NATHANIEL WASHINGTON
WRITING PORTFOLIO
WELCOME
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This site represents the culmination of my writings during my University of Denver Career. It is compiled in partial fulfillment of the Writing Capstone Course taught by professor Richard Colby as a part of the Writing Practices Minor.
With this portfolio I intend to paint as accurate a picture I can of my writing. This requires including a sampling of diverse works from different genres, but also sharing some insight into how I feel about my own writing and why I write. The works I've included below are a bit of a sampling from different genres I've written in during my time at DU, additional works can be accessed in the "Portfolio" header. The different categories of the portfolio: Analysis, Applied, Core, and Theory are in accordance with the requirements for the minor and each represents different rhetorical scenarios. For those curious about what I think of the writing process, its significance and what writing in a broad sense is, I invite you to examine the various works within the "Theory" section of the portfolio.
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To learn a bit more about me the "Biography" page which can be accessed under "About," includes an attempt to answer the ever-elusive question "Who am I?" Under "Course Descriptions" which can also be accessed beneath the "About" header, you'll find descriptions of the courses I've taken over the past year within the Writing Practices Minor and which constitute a bulk of the material contained in this Portfolio.
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I thank you very much for taking the time to examine my portfolio and hope that you'll find something of the experience worthwhile!
FACEBOOK'S FACBOOK
Writing Theory | Analysis
This piece was originally an assignment for a Writing Theories course. We were asked to identify a community on social media and comment on how it reacts to and against the social medium in which it was constructed. I chose to write on Facebook's Facebook page, specifically a post I found at the time of the assignment. The post deals with Jarvis and the notion of creating a sort of intuitive and interactive interface that could serve as a personal assistant in the home--think Google Home or Amazon Echo at the next level (true Tony Stark genius). What was especially interesting to me was the notion of crowdsourcing which comes up. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook as well as the one whose post was the feature of this assignment, not only recognizes the capabilities of social media (that would be expected), but he's pushing them beyond their current bounds and, in a guise of friendly curiosity, extracting invaluable information by interacting with an all too eager community. After conducting this case study I've found that, aside from the advertising potential that social media sites like Facebook present, they are also highly effective modes of market research which guarantee that most all users' needs and wants are addressed.
VISIONS, DREAMS
Applied Writing | Short Story
This piece has evolved over the past few years since I've been at DU. The story's remained relatively the same over the first few iterations, but has always included a homeless woman and some sort of turmoil unravelling. For the sake of this portfolio I've chosen to include several versions. The first I've included is perhaps the one I'm happiest with and is perhaps the most "complete," it includes supernatural elements; the second version emphasizes the homeless experience, the third explores a familial connection to homelessness.
The inspiration for the original story (which is "Version C" below) was my witnessing panhandlers during commutes to school. I've chosen to include several versions, because they display a bit in the way of my creative process, but mainly because it underscores my belief that writing is never complete and ever-evolving. I believe it would be a falsehood to say that I'm completely satisfied with everything I've ever written and that that will remain the case forever. In addition, for the sake of this portfolio we were asked to revise a work we'd previously completed and I suppose that this progression represents that process of revision as I search for the story's destination (The "latest" revision is "Version B").
THE MIRROR IS A WELL
Applied Writing | Poetry Collection
The Mirror is a Well is perhaps the work that I feel best about since my time at DU. I am a creative writing minor and had a bit of experience writing poetry in high school, but I hadn't the opportunity to take a poetry workshop until my final year. This collection represents the culmination of that course. The expectation was that there would be a portfolio of the works created during the class as a sort of final. I suppose that having this in mind, at least in my subconscious mind, proved the only ingredient necessary to guarantee that the works all melded in some capacity.
Wisława Szymborska
"Some invisibility would come in handy,
some grayish stoniness,
or even better, non-being
for a little or a long while."