Sue Yon Kim

1026 University Village,

Salt Lake City, UT 84108
Tel: 801-585-4033
Email: sueyon1030@gmail.com
Laurie Oberg
Academy for Math, Engineering & Science
5715 S 1300 E
Salt Lake City, UT 84121

Re: Self Evaluation Letter

Dear Ms. Oberg:
Now time comes near to the end of third quarters of my junior year and I have learned so many
different things in the class so far. I have expanded the knowledge of my education level and I
also have learned how I am going to study more efficiently. In the language arts class, I have
learned the skills to write an essay. I have learned that I have to work hard more than before and
I need a lot of knowledge in describing my intuitive thoughts.
The AMES taught me how to get a diploma, not an education. The AMES has provided me the
opportunities to work in a group and I have learned how to interact with a group members and
how to lead my group members to another level of cooperative works. So I can actively
participate in a group activity.

The three main things that AMES classes have taught me are reading writing, and inquiry. My
reading skill used to be poor. I could not read fast and could not understand it well. So I had a
low concentration in reading. I always read the book several times until I understand what it
means. In language arts class, we have done in-class silent reading and this method helps me a
lot in creatively thinking. I become more concentrate myself on the stories and I can read faster
than before. Also writing response to reading is helpful to me to rearrange my thoughts after
reading.

I have written lots of essays, research papers, and self-evaluation papers in the language arts
class. Through a variety of writings, I can frequently recheck and review my writing skills. I
have learned the importance of work cited page and the importance of expressing my opinion
strongly. Those practices require lots of my responsibilities in writing class-note, because I was
expected to write it accurately and deliver precisely what we did in the last time class with the
teacher and classmates.

Our language arts class has led to the students lots of discussions. We have discussed the recent
issues of legalizing gay marriage, legalizing medical marijuana, death penalty, and racism. These
discussions stimulated me to think and focus on main issues of our society.

I still need to learn how to discuss about the society problem. I need to explore and learn why it
has happened, what the main issue is, and how pros and cons opinions are different from each
other. Then I can feel more comfortable with discussing the social issues within the class.
The most helpful thing that I have learned is how to effectively write and communicate through
it. My biggest problem was an English writing in the past. I was struggling to write an essay or
research paper due to the cultural and educational differences between the USA and my home
country (Korea). But my grammar gets now improved much better than the past school year.

Reading, writing and inquiry have helped me a lot in the English-language art class. I cannot
think about which one of three is the least helpful one to me. As an example to back up my
claims above, I have realized what my problems with both slow reading and grammar errors in
writing were. So I had put a lot of time to find a way to improve both. One way to improve the
reading was that comparison of rough draft writing with final version of essay was particularly
helpful for improving my English-language art class. The other way was that the writing was
improved by myself through continuous practice or through the peer review. The reading was
significantly improved with a steady reading habit. Whenever there was unclear content, a
repetitive reading makes me understand. This reading habit gave me a lot of improvement in
English reading.

Death Penalty paper was the first essay paper that I wrote in language arts class. I can see there
are some errors in the grammar and word choice. Also the sentence fluency does not look well
but the ideas and voices are strong. The Pledge of Allegiance paper was hard to write but I could
see two different views. And I supported the opposite opinion so I could understand different
opinion from mine. Sentence fluency and word choice look better than the past one. The
grammar, sentence fluency, and word choice are improved than before because I more care about
grammar and read my rough draft repeatedly. I think my improvement is resulted from the
continuous reading habit.


Sincerely,