1208 Locust St. Chillicothe MO, 64601 December 11th 2015 Dr. Jill Watkins Adjunct Professor North Central Missouri College 1301 Main St. Trenton, MO, 64683 Dear Dr. Watkins, As I look back on how the semester has gone, I realize how much my writing has improved in various ways. My papers have gotten progressively better as the semester has gone on. I learn new helpful tips each week making my essays and papers stronger. Although I have learned a lot about writing this semester, I still have room for improvement. As the semester began, I was nervous when thinking about what this class would be like. I did not have the slightest clue as to how college English would be compared to my previous classes. The first argumentative essay that we did in class had shown me how little I actually knew when it came to writing good papers. In the argumentative essay I had many comma errors, sentence structure errors, and word choice errors. I was blown away at the large number of errors that were covering my paper. I then knew that I was going to be learning so much more than I had originally thought. As each essay progressed on, the number of errors steadily decreased and my writing seemed stronger. But nonetheless, each time I thought I fully understood how to write papers, I learned something completely new. One of the most challenging parts of writing for me was trying to start the paper. I felt that when I got the paper started I could just write forever and not have many troubles. I often found myself writing the first paragraph of my paper three times trying to find the correct way to word it. I also had trouble occur when it came to researching for papers. I had trouble trying to find the articles that would best support my second argumentative paper. I was not familiar with databases at all. I was used to searching google for related sources. I was taught that databases are much better for papers and make for better quotes. When writing the paper after interviewing The Switchback Kids, I did not seem to have any trouble with getting strong quotes to use in my paper. I had been the person in my group to write down quotes as they spoke to my class over Skype. I understood which quotes would sound more motivational and correlate better with the paper. I seemed to have trouble with comma splices throughout many of my papers. It was not until we went over independent and dependent clauses in class and learned where they belonged in sentences that I truly learned how to write the sentences in a proper way. One way that I learned so much about how to properly write a paper was when we would peer edit in class. I thought that seeing my mistakes on my papers made me understand what I was doing wrong and also understand how to fix it. I also saw that I knew more than I have myself credit for when editing other people's papers. It seemed to get easier for me to critique papers and make them worthy of an A in class as the semester progressed. Another way that I learned new things about writing was when we would do bell work in class over facts that most people would get wrong on papers. The skills we learned through our bellworks stuck with me and made writing papers much easier. In our most recent paper, an argumentative paper, I felt as if I had done a very good job not only writing my paper, but using the correct form of citations. I had learned how to properly use interest citations in papers and how to cite a paper in the proper order and MLA format. I had learned these skills throughout the semester in various bellworks or when annotating papers in class. I am very pleased with myself when thinking about how much my papers have progressed over this semester. I know I still have more to learn in this class, but I believe I am on track to become a great writer. I think that my best paper has been my interview essay over the switchback kids because I truly grasped the assignment better than any of the others. I found it easy to write the paper because It seemed to flow very well as I wrote. I had also already learned so many skills that it made me confident when writing. My overall worse paper was probably our first paper. I had very little knowledge compared to what I have now. That argumentative essay contained many small errors that made me realize how much I truly have learned now. I am thankful that I had this class and got to learn so many new skills. Although my writing has not reached its full potential, I believe that I will become a great writer. I enjoy seeing my writing get better as the semester goes on and seeing my grade steadily increase as well. Sincerely, Brandon Lamp |