Royal Library
- King Robertson
- Apr 18, 2021
- 2 min read
I've written quite a lot of things in the past four years. Despite this, curating just a few choice works for this portfolio blog is far from an easy task. Certain things are obvious to me, such as my final proposal write-up for my Theory, History, and Research class. Not only is it by definition a culmination of my abilities, but it could also do with a significant amount of revision. The same goes for my introductory Creative Writing course. Ultimately I'm going to revise my Theory, History, and Research piece as I feel that it is one of my weaker pieces to date. After these two pieces, my finals for my Creative Writing course and my Theory, History, and Research course, I'm also going to add the short story piece that I wrote for my fiction writing course. I feel it's quite rough around the edges, but is much more representative of me as a creative writer than the other two examples previously curated.
Trying to choose an example piece from my Theories of Writing class is an interesting dilemma, as a lot of the work I did for that particular class ended up being multi-modal in some way, such as being a spoken/performed piece, or being a website. I think the best choice for this portfolio would be one of my more traditional free writes. These are a much better look into how my brain operates during the writing process, and are more "word vomit" than anything else. Despite this, I think they're still compelling pieces, and I will be selecting one that I feel really encapsulates both me as a writer and me as a person.
The harder choice by far is picking one from my major. My major is Game Development, and by its nature, we do very little writing. Lots of coding or testing, but not much writing. Thankfully, with my jump to a Bachelor of Arts instead, I do have a slightly larger pool than most to work with. I think out of the few scant examples I have of my work as it relates to my major, I'm going to choose the Fluxus Games I designed in my Rapid Game Design & Prototyping class. These games were created to stretch the definition of what a game is or could be. Part of this exercise was making rules that would fit on a sticky note, so by definition, they're quite short. As such, I will be including the majority of them in this portfolio as one collection, as they are individually minimal.
Hi King, although I think it would be cool to see one of your multimodal pieces, it would be cool to see one of your free writes. Especially because most portfolios will be full of polished and finished pieces, but to see your thinking in just one moment of time without editing would be interesting.
King, you should use one of your multimodal pieces from Theories of Writing. However, you could use both your multimodal piece and one of your reflection freewrites.
Hello King,
I also came to the challenge of figuring out what to choose for my theories of writing piece. I think my final is fragmented in a lot of ways, which makes things difficult to post as a cohesive piece.
I think that both of our sites will have some pieces from the same classes. I'm excited to see how yours turns out.
Hi King,
I think your portfolio will be one of the most multi-modal and creative in the class based on this blog post! As a BA myself, I hadn't even thought about how difficult it may be to choose a piece from a major that is not writing-intensive. I think your choice of the Fluxus Games is a great pick, and will add a unique genre to your portfolio.
I hadn't considered including a free write because it feels so unpolished compared to what I typically think a portfolio should be, but your inclusion of it has made me challenge this idea. Sometimes unpolished writing best captures us, as you said, and it also adds diversity to a collection of…