Adam's Writing Portfolio
Cover Letter
Dear Portfolio Readers:
I would firstly like to thank you for taking time to read my portfolio. There is a need to introduce myself. My name is Adam Zhang. I am a 20-year old boy living in Shanghai, and I am studying in the Management School of Fudan University now.
In this term----the second semester in Grade Two in Fudan, I was given honor to have access to Mr. Ron----a kind humorous and erudite teacher from Virginia Commonwealth University. I think through the course and portfolio making, I learnt something in writing essays. I learnt before finishing a good essay there are some steps to go through and there are some items you must pay attention to. Firstly, choose a topic; secondly, think and interpret the material; thirdly, develop a thesis; then select some powerful evidences to support your thesis and write these into the body section; later, relate your points to a larger meaning of the story and the last part is editing, finding errors and correcting. During the process of writing I learnt some points we should know as an essay writer. For example, when I mention the author’s name first time, I should use his full name but the second time only the last name is sufficient. These tips Ron told us are very useful in my opinion.
What is much more important is the influence to my way of thinking. In the creating process of the portfolio, I met various varied opinions to the same item, but I thought there could only be one answer, one right opinion. Later on I was proved wrong because so many peer students gave their evidences to support their opinions successfully. And even Ron----our teacher----did not ever use assertive words to express his idea. Always he adds “Maybe you are right, and maybe I am right” or “I am not sure”. Therefore I have built such a view that there is not only one answer to a question. What’s more, I have built such ability—“improve and correct”, getting avoid of haste and hurry in writing or studying. I always know haste is a no-no in learning and writing but the drive was not powerful enough to make me change the bad habit until these days, when I saw my better and better draft, I was convinced by the fact to acknowledge that continuous improvements to my draft is quite necessary because that can produce a good essay.
Then I want to identify my 6 identify items which are Reading Log, Final Timed-Writing, Draft1, Draft2, Draft3, and Cover Letter.
I arrange them in this order by logic sequence or by the cognition sequence (from easy to hard). Because the reading log is easiest and most accessible to the majority, it is easy to finish and takes only a little time. Final Timed-Writing is more completed, it need me to take more time and more energy to put into it, so there is no doubt that the title in the timed-writing is always large. Then comes the Draft1, Draft2 and Draft3. They are the most time-consuming; as I said “There are so many steps to go through to finish an essay.” In the end I put my cover letter there, and I think this is easy to understand because the cover letter introduces a lot of background of the portfolio and me----the author. Therefore it should be put there, on the top.
My first entry----Reading Log relates to “Dead Men’s Path” by Chinua Achebe, I analyzed the hero, Michael Obi who was appointed headmaster of Ndume central School in January 1949, then rudely insulted the local rituals of tribal life and at last met a lot of troubles which corresponded with his rudeness. Through his experience I come to an conclusion that we all should revere the things we don’t know.
My second entry is the Final Timed-Writing. I finished it in 30 minutes this morning in my class. In order to answer the question “From The Necklace, what might have been the quality of Mme Loisel’s life if she had not lost the necklace? Is her life better or worse now”, I firstly imagine a picture in which Mme Loisel would live without losing the “valuable” necklace and then analyze the rationality of the imagination.
My third part of entries is three drafts. They are arranged chronically and latter one is the improvement of the former one. The three drafts relate to “The Grass-Eaters” by Krishnan Varma. The three drafts are developed to prove “Babu (the protagonist) enjoys his present life”. From Draft1 to Draft3, I have made a lot of improvements to the article, from the body structure rearrangement to the sequence of putting evidences, from the change of title to corrections of grammatical errors. Above all, I have poured a lot of energy and time into the essay. Here, especially I want to thank my partner, Sophia Ruan most. She gave me much useful advice to improve my draft. Without her help, I wouldn’t finish this essay successfully.
The last part is this Cover Letter. These three paragraphs above are the identification of my portfolio items.
In the end, I want to thank everyone in my English class. They accompany me to finish this course and help me with my English studying. When I made a mistake, they gave me excusals. When I burst out an excellent sentence, they gave me prizes. Thank you all wholeheartedly!
Sincerely,
Student Adam Zhang
June 21, 2007
Essay Draft Three
Adam Zhang
June 19, 2007
Draft 3
Babu’s Attitude towards His Life
Among my favorite stories, “The Grass-Eaters” [1] by Krishnan Varma describes the first person a short period of the hero (Ajit Babu)’s experience in India. Babu is a typical representative of the poor in India. He had no stable residence, thus only shifting around India with his wife and did not have continuous food supply, always eating grasses instead and facing a lot of uncertainty in front of his life. And later on a warm-hearted man appeared----Ramaniklal Misralal, who helped offering Babu and his wife with a better living place----the roof of one of Misralal’s buildings. There is a question “Does Babu enjoy his present life?”
In order to answer this question, I want to clarify that this question focused on Babu’s subjective attitude towards his life rather than anyone else’s attitude. Therefore the solution should be divided into three parts to analyze. The first is the practical contrasts of Babu’s present and past living conditions because the hero’s feeling rises on the basis of the practical experiences and this is the fundamental step to figure out his attitude. The second is the analysis of the current situation of people in India because it can strongly influence the people’s mind. The third part comes with the analysis of Babu’s character which is crucial element directing his mind. Assume both an optimistic person and a pessimistic person face an accident. As is clear the two go with absolutely different minds. So quite important is it to make clear what Babu’s character is like.
First the practical contrasts are presented below:
In the Paragraph 5 the author mentioned “The first was a footpath of Chittaranjan Avenue.”(P56) “Avenue?” It is believed that people who haven’t read this story will wonder, “How can people settle down in the streets?” The truth is that the former “house” of Babu is “street”. And even the streets were crowded----“The footpath was so crowded with residents, refugees like us and locals” (P56). This sentence indicates not only Babu lived in the streets in the open air but also shared them with others. In contrast with the roof, it is worse.
After fleeing away from the footpath of Chittaranjan Avenue, Babu and his wife moved into an abandoned-looking freight wagon at the railway terminus.(P57) Here the article mentions Babu’ s thought “A whole wagon to ourselves-a place with doors which could be opened and shut” (P57), and then tells his activities “we did nothing but open and shut them for a full hour” (P57). Why was he so happy with opening and shutting a door? That’s because no door existed in the place he lived before----more exactly without a shelter place, without a stable residence. Then a cement concrete pipe near the Sealdah railway station appealed to Babu. At that time, “Unfortunately, it was not occupied and, with no prompting from me, she crept into it.”(58) “No prompting” means Babu desired strongly to settle down in that pipe at that time, implying that so low a living condition-cement concrete pipe could cater to his satisfaction. His satisfaction proves that his living place before had not a patch on this cement concrete pipe, Saying nothing of his place----building roof with more room and better ventilation later on.
In addition, there is another emotional contrast to be presented----a proof of the transformation of the hero’s feeling condition. it says “We have no fears and anxieties.”(P59) This is the most important element which satisfies Babu. It is human nature that everyone fears uncertainty most. Uncertainty makes people’s prospects unclear so no one knows what will happen in the next second and at this time the human broad imagination begins to work. Imagination creates a lot of things to happen and those things are always duplicates of the most disastrous experiences people have suffered. In the latter part, Babu has got certainty, so he would enjoy his present life.
The contrasts among different situations above are effective in providing evidence to support this view “The later-on roof was better than Babu’s past residences”. The factual evidences help prove “Babu enjoyed his life at present”.
The second step is to analyze the current society in India at the time when this story happened. The sentence “…if you got up at night to relieve yourself you could not be sure of finding your place again…”(P56) ironically pictures such an image----a lot of people slept on the streets, overlapping each other. We can see through this there were masses of poor in India, and what’s more, these people suffered from very bad situations such as no individual living space. They occupied a large proportion of the population in India. The writer mentions “Our fourth child. One died of diphtheria back home in Decca; two, from fatigue, on our long trek on foot to Calcutta.”(P57) Babu’s children’s destiny symbolizes poor Indians’ children. They have no health care and suffer bad nutrition, endangered by a high death rate. The author says on behalf of Babu that “We eat two square meals of grass every day” in an optimistic accent in the end. (P59) That expresses the happiness of the character at that time-they have staple grass meals. Of course it is square meal for in that society most people like Bijoy Babu (the person living bellow Ajit Babu) who have even no grass to eat so that he created a theory that “…if you reduce your consumption of food by five grams each day, you will not only not notice that you are eating less but after some time you can do without any food at all.”(P58) Apparently, the pseudoscience can’t make sense. That results in his tottering. Babu’s “theory” can only cheat his stomach. The prospect for this poor guy ought to be starvation. This indicates a lot suffered inadequate food supply and starvation. The above mentioned has uncovered the awfulness in Indian current society. In a bad macro circumstance, little people would have excessive requirements. So Babu must be very pleasant with his present condition--stable residence and enough room, two square meals of grass guaranteed. So he enjoys his current life.
Then into the third part comes my drawing of Babu’s character. His character is optimistic. “…it was heaven. I felt I was God.”(P56) burst out from Babu when he found the freight wagon and “We have far more light and ventilation than they. We don’t get nibbled by rats and mice and rodents as often as they do” (P56) stand for the view that Babu was very optimistic. Actually such situation is not very good but Babu could find many reasons to persuade him satisfied. This shows the qualities of optimistic people----they always find happiness which will never be found by pessimistic persons. To illustrate his character of optimism, we should refer to his religion. Babu is a Hindu who believes in “reincarnation”. Only if a Hindus lives happily and keeps a healthy attitude towards life, his soul in the next body can live a happy life. No doubt Babu is optimistic. An optimistic person always enjoys the current; never asks for more with vehemence. Therefore it is easy to conclude that “Babu enjoys his present life.”
From above, we can see that Babu—such an optimistic person—who lives better than he did before in so unstable a society, would absolutely enjoy his life later on. There is a conclusion we come to that Babu enjoyed his life. Is there anything else hidden between lines? After searching and studying the story, I find something new which deserves our thinking.
In the end, the story presents something new----something the writer wants his readers to know most. Between the lines I notices a detail----“Prodeep (Babu’s child) is not with us now; he is in the ‘Naxalite’ underground.”(58) The Naxalite movement aimed to change India’s social structure by liquidating estate and distributing land among the rural poor. Maybe Varma claims all the poor should be united to destroy that social structure, in this way getting wealth from the exploiters and improving their life. In another way the poor shouldn’t await their doom, and they must try their best to improve their life. As the saying goes “No pain, no gain!”
Note：[1] Material from “Grass-Eaters” by Krishnan Varma in India in 1992
Essay Draft Two
Adam Zhang Babu’s Attitude towards His Life
May 16, 2007
Draft 2
Among my favorite stories, “The Grass-Eaters” by Krishnan Varma described in the first person a short period of the hero (Ajit Babu)’s experience in India. Babu was a typical representative of the poor in India. He had no stable residence, thus only shifting around India with his wife and didn’t have continuous food supply, always eating grasses instead and had been facing a lot of uncertainty in front of his life. And later on a warm-hearted man appeared----Ramaniklal Misralal, helping Babu and his wife with a better living place----the roof of one of Misralal’s buildings. There is a question “Does Babu enjoy his present life?”
In order to answer this question, I want to clarify that this question emphasized the subjective attitude towards his life not anyone else’s attitude. Therefore the solution should be divided into three parts to analyze. The first is the practical contrasts of Babu’s present and past living conditions because the hero’s feeling rises on basic of the practical experiences and this is the fundamental step to figure out his attitude. The second is the analysis of the current situation in India because it would influences the people’s mind strongly. The third part comes with the analysis of Babu’s characters which is crucial element directing human’s mind. Assume an accident faces both an optimistic person and a pessimistic person. As is clear the two go with absolutely different minds. So quite important is to make clear what Babu’s character is like.
First the practical contrasts are presented below:
In the Paragraph 5 the author mentioned “The first was a footpath of Chittaranjan Avenue.” “Avenue?” It is believed that people who haven’t read this story will wonder, “How can people settle down in the streets?” The truth is that former “house” of Babu is “street”. And the streets were crowded----“The footpath was so crowded with residents, refugees like us and locals” (The Paragraph 5). This sentence indicates not only Babu lived in the streets in the open air but also shared them with others. In contrast to the roof, it was worse.
After fleeing away from the footpath of Chittaranjan Avenue, Babu and his wife moved into an abandoned-looking freight wagon at the railway terminus. (P57 the top lines) Here the article mentions Babu’ s thought “A whole wagon to ourselves-a place with doors which could be opened and shut” (P57 Line 2&3), and then tells his activities “we did nothing but open and shut them for a full hour” (P57Line 3&4). Why was he so happy with opening and shutting a door? That’s because no door exists in the place he lived before----more exactly without a shelter place, without a stable residence. Then a cement concrete pipe near the Sealdah railway station appealed to Babu. At that time, “Unfortunately, it was not occupied and, with no prompting from me, she crept into it.” “No prompting” means Babu desired strongly to settle down in that pipe, implying that so low a living condition-cement concrete pipe could cater to his satisfaction. His satisfaction proved that his living place before had not a patch on this cement concrete pipe, Saying nothing of his place----building roof with more room and better ventilation later on.
In addition, there is another emotional contrast I want to present----a proof of the transformation of the hero’s feeling condition. The 3rd line in the last paragraph says “We have no fears and anxieties.” I think this is the most important element which satisfies Babu. It is human nature that everyone fears uncertainty most. Uncertainty makes people’s prospects unclear so no one knows what will happen in the next second and at this time the human broad imagination begins to work. Imagination creates a lot of things to happen and those things are always duplicates of the most disastrous experiences people have suffered. Later on in this story, Babu has got certainty, so he would enjoy his present life.
The contrasts among different situations above are effective in providing evidence to support this view “The later-on roof was better than Babu’s past residences”. The factual evidences help prove “Babu enjoyed his life at present”.
The second step is analyzing the current society in India at the time when this story happened. The sentence “…if you got up at night to relieve yourself you could not be sure of finding your place again…” ironically pictured such an image----a lot of people slept on the streets, overlapping each other. We can see through this there were masses of poor in India, and what’s more, these people suffered from very bad situations such as no individual living space. They occupied a large proportion of the population in India. The writer mentioned “Our fourth child. One died of diphtheria back home in Decca; two, from fatigue, on our long trek on foot to Calcutta.”(4th paragraph in Page 57) The Babu’s children’s destiny symbolized poor Indians’ children. They had no health care and suffered bad nutrition, endangered by a high death rate. The author said on behalf of Babu that “We eat two square meals of grass every day” in an optimistic accent in the end. (P59 Line8) That expresses the happiness of the character at that time-they have staple grass meals. Of course it is square meal for in that society most people like Bijoy Babu (the person living bellow Ajit Babu) who have even no grass to eat so that he created a theory that “…if you reduce your consumption of food by five grams each day, you will not only not notice that you are eating less but after some time you can do without any food at all.”(The last paragraph in Page 58) Apparently, the pseudoscience can’t make sense. That resulted in his tottering. Babu’s “theory” can only cheat his stomach. The prospect for this poor guy ought to be starvation. This indicates a lot suffered inadequate food supply and starvation. The above mentioned uncovered the awfulness in Indian current society. In a bad macro circumstance, little people would have excessive requirements. So Babu must be very pleasant with his present condition--stable residence and enough room, two square meals of grass guaranteed. So he enjoys his current life.
Then into the third part comes my drawing of Babu’s character. His character is optimistic. “…it was heaven. I felt I was God.”(First paragraph) burst out from Babu when he found the freight wagon and “We have far more light and ventilation than they. We don’t get nibbled by rats and mice and rodents as often as they do” (3rd paragraph) stand for the view that Babu was very optimistic. Actually such situation is not very good but Babu could find many reasons to persuade him satisfied. This showed the qualities of optimistic people----they always find happiness which will never be found by pessimistic persons. To illustrate his character of optimism, we should refer to his religion. Babu was a Hindu who believed in “reincarnation”. Only if a Hindus lived happily and keep a healthy attitude towards life his soul in the next body can live a happy life. No doubt Babu was optimistic. An optimistic person always enjoys the current; never ask for more with vehemence. Therefore it is easy to conclude that “Babu enjoys his present life.”
From above, we can say Babu enjoyed his life.
In the end, the story should be explored to find something new----something the writer wants his readers to know most. From the mid line in Page 58 I noticed a detail----“Prodeep (their child) is not with us now; he is in the ‘Naxalite’ underground.” The Naxalite movement aimed to change India’s social structure by liquidating estate and distributing land among the rural poor. Maybe Varma was claiming all the poor should be united to destroy that social structure, in this way getting wealth from the exploiters and improving their life. In another way the poor shouldn’t await their doom, and they must try their best to improve their life. As the saying goes “No pain, no gain!”
Essay Draft One
Adam Zhang “The Grass-Eaters” by Krishnan Varma describes a scene of poorer people’s life in India. The character Ajit Babu is the representative of the poor. He has no stable residence shifting around India with his wife and doesn’t have continuous food supply always eating grasses instead and faces a lot of uncertainty in front of life. There is a question “Does Babu have further expectation in his life or is he satisfied with his present life?”
May 9, 2007
Draft 1
Men’s Expectation
The answer is positive. Firstly, we can assure this through observation of Babu’s activities and thought. After fleeing away from the footpath of Chittaranjan Avenue, Babu and his wife moved into an abandoned-looking freight wagon at the railway terminus.(P57 the uppest lines) Here the article mentions Babu’ s thought “A whole wagon to ourselves-a place with doors which could be opened and shut” (P57 Line 2&3), and then tells his activities “we did nothing but open and shut them for a full hour” (P57Line 3&4). When would people be so happy with opening and shutting a door? That’s when people lived without a door before-more exactly without a shelter place, without a stable residence. The evidence above proved that Babu’ s expected standards of life isn’t high-quite low. So since he has a stable place on roof of Misrilal’ s buildings with a little rent at present, he should be very pleasant and satisfied.
Another evidence is that before Babu lived on the roof of buildings, he with his wife lived in a cement concrete pipe. The story tells “Unbelievably, it was not occupied and with no prompting from me, she crept into it.”(P57 bottom &P58 top) “No prompting” indicates that Babu’ s at that time wanted strongly to settle down in that pipe, implying that so low a living condition-cement concrete pipe could cater to his satisfaction, thus saying nothing of his present condition-a building roof with more room and better ventilation.
The third proof lies on his low-level demand for meals. The author says in the first person on behalf of Babu that “We eat two square meals of grass every day” in an optimistic accent in the end. (P59 Line8) That expresses the happiness of the character at that time-they have staple grass meals. Babu feels satisfied with that.
At last, I want to present the most powerful evidence-a proof of the transformation of the hero’s feeling condition. The 3rd line in the last paragraph says “We have no fears and anxieties.” I think this is the most important element which satisfies Babu. It is human nature that everyone fears uncertainty most. Uncertainty makes people’s prospect unclear so no one knows what will happen in the next second and at this time the human broad imagination begins to work. Imagination creates a lot of things to happen and those things are always duplicates of the most disastrous experiences people have suffered. So under uncertainty, people’s imagination frightened them. As is always the case that when the results happened at last people’s fear disappears because the most fearful thing-uncertainty have disappeared. In this story, Babu has got certainty, so he would enjoy his present life. It’s unreasonable to say he is dissatisfied from this aspect.
From above, we can see there are enough evidences to assure Babu’ s satisfaction with his present life. Those evidences have covered two dimensions (activity-thought dimension, living prospects (eating&living) dimension). Furthermore, I related Babu’ s thought condition with his religion. The context of the story tells me the hero is a Hindus who believes the reincarnation. Therefore Babu needn’t have a very strict demand of his life, because if he lives with a healthy mode of heart and never does wrong in order to live a wealthier life his soul in the next body would live a happy life. His current acts can influence his reincarnation. Thus living with the fundamental condition is enough for him-a Hindus.
Final-timed Writing
0525010
Adam Zhang
June 21, 2007
Timed-writing Three
Directions: From The Necklace, what might have been the quality of Mme Loisel’s life if she had not lost the necklace? Is her life better or worse now?
Lying easeful in a chair in the sunshine, having a cup of coffee sometime, reading newspapers relaxed for killing time, Mme Loisel is enjoying her present life in her home now. When it comes to the dinner time, she works in the kitchen preparing meal for the whole family, waiting for her husband and children’s coming back. When the time of cleaning approaches, she undertakes a lot of tasks—washing clothes, cleaning the floor, etc—without any complaint. After engaged in such tough tasks in her home, she think, “Maybe it is the time for community meeting now.” So she goes out meet other members in her community. What’s also possible is that Mme Loisel has registered in an club for keeping fit or practicing yoga.
These would all come true if Mme Loisel hadn’t lost her friend fake necklace—although she found it was fake later on—because she could spend these struggling years working leisurely, just for communicating with people else in the society, and secondly making money to support the family. She would choose a job to enjoy her life, not a job in which she seeks eagerly for money. She desired eagerly for money to compensate the “valuable” necklace to eliminate her guilt, not taking any idea of keeping health into consideration. Therefore she got haggard with her skins coarse through the long term of years of overworking. In the end, she got the ease in her mind because she succeeded compensating the lost necklace, but paying her beauty and health.
In the western countries, there are two main sections of working people—white collar and blue collar. The white collar class bear a higher reputation in the society although they earn less money, while the blue collar workers enjoy a high level of salary but pay more physical strength. So it is with Mme Loisel in my opinion. She paid a lot of labor strength as a blue collar which made her more tired, got her exhausted although she had made sizable money. Supposing she hadn’t lost that cursed necklace, she could absolutely use these money to make her life and the whole family’s life better. From this aspect, the imagined life of hers in the beginning may come true.
From the conjecture and analysis above, we can see that if Mme Loisel had not lost the necklace, she would enjoy a better life, exactly speaking a much better life.
Reading Log--Revere things you don’t know
Reading Log Revere things you don’t know After having read the article “Dead Men’s Path” by Chinua Achebe twice, I feel strongly that anyone should revere things that he doesn’t know. In the short story, Chinua tells us what happened on the protagonist—Michael Obi, who was appointed headmaster of Ndume central School in January 1949, then rudely insulted the local rituals of tribal life and at last met a lot of troubles which corresponded with his rudeness. Standing here, I asked myself why this would happen, and doubted that whether Obi is right or wrong. At first, I thought Obi is right because the educator should eradicate such fantastic ideas as “Our dead relatives depart by it and our ancestors visit us by it.” After all, a school is the place where pupils learn knowledge but fears of the “Dead ancestors”.(P54) However later on, I reversed my opinion. I had tried thinking maybe there was some responsibilities of Obi. From this prospect, I found something covered. Western men believe in the Holly Bible. That’s true! Therefore, those men believe God exists. Needless to say, there is always someone who is skeptical about the existence of God. None of people have seen the God, but who can say that “The God doesn’t exist because none of us have seen him!” I’m afraid not. So we can go a little further from this. We can’t say “The dead man doesn’t exist because none of us have met them.” We can’t deny the existence and the influence of the unknown or unseen things such as “Dead men”. We don’t know things that we don’t know. It’s better for us to hold them in awe, no insults to them. What the priest said is quite reasonable—Let the hawk perch and let the eagle perch. If Obi had obeyed this rule, maybe (it’s just “maybe&rdquo Therefore, let us keep revering the things we don’t know, and I think it should be the best way we deal with the “UNKNOWN”. 
that woman wouldn’t die.