Peggy Liu112 East Bison CourtFargo, ND 58102

May 12, 2014

Assessment CommitteeDept. 2320P.O. Box 6050Fargo, ND  58108-6050Minard 318

Dear Assessment Committee,

This portfolio is an overview of my English undergraduate courses at North Dakota State University. I changed my major to “English Literature” for the spring of 2011. For the past three years, I was learning and experiencing literatures of critical theories, analyzes, and writing styles. Now, look back as a foreigner and a non-native English speaker, I believed that I have come very far to this point to finish the English program. I realized that English is not just writing into pieces of paper, it’s also about understanding, analyzing, applying, and creative thinking as well. Therefore, I am excited to present what I have learned from NDSU’s English courses, I will introduce the works that I have selected and also go through three general education goals and how I met the English undergraduate outcomes. To find my entire portfolio, please see the following links: http://catcat0522.wordpress.com/

Projects:

Racism and Stereotype: Benito Cereno:This work was written for Dr. Duques in English 358: Writing in the Humanities and Social Sciences. For this work, I have read Herman Melville’s work: Benito Ceren, in order to analyze and apply critical lens into the text. I like the idea of racism and stereotype of the story, and I have always admired Herman Melville and the way he approach his ideas and bring them into his works. This paper represents that I can be able to analyze and applying my ideas, arguments into course works, and meets the requirements for the courses.

Beyond the Literary Stereotypes:This paper was written for Dr. Helstern in English 335: Multicultural Writers. During this course, we focus on many stereotypes in literature, and most of the writers of the literatures we read in class are from different cultures. Therefore, this course was really interesting for me since I can experience other cultures through their point of view. I am also surprised and admired by Dr. Helstern’s knowledge of this area. For this paper, I have chosen The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao to focus on. I believe this paper helped me to improve my analyzing, researching, understanding of literature, and also helped me become a better writer.

Short Literary Argument:For this course English 336: Literature and The Environment. My instructor was also Dr. Helstrn, she helped me to read and analysis of literary that meet with place and issues that arise when the environment is being damaged. I have chosen the literature: To a God Unknown to apply my literary arguments. I believe this paper represent that I am able to read written and visual texts, and learn literatures as culturally and historically.

The Dehumanizing Effects on Lower Class Workers in the Capitalist Society:This is another work was written for Dr. Duques in English 358: Writing in the Humanities and Social Sciences. I also focus on Melville‟s story: Bartleby, the Scrivener, with critical lens. I focus on the irony Melville implies in his story, and I related it to capitalism theory toward to out society.

Native to Non-native English Speakers: Speech Adaptation within the Fargo-Moorhead CommunityIn this course, English 453: Social and Regional Verities pf English. I was part of a four person team to do a primary research project. We focus on native and non-native English students’ speaking. We analyze the results and compared them. This project represents my skills of researching, planning, completing work on-time and working with my group partner.

Problem Solving:

While working through assignments, sometime the unexpected issues will appear, so it is necessary to learn how to work through these problems and reach my goals for my project. I will show the undergraduate learning outcomes: student will “evaluate, synthesize, and apply evidence to understand and address complex, real world problems”, and “generate creative, reasoned, approaches or solutions to unscripted, real world problems.”

I believe I met these outcomes through the primary research project in English 453: Social and Regional Verities pf English, with my group partners. Through this project, I was able to work with a team to research and solve the problems and the difference between native English speaker and non-native English speaker. We apply evidence and the result to understand the difference between speakers. We were able to meet once a week and share our duties for this project. Also, we were able to work together and create a file in Google Document for each of the team members and then work as a team will be require in a real career.

Creative Thinking:

I believe that having a different ideas and look at things in different point of view is also important skills to have. Within this section, I will be demonstrating how I met the outcome of “students will apply creativity and divergent thinking.” I believe I have gained this outcome form English 322: Creative Writing I, and English 323 Creative Writing II. Through these two courses, I have written my own poetries, short stories, and songs with creativity thinking. My

classmate and I have participated the workshop every week, and share our works in class. We peer review other people’s work with divergent thinking, and we might give some suggestions in the end.

These two courses, really made me realize the importance of creative writing, and divergent thinking. We experience through other classmate’s poems and short stories, and it encourages us to have different ideas. It also helped me to use different angles to analyze my other papers, and finding thesis.

Critical Thinking:

I believe the ability to analyze and finding evidences to prove the arguments, is the most important skill to learn from English program. in this section, I will illustrate the last four undergraduate learning outcomes: “student will

explain the nature of evidence used for analysis apply quantitative and qualitative methods to collect and analyze data evaluate the assumptions, evidence, and logic of competing views and explanations identify methods of inquiry, approaches to knowledge, and their assumptions and

limitations”

Looking back at all English course I have taken from NDSU, I believe that I have learn “apply quantitative and qualitative methods to collect and analyze data,” and “identify methods of inquiry, approaches to knowledge, and their assumptions and limitations” in English 358: Writing in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The first two papers I did for English 358 was analyzing Melville’s short story, however, I apply qualitative methods and critical lens to analyze my sources and data in the final paper. I was focusing on the move: Transformer’s impact on society. More specifically, I look into its influence on military service, toys, and sports car. For “explain the nature of evidence used for analysis”, and “evaluate the assumptions, evidence, and logic of competing views and explanations”. I believe I learned those two out comes from English 335 and English 336. In these two courses, I have read many literatures and looking for evidence for analysis, and research to find logic views and explanations to support my arguments and thesis.

After all, thank you for the efforts and time throughout the semester. I appreciate that you have read and review my portfolio. I am thankful for my experiences here at NDSU form English Progream.

Sincerely,

Peggy Liu