Dear Reader

Below: My Mom and I back in the day.

I tried doing her hair.

Ever since I was a young girl,I would always run around trying to be the little neighborhood hairstylist. I have always dreamed of
opening my own hair salon. Growing up, I always had little kids to
practice on because my mom owns a daycare at my house and has ever since I was a baby. Throughout my elementary schooling, I did really well. Since I did so good in school, being able to get into beauty school always seemed so easy. I never really thought I would ever do poorly on a test, or skip school for no reason. My brother had always been the one with bad grades. It wasn’t until middle school when my grades started to drop. Then once High School came along, I really did badly. I attended at the Arlington High School until my sophomore year when I dropped out. It hasn’t been too long since I’ve been out of school. I am only sixteen, and I dropped out when I was fifteen. I never really connected with any of the teachers and it just wasn’t the right scene for me. I was always skipping school, leaving classes early and just not trying hard at all. I quickly realized that was a mistake, which is why I decided to finish school through the Youth Re-Engagement Program. I am currently taking a few classes and one, which is English 97. In the beginning, I was a bit iffy about taking an English class. I have always been pretty good at English, but I was worried that I would start slacking off again. However, watching my oldest brother go back to school and pass his classes gave me courage that I too could do that. Now the quarter is close to being over, and English has been a pretty good class. I learned how to write stronger, and learned that I can turn in my work at the deadlines. All I have to do is try.

Above: My oldest brother, Josh, and I.

During this quarter in English class, I feel I have grown a lot with my writing. The whole process during these 10 weeks has been an interesting one. I never really realized how much I didn’t know about English. It was the simple stuff that I didn’t know too. Most complex things stuck with me because I thought it was more important than the little things. I figured the little things were common sense, so I never applied myself to it. I was wrong. Taking this class has really showed me how much I was able to build up my writing skill. Now I know how to punctuate correctly, and put in conjunctions at the right spot. I have learned how to put together a paper with better structure. Also I have learned what a comma splice is, and that I create them all over my paper. I didn’t even know a comma splice existed. But now I don’t have to worry about them because I was taught how to fix it.

For my e-portfolio I have chosen a few pieces to show you. The ones I chose show my ability to write. Not only to write an essay, but even how to write a journal better. I have taken out pieces with good structure, and a good showing of description. First I chose one of my descriptive pieces call “A Place I Call My Own.” Next I added “Create New from Old,” which is a major writing assignment. After that I’ve chosen to put in “The Eight Minute Hour” for an effective writing piece. Finally, for my writer’s choice I chose “The Present Is the Best You Got.” Going into this class I wasn’t expecting to learn much since I was fresh out of High School, but I did. I’m happy for what I learned too. I am Jesica Shattuck and I hope you enjoy the rest of my work!