11.30.

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Dear Mr. Wilson,
Since my sophomore year of high school, I worked hard to maintain a steady B in all
of my English classes. Writing was daunting, and I couldnt seem to ever achieve a high
enough level of writing to earn higher grades on my essays. I realize now that I can write with
my own purpose, which brings my writing to a higher level of potential and sophistication.
Through each Writing Project, I learned not only ideas and concepts about successful writing,
but I also learned much more about myself as a writer than I thought possible. The freedom
we were given with these essays has allowed me to write about what I want to write about
(within a guideline, of course) and choose topics that make the process less of a chore and
more of an experience. I have also never gone through such intense editing and revising,
which has opened another door for me as an author in the writing world.
The first draft of Writing Project 1 that I completed was characteristic of my level of
writing in high school. My prose itself isnt too bad, as I have refined my voice and style as a
writer. My arguments, however, always give me a hard time. I am a person who generally can
not make up her mind, and making decisions is stressful. I usually have so many ideas in my
head about a given topic that I cant focus them into one argument or seem to choose a few of
the ideas and develop them into an argument. My Writing Project 1 draft sports the thesis .
In my final revision, I have honed my argument into the claim that though the purposes of
the genres as presented by the authors are antonymous, the genres themselves have similar
conventions of tone and diction to portray a singular emotion: fear. It may not be the absolute
best thesis that I have come up with, but its definitely a start. I had to shorten the essay quite
a bit, making sure I was concise as possible and clear in my idea flow. I trimmed much of the

unnecessary detail and extra information, which included a large chunk of text. I also used
Laura Carrolls Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps toward Rhetorical Analysis to show the
delayed analysis and, therefore, appreciation of Poes works related to the context they are set
in. I handled my second text in a more refined, straightforward way, beginning by removing
the full block quote of the chain message. I was able to integrate evidence much more
efficiently, bringing out specific ideas with specific quotes. There is always room for
polishing and editing, of course, but my WP1 has taken a great turn for the better.
My WP3 was much easier to revise in that the novelty of everything we have learned
in the course made writing the first draft much easier than that of WP1. Not only is the prompt
more exciting, but I was also able to apply concepts we covered about introductions,
concision, and information flow off the bat. I had to add many of these to my WP1 since we
had only started to go through genre conventions and the fundamentals of higher level
writing. I took the biggest piece of advice, that I need to point out specific article quotes and
what I translated them into. Though there arent many specific quotations that the article
provided, I used the few that I could and supported my translation still by illustrating how I
also converted ideas from the article into a moral lesson. I did have more of a problem
creating a specific argument, however, since the essay is more of a reflection. Through my
drafts and revisions, I have used the problem model to argue that synthetics are growing while
their use needs to lessen. In my final revision, I conclude that my main claim is that children
should be taught morals so that they can avoid, and therefore alleviate the problem of,
synthetic drugs.
This course, in general, has opened up writing in so many ways. I never thought I
would be using I so much in one text, and my English teacher sophomore year of high

school told us not to use be in our writing. I do agree that excessive use would be
detrimental to the prose, but I realize now that I have limited myself in the way I write my
academic essays. The one thing I was aware of prior to Writing 2 is how to read like a
writer, so to speak. Though Mike Bunn brings up fantastic points in his article, I had actually
known about those points. Rhetorical analysis essays were my strong suit in high school, if I
did have one. I like to look at prompts from different angles and bring analysis to the table
that hasnt been explored but is somehow mindblowing. This is very unrealistic to achieve in
every essay I write, but aiming to do so pushes my thought process and increases future
potential ability as well as helps me understand the audience and purpose of the text. Plus,
analyzing is a great workout for the brain.
In conclusion, I want to thank you personally for making this course both engaging
and informative. My first quarter in college could have gone much worse, so Im glad that I
got to learn as much about writing as I did. I will have to continue to practice and develop my
writing skills, of course, but to know that I am headed in a positive direction gives me the
motivation to explore my personal writing style and choices. And not only will I be motivated
to write, but I will be motivated to revise using tools such as the reverse outline to make sure
my thesis and ideas are all clear and connected.
Best Regards,
Caitlyn Barresi