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Hailey Thomas

Professor Hatfield

ENGL.1302.SCHS3

April 27, 2020

Reflective Essay

Out of all the major assignments I have had this semester, the letter assignment

was the assignment that taught me about delivery and communication more than any

other essay. The letter taught me how to effectively deliver an argument, how to

convince readers, and how to use proper sources to support your argument. All the work

in my portfolio in a way helped my letter and helped me in many ways.

The letter obviously taught me the most, especially delivery. In my case, writing

to someone as politically involved and dignified as Sylvester Turner, I had to think of the

best way to deliver my argument. My writing process is hard to explain, but I was

originally going to write to the president of the NAACP, but then I realized that I need

someone who is a political candidate and serves a community, so I chose Sylvester

Turner. I then realized that police brutality was a very broad topic, especially living in

Third Ward, and since I have never lived there before, I tried to speak on the issues that

I see and I hear about so the letter would not be overly biased.

My SAR #4 helped me identify an argument, find supporting evidence to the

argument, and locate any underlying assumptions that connect evidence to the

argument that was presented. All of the peer reviews helped strengthen my letter and

see how others feel about my letter. Hearing other opinions, in my opinion, is a good

way to see other people’s perspective and is a good way to get good feedback and insight.

I definitely see a difference between my full rough draft, my original final copy, and my
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revised final copy, which is why I think it is good to hear constructive criticism from

others. My original final copy and my revised final copy show how even when I think I

have done all I could do, there is still something that could be revised.

As I writer I feel like I have changed because I used to be really biased in my

previous essays, and I did not know about contractions or scholarly sources. Now I know

the importance of using credible and reliable sources, and that contractions make your

writing, in a way, more formal. I was very surprised when I got good grades on the letter

and the SAR #4, and I later realized that the more I write, the more confident I feel

about writing. I also realized that if I write about something I feel passionate about, I

tend to enjoy writing and get really into writing it instead of it feeling like a chore. I feel

like I have changed as a writer, especially since the beginning of the school year. I have

learned a lot about structure, delivery, communication, and citing, and I feel like this

semester was a definite game changer. Whenever I also do good on an essay, it feels

good to see that my writing was progressively getting better, since I did not know much

about writing good essays before this class. I initially thought I was an amazing essay

writer, but at the beginning, I had no clue what I was doing. However, now that almost

done with this course, I feel more confident with my writing skills and I feel like this

course really helped me evaluate my strengths and weaknesses when it comes to writing

essays. It also helped me realized that word count is nothing to me anymore. When I

first started the class, I was scared I was never going to write as much as I should have,

and now I don’t let word count stop me from successfully writing a good essay. An essay

that is more than nine hundred words does not seem impossible anymore.

In conclusion, many of the assignments I was assigned to do definitely helped me

progress as a writer, and I felt myself slowly getting better and slowly feeling more
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confident with my work. The letter assignment, SAR #4, my peer reviews, and my drafts

all helped me formulate a final revised letter that I am proud to say is mine. I never

expected a class to do as much as this one has, and this semester has taught me more

than an average English class has.