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 Dear Portfolio Reader,

Welcome, and I hope you enjoy! I will be honest, I never thought I would enjoy WRT

102 very much. However I believe that my writing has improved exponentially thanks to my

professor and my peers, and to an atmosphere where I could discuss my work critically. I am a

freshman so getting a smaller and more intimate classroom experience was an enjoyable change

from my three hundred student strong chemistry lecture. I made real friends who I could actually

work with to improve. I got a perspective I never recieved in high school, since high school

exam requirements seriously stunted my writing style, and I’ve started to develop my own

writing voice. I have written three papers for this portfolio; an informal essay, an argumentative

research paper, and a textual analysis paper. In the informal I wrote about the incident that

started my interest in my major, Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, which ultimately led me to

Stony Brook. It was the first paper I wrote for this class and it has changed many times as I’ve

improved during the semester, and it is very dear to me. While poking into my past I

remembered why I’m here at this University. For my argumentative research paper I chose to

delve into a topic that is also key to me as a person; the rights of Gender and Sexual minorities.

I’m a part of the community, it’s a huge part of my identity and everyday life, so I have a real

desire to see equal rights become a reality for myself and for my friends. I created a dialogue at

my local high school between students, teachers, and myself as I researched points of my

argument. It has been an amazing experience and I hope to do more works in the same vein in

the future. My final piece, my textual analysis, was chosen to circle around the poem “A Story

About the Body” by Robert Hass. The prose resonated with me, as a woman who has been

objectified many times by society, and as a girl who has seen what rejection and judgment can do

to people. I feel that I learned a lot about myself and my thought process while analyzing and


writing about the poem. My experience in WRT 102 overall has been positive, insightful, and I

fully intend to carry these skills forward in all my work here at Stony Brook.

Sincerely,

Marina Kobasiuk

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