To whom it may concern, 

Before starting English 170, my feelings towards my writing were fairly positive. I felt my writing skills that I left high school with were efficient and concise. I received high grades in my English courses in high school, and on my senior research project I received full credit. When we first started writing in Writing and Rhetoric, I learned to move away from having too much fluff in my writing. A lot of my writing consisted of extra sentences that didn’t add anything to my essays. I learned this after writing my analytical essay, and used what I learned for my argumentative essay. I’m continuing to use what I learned for my research project. 

I used the analytical skills I learned in this class for my honors seminar class, Individual and Society. That course consists of mostly reading, and in Writing in Rhetoric I practiced reflecting on the texts I was reading. The skills that I gained from reading novels and articles in this course transferred to my honors course. 

Two examples of critical reading and thinking practice that stuck out most to me were the journals we wrote on the novel The Everything Box and the visual memoir assignment. Through these assignments, I was able to hone my analytical abilities by having to take a deeper look into the text I was reading, whether it was a story or just a couple words. These skills will help me in the future to dive deeper into texts compared to how I normally would, and aid me in dissecting pieces of writing like contracts and agreements. 

One significant change I noticed in my skills was in my essay writing. I’ve gotten better at removing unneeded fluff from my essays and adding in more important information and analyses. Two examples of things I’ve learned about the writing process would be drafting and editing. I never used to draft while writing essays, and this class taught me how drafts can be useful and help me write more efficiently. Editing my papers is also something I struggled with, and now I can take feedback from my drafts and apply it when I’m writing my final paper. 

I would say my writing strengths are clearly stating and explaining my purpose to my audience, my use of language, and critical reading and analytical thinking. I need more growth on citations and the research process. 

This course made me feel very prepared to go forward and meet expectations for other classes that I need to read and write in. There may be a few skills I still need help on, but for the most part this course has given me a very clear guideline for what’s expected in college essays. 

I still feel positively toward my writing, and am confident in it, but I feel even more confident than I had before because I know how to effectively analyze and edit my own writing.

-Rose Ruocco