so he could go up to the altar and be saved. He was the only kid who had not seen Jesus yet and since he was tired of waiting, he lied about seeing him and went up to the altar.             The story made me feel empathy for the author because it must have been an uncomfortable situation for him at that age; I probably

  This is the reading response I wrote after reading "The Sanctuary of School" by Lynda Barry. "The Sanctuary of School" is about the time the author sneaked out of her house when it was still dark outside to go to school. The school was an escape from her dysfunctional home. Here is my reading response: Jesus Arevalo Merino Deana Nall Composition Review 3 November 2020 “The Sanctuary of School” by Lynda Barry Reading Response             In “The Sanctuary of School” by Lynda Barry, the author talks about the time she snuck out of her dysfunctional home one morning when it was still dark outside to go to school where she felt safe and everyone was nice to her.             The reading made me feel empathy for the writer. I am glad she had a place to go when things were not going well at her house. This reading made me think of the time I went to a neighbor’s house after arguing with my brothers.   I did feel a connection with the author because when I a

This is the reading response I wrote after reading "The Look" by Larry Lehna. This is my favorite story; therefore, it is my favorite reading response.  The reason why I enjoyed writing about this story is that I loved reading it. "The Look" is about a man who spent eleven years in prison and had to have a hateful expression on his face called the look; he eventually lost the look after being released from prison and his academic advisor helped him get ready for college. Here is the reading response: Jesus Arevalo Merino Deana Nall Composition Review 10 September 2020 “The Look” by Larry Lehna Reading Response             In “The Look” by Larry Lehna, the author talks about the emotionless and hateful face called “The Look” he had to wear for eleven years while he was in prison. He also talks about how he lost “The Look” after being released from prison and meeting with his academic advisor who was very kind to him and helped him with everything he needed

  This reflection journal entry is about a visual message I have displayed in my bedroom. In this entry, I explain why I like this visual, the special meaning it has to me, and what I like the most about the visual.

Invention Technique: Brainstorming My topic was music should be accessible to everyone. I thought brainstorming would help with this assignment because I knew very little about evidence that could support my point of view. I thought that writing everything I knew or thought about the topic would help me get started. Final Draft For this assignment, we had to pick a topic related to music and use evidence to persuade the audience. I chose to talk about the reasons why music should be free. I talked about the Napster scandal, artists making most of their money by touring, music is a medium of expression, and YouTube ads throughout the years. Here is my final draft: Jesus Arevalo Merino Deana Nall English Composition I 10 November 2020 Music Should be Accessible to Everyone             We listen to different types of music depending on our mood. There are thousands of songs that describe feelings and emotions we are feeling now or that we felt before. There are also many songs t

I decided to analyze a Starbuck ad for this assignment. I work at Starbucks and this ad was on display at my store. I really liked how colorful but simple the ad was. For this analysis, I had to talk about the  main argument, evidence that supports the main argument, ethos, pathos, logos, the targetted audience, and explain why the ad was effective. Here is the ad I analyzed: Here is my final draft: Jesus Arevalo Merino Deana Nall English Composition I 17 September 2020 Ad Analysis             I chose to analyze a pumpkin spice Starbucks ad. The main argument of the ad is that pumpkin spice season is back and that no matter if it’s cold or hot, Starbucks can please your desires because you can have a pumpkin spice drink hot or iced.             The pumpkins shown in the ad serve as evidence because although the ad has no words, people who look at the ad in fall, which is considered pumpkin spice season, understand the context. Although pumpkin spice drinks are extremely popular in fall

 Invention Technique: Outline  I thought it was a good idea to write an outline before I started typing my ad analysis. I thought an outline would be helpful because that way I could organize the topics and points of the essay in a logical order before I started typing. Here is the ad I analyzed:  Rough Draft For this assignment, I decided to analyze a Starbucks pumpkin spice ad. I had to write about the main argument, evidence that supports the main argument, ethos, pathos, logos, the targetted audience, and explain why the ad was effective. I also had to describe the ad. The mistakes I made in the rough draft are that I had two paragraphs that talked about pathos instead of one, I did not predict the targetted audience well, I had a comma splice, and I forgot to capitalize a title. Here is my rough draft. I fixed the errors pointed out by my instructor and highlighted where they were. I also pointed out what I changed: Jesus Arevalo Merino Deana Nall English Composition I 17 Se

For this assignment, I had to write about my hometown. This was my favorite assignment because it made me think about many forgotten memories I had not thought of in a long time. I struggle when it comes to writing about myself but when I started writing this essay, it was hard to stop. Memories just kept pouring as I was writing. Here is my final draft: Jesus Arevalo Merino Deana Nall English Composition I 17 September 2020 Where I’m From             I was born in Caracas, Venezuela. I lived in Caracas for the first thirteen years of my life and although I had many bad experiences there, it is the place where I spent my childhood and where I lived most of my happiest memories. Caracas was a city full of life. It was always warm and there were always lots of people walking in the streets. Traffic was a nightmare most of the time and the subway was always packed with people. The city was also always loud; there were cars honking everywhere, local businesses and restaurants playing loud

    Invention Technique: Mind Map Before I started typing my where I'm from essay, I thought it was a good idea to make a mind map. I thought a mind map would be a good idea because I could take some time to think about the major events that happened in my hometown that shaped the person I am today and Key descriptions of my hometown and split them into three sections; description of my hometown, happy memories lived there, and bad memories lived there. Rough Draft For this assignment, I had to write about my hometown. Describe the place I come from and talk about some of the memories I lived there. The main issue I had with this assignment was that I had a lot of comma splices. The only thing my instructor said was wrong with my essay is that I had put commas where I should have put periods. I also forgot to indent a paragraph. :( Here is my rough draft. I fixed the errors pointed out by my instructor and highlighted where they were. I also pointed out what I changed:  Jesus Areva