Hello and welcome to my Writing 39C ePortfolio! Over these past ten weeks, our course has been focused around the central theme of childhood poverty and social mobility from the book, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis by Robert J. Putnam. Using ideas from the topic and research discussed in the book, we were required to choose our own topic for the research we carried out the rest of the quarter. After some difficulty, as you will learn about in my Reflective Introduction, I focused my research on the affects immigration has on children and their upward social mobility. My research came together in our first major paper which was the Historical Conversations Project where I spoke about the general topic of immigration and the way in which it can hinder a child's ability to receive an equal opportunity to an education and, consequently, their ability to pursue higher education or get a job. Our next major paper was the Advocacy Project, where I did even more research to come up with two solutions that could possibly solve the problem of immigrant children's inability to receive a quality education. I chose to focus on a revision of the visa system and further support of English Language programs. Through both these research papers, I learned how to formulate strong arguments and conduct good research. I did struggle over this ten week period to write a sound paper, and you can see some of my thoughts throughout the drafting process in my Process Reflection section. Through my struggles and hard work, I came out an improved writer and can carry out these skills in other research as I continue through college. For an in-depth look at my writing process and improvement as a writer and researcher, please feel free to go through my ePortfolio and notice my progression through the drafting process.