June 12, 2020

Dear Valentina,

I would like to begin by letting you know that this course has been the first real writing
experience I have gotten thus far in college. I have now come to realize that there is so much
more to writing than I had ever been taught in high school. There have definitely been some
assignments that I have not enjoyed as much as others. In the end, however, I was able to reflect
on how every task we did served a greater purpose of furthering my knowledge on discourse
communities and genre conventions. Now I will delve deeper into my intellectual growth
throughout this quarter.
In order to compose a successful paper, we have to do the appropriate reading, edit and
revise several drafts, and even reflect on our writing. The class readings were an example of one
of the aspects I did not enjoy as much. A lot of them were very long and sometimes seemed a bit
repetitive. I do remember the comic reading by McCloud that talked about what goes into
making a comic. That one was at least a bit more interesting because of the illustrations.
Regardless of the fact that I didn’t enjoy reading them, the readings provided very helpful
information about genre conventions, multimodality, and many other things. All of these things
were necessary to read in order to properly incorporate them in our writing. I do, however, hope
that I can get further practice with analyzing lengthy readings so I won’t dislike it as much. After
reading, we would have discussions that would relate to the topic of the week. These discussions
were never as tedious as the reading itself. I actually really enjoyed them sometimes because my
peers would bring up points that I had not considered myself. On some occasions, it would be a
bit difficult for me to pinpoint the importance of a class reading until we discussed it. My peers
did really good jobs at summarizing the most important points during our discussions.
Additionally, I very much enjoyed the personal discussions we would have, such as the one
when we recall our earliest reading and writing memories. This discussion in particular helped
me understand that regardless of our different backgrounds, we all still shared similarities and
will continue to share this intellectual journey with one another. Once the basis for our writing
was set, we were then able to move onto writing our first drafts. For me, this process began with
outlining the main points I want to talk about and which pieces of evidence I believe support
those claims. Once that foundation has been set, I would just write what I felt was right, knowing
I could always go back to revise after. All of the exercises we did prior to submitting our papers
were like stairs, each one being as important as the next in order to get to the destinstion.
One major aspect of this course was revising our work. In fact, it is what this portfolio is
centered around. When revising my WPs, the peer and teacher feedback I got was more valuable
than any feedback I could have given myself. Getting another intellectual person’s point of view
helped me see how others took in my writing. There were a few main things that I focused on
during revisions. For one, I made a lot of claims in both projects without including the amount of
analysis I should have. For example, in my first WP, I claimed that many some lagauge choices
were quite obviously directed towards a professional audience. I did not, however, explain why
or how that was obvious. As a result, I had to go back and explain why exactly it targets that
audience. Another thing that I got several comments on was focusing my writing. For example,
my original thesis statement for my WP1 was very broad and did not setup the purpose of my
essay as a thesis statement should. For my revised version, I included specific conventions, such
as organization and diction, which I would be focusing on throughout the essay. One of the last
things I struggled a lot with was my wording. My vocabulary is definitely not as vast as it could
be. This was evident when I realized I would repeat the same adjectives, adverbs, and transitions
throughout my essay. In fact, one of my peer comments was about how I used the word “overall”
too many times in my WP2. I realized that it was definitely true and therefore rephrased the
sentence so I would not feel the need to include the same transition over and over again. Overall,
these revisions helped me expand on my original claims.
Regarding my own personal feelings about this project, I feel confident that all of the
revisions I made were necessary and improved my essays. One thing I am most proud of is the
fact that I narrowed down the information that was necessary to be discussed and used
appropriate evidence to explain my choices. I feel like most of what I wrote contributed to the
pieces as wholes and did not sound like “filler” sentences. I could have, however, focused more
on the flow of the sentences. That is one of the things I felt most unconfident with, even after
revising several sentences that did not fit in as well as they could. I overall believe that my
revisions, especially the ones that added on rather than completely changing certain parts, show
that I have grown as a writer. The fact that I worked to make certain sentences clearer shows that
I am not learning to think about how my audience would understand, or even not understand, my
essays. This is a very important mindset to have, as I will from now on keep an open mind and
understand that there is always room for improvement. Because of these attributes I have gained,
I do not regret taking this class at all.
All of the things I have discussed thus far will help me approach future writing projects
with a new perspective. I now realize that all of the aspects leading up to composing a paper are
important in order to answer a prompt as thoroughly as possible. Additionally, I had never really
turned towards peer revisions as an important aspect of my writing. I now realize that it is one of
the most important steps and will start to turn towards that when I feel lost. I am not afraid to ask
for help anymore, because I now know that I can do nothing but help me further my writing. All
in all, this course has definitely changed my perspective on writing and I am glad I actually put
the effort in. So thank you for being our instructor this quarter and guiding us on the beginning
of our journey to reach our writing potential.

Sincerely,
Jacky Rodarte