I’ve always understood my writing to be one voice among many in this great conversation between yourself and the readers.  The most important thing for me as a writer and what I pride myself on being able to do explain myself clearly and professionally, but yet at the same time, exude a tone that comes off as inviting and conversational.  If I’m maintaining the theme of the portfolio, I want my writing to be like a guiding voice through the cave.  Nothing in my writing is more important to me in my writing than conveying my main point in way that even a five-year-old could comprehend and follow along with. 
At the same time this style of writing has led me at times to repeat information unnecessarily or has caused the opposite problem where I become self-conscious of my repetitions and I assume the reader can infer the direction of my writing because of the conversation like tone.  Unfortunately, unlike a real face-to-face conversation, in writing it is very difficult to catch on to certain nuances or inferences.  In the end this leads to me leaving out key supporting evidence or connectors that would fully bring home my point.
I have always found that my strongest writing has been that where I am given the most freedom.  I don’t necessarily mean “free writing” but that which I am asked a question and there is no definitive answer but there are ways to turn literature from the past into support a particular school of thought.  I believe that’s why I enjoy humanities and philosophy classes the most.  I am able to study the great thinkers and their works and then use my writing as a tool to understand some of their greatest thoughts and ideals through my own lens.  I find the same type of freedom can be found and is promoted in our class.  That which makes this writing discipline so enjoyable for me also is the same reason why I struggle with history.  When I write history I feel as if I’m back in high school again, just regurgitating the same data back to someone for a grade.  I realize that there is much more to historical writing and analysis, but I find myself analyzing historical text through a literary lens rather than historical.  I also struggle with how restricting this style of writing can become.  The prompts all seem so rigid and while I am able to write solid history papers, I never seem to feel like they are written in my voice.
I could never imagine creating a history portfolio or anything like this.  In fact when I’m helping my clients with history papers I often find myself asking them the same questions, like, “where is the rubric?” and “what type of paper does your professor prefer?”, I even find myself giving them the same solutions, rarely can I offer them the opportunity to include their own voice simply because of the limitation preset by the discipline. In this class and throughout my tutoring experience I’ve realized how comfortable I’ve come in my own writing style and how this may be a double-edged sword.  I write confidently and I am able to help others find their voice but I find it harder to challenge myself and my perceptions of what good writing is.  I’ve also grown to realize how important communication with professors can be for understanding academic writing and balancing that with my own perceptions.
I found myself wondering how my own grades or writing techniques could have been improved in the past by simply talking to my professor and not just going with what I perceived.  I definitely need to be more open to criticism from professors.  I think this begins by not being afraid to communicate with professor before I’ve got an idea of what I want so that I don’t become to protective of my own ideas.