ESTHEFFANI RODRIGUEZ

April 17th, 2019

Dear Ms. Figueroa,

Throughout these past four years, there has been many things I have encountered when

writing. I came into high school not knowing much about anything, especially not about anything

that had to do with writing. My teachers throughout high school had never enforced anything or

cared enough to teach how to properly write a paper, they expected us to know already when

coming into high school. Coming into my senior year, I still hadn’t been taught the proper

formatting that had to be used for when writing essays.

My senior year of high school has taught me proper MLA format, citing, better use of

vocabulary, ect. All of our reflections and revisions have showed and taught me how to correct

the mistakes I make when writing. All of my essays my senior year showed similar mistakes

throughout my writing. They all had to do with my works cited page but now that I visually see

how to correct my mistakes, I have an opportunity to. Another mistake I constantly made was

that I was very repetitive with my choice of words. I learned to have better transitions and I’m

more open minded to different choice of vocab.

I’m very proud of my social issues essay. This was a huge accomplishment for me because not

only did I receive a high grade on it, it was also one of the longest essays I have ever had to

write. This essay was about something that I actually cared about so I never ran out of ideas or
things to write about. It was a topic that I wanted to bring more awareness to because it is a

severe issue in present time.

This entire portfolio to me is a huge learning experience because I have a chance to compare my

very first essays to the ones that were recently written. This year as a writer, I have grown

tremendously. The feedback that was given to me didn’t make sense at first because I wouldn’t

see where I was wrong but my English teacher constantly explained it to the point where I would

stop making the same mistakes the following time. In the future, I will be able to correct the

mistakes in my writing that I once made throughout my high school years. My writing goals past

high school are to keep improving, to grow and to eventually become a great writer. In college I

know I’ll most likely be more challenged when writing and that my professors won’t be as

lenient on me the way my teachers were in high school. I hope to maybe take an extra writing

class or something of that sort because it could even benefit me in my career and maybe even in

the real world when something comes up. By learning all of this now, it’s going to help me not

struggle as much in college or to at least not struggle when writing papers.

Sincerely,

Estheffani Rodriguez