To whom it may concern,

I believe that I have made many beautiful strides towards being a very successful writer from participating in this course throughout the semester. Before taking this course, I never believed that I was the strongest writer, even though I was in multiple honors and advanced placement english classes in high school. I assumed that my writing skills were above average for my age and school, but I knew I was never even close to reaching my full writing potential. I was never encouraged to write rough drafts or thoroughly proofread my papers in any level of education before college. They were taught to me and my peers, but were never encouraged or enforced on us to do so. Just the ability of writing a rough draft, proofreading, and peer editing that I have acquired through this course have helped my writing tremendously. 

My attitude towards writing has definitely changed since my high school years. Like I stated previously, my teachers never encouraged me to use the skills that I was forced to use during this course, and I believe it has made me a better writer because of it. The skills that I have learned from this course benefits me in my other classes as well. I recently had a writing assignment for my Globalization class and used the skills that I have learned from this class throughout my writing process for that paper. I find that if I want to be successful and get the grades that I want to achieve in a writing assignment, I need to use the skills taught to me during this course. 

The aspects of the main course assignments that I feel were most successful were meaning and clarity in reaching my audience and achieving my purpose and development/description/detailed evidence and explanation of examples. I feel this was the most successful because a writer always needs to understand the audience that will be reading their paper. The assignments that were assigned to me this semester were mostly all intended for different audiences for each paper I wrote. Also, providing evidence and examples to support your writing is always an effective strategy for writing a paper. It gives the audience the knowledge that you are referring to throughout the paper. I learned that you always need to expect the audience is not aware of what you are writing about, so giving them evidence and examples will help them better understand. 

I now have increased confidence in my writing skills to move on to ENG170 Writing and Rhetoric and write clear, argumentative and analysis based essays. My writing skills have increased dramatically in the past three months. I understand the importance of proofreading, rough drafts, and peer editing, along with other skills that will help me be successful in ENG170. I also appreciate the time and effort that Professor Joy has put into teaching his students the lessons that will help us be successful in our writing careers. I have learned more about writing these past three months than I have the whole four years of my high school career. I feel I am ready to take it to the next level in my writing career and am determined to tackle the challenges that will come in my future. 

 

Thank you,

AJ Fitzgerald