I thought that this creating a portfolio thing was exclusive to models and actors. You know, sort of showcasing that you can leer, grimace, grin, laugh, whatever without causing the viewer to retch uncontrollably. Apparently, even in this writing content, you need to show a 'portfolio'...sample pieces so that people can look them up and see if you suit them.
Not that I was really keen on starting to write content. I mean, it's not as though you can become a millionaire by churning out posts for people who cannot even afford full-time writers. If I wanted the money, I'd have stuck to balancing the books in my old job...THAT paid more and more certainly.
And yet...well, I really did not want to write content but there's that itch to know whether people would consider you good enough to do so...no? Just as every bathroom singer has a secret urge to try his hand out on singing in public. I mean, you cannot be spawning things like TikTok, Instagram, Smule and what-have-you but for this urge in people to try out, in public, things that they would not be confident of earning a living from. (Like this blog? Quite...but 'content writing' adds a layer of 'filtering', no?)
Anyway, I checked out a few sites to see 'content' and then tried my hand at putting together a 'portfolio' that could possibly appeal to them. So, first, I try writing a news item about a boy who manage to scrape through an exam but one who belonged to the 'side' of the webzine.
Schoolboy defeats nefarious agenda
A schoolboy from a small village defeats nefarious agenda by a corrupt school system. In the guise of asking students to answer questions in an exam, the school tried to get the students to leak secret formulae for summing arithmetic progressions and adding matrices. The clever schoolboy gave them the wrong answers in order to mislead them. In order to confuse them he mixed up 40% right answers, so that they would assume that the other 60% were also right. As long as such patriotism exists in school-children, we can never be defeated.
Hmmm! This would suit some of the webzines but others needed me to be more...learned. So, maybe, I should try something different for them.
Under-privileged Schoolboy wins against the odds
In an ideal society, education would be common to all classes of people. Unfortunately, in ours, it has become the province of the elite. The questions in examinations may be the same to all students but a student with the benefit of educated parents and after-school tuition cannot be considered equal to a poor student who has no such privileges. Not to mention that quite a few of the questions may be too far away from the lived experience of the under-privileged. (How do you divide 3 pies for 5 people, for example, to someone who has no idea of what a pie is.) Under the circumstances, the achievement of passing an examination, by a schoolboy from a village, is nothing short of a resounding blow against privileged elitism.
Would these suffice? Maybe not. Putting a positive spin on things is all good but the world runs on pulling down things, no? So, if I am good only for propping up people, I'd probably not even get a look in.
So, then, how about a schoolboy of the 'other side' getting 95%?
Examination system exposed
A schoolboy from a village scored 95% thereby exposing the corrupt examination system. A comparison between the answers across students exposed that every student who got the answer right to any question gave the exact same answer which is statistically impossible. When questioned about it, the academia gave the unbelievable answer that, in multiple-choice questions, that was the only way it would happen. Really? Of course that was the only way it would happen if the question paper and the right answers had been leaked in advance or if the answer papers had been substituted afterwards. There is urgent need to investigate the deep-rooted corruption in the conduct of examinations.
That should suit those people but how about the 'erudite' ones?
Student fails despite privilege
Examinations, as we all know, do not really provide a level playing field. Privilege makes a difference, especially when those who create the exam papers also belong to the privileged classes. Yet, despite all the advantages granted by privilege, success is not guaranteed. A student from a village failed to get all his answers right and could only score 95%. This proves that the idea that ability goes hand in hand with Class is only a myth.
So, there, I have my portfolio. But...
I mean, I cannot send it out to those guys now, can I? Since I do not want to be writing content. Who will handle all those spam SMSes and emails offering me content-writing jobs...not to mention that I'll have to field ten times the messages about content-writing trainings and workshops?
Hmmm! I'd best leave it to you guys to tell me if I am good enough! As usual!
