Bridget Malone 

Malorie Seeley-Sherwood 

ENG170-29 

11/30/21 

Reflective Cover Letter 

Before I took this course, my initial attitude about my writing was that I could and would never be an amazing writer because pieces that I thought were my best writing only ever received a barely passing grade. When essays were to be turned in, we usually got the chance to share some of our writing to the whole class. Often times I would have some confidence in my writing piece, but when the others in my class would share, I saw/heard a big gap between our writing. No matter what my peers wrote it always seemed way better than what I had wrote. They used their writing as a tool to express their voice and character/personality, meanwhile I was always just following the prompt word by word with no thoughts of incorporating my voice into it. In the course Writing and Rhetoric, I learned how to use my voice and incorporate it into my writing no matter the mode, prompt, or tone of the piece. I then tried to apply this to every paper little by little building up to where I believe I finally achieved it in paper six. In this course I also learned some skills and strategies that proved helpful when utilized in my other classes such as, higher grammar knowledge, public speaking for presentations, and critical thinking. 

Paper four and five are two specific examples of critical reading and analytical thinking out of all my portfolio assignments. In future studies of my career, these skills will be useful because they allow me to thoroughly examine prompts or readings given to me and then able me to easily apply the information/knowledge obtained from critical reading, apply it to my writing, and then analyze it. Therefore, these skills are valuable because they help me improve my reading and writing technique and overall, the quality, effectiveness, and formality of my writing. During this course, the way I think about college level writing processes and strategies changed when we learned about different modes/writing styles and the tone and rhetoric that is most effective with each different mode. The reason my thinking changed is because I was never taught in high school that there were such writing tools as modes. Also, because I had done a little of rhetoric and tone in my writing in high school and then more in college, it made it really easy to see the difference between college and high school. College level writing strategies and processes go into much more depth regarding mode, rhetoric, and tone whereas in high school we only touched the tip of the iceberg with writing strategies. 

By writing paper one and six, I learned outlining, revising, and brainstorming. Paper one was the first time I learned that the writing process included brainstorming and revising. Before college and this course, I had never brainstormed or revised my paper as much as I did in this class, which helped develop my writing because brainstorming helped me gather ideas and pick the best one for my writing, and revising helped by teaching me how to reread through my work to make sure I wrote my best work. Furthermore, writing paper six, I created an outline before writing my paper which helped develop my writing by organizing my thoughts before trying to put words together. After taking this course I now consider my writing strengths to be creating a focused and strong thesis and creating an effective and alluring hook. On the other hand, achieving my purpose and staying organized throughout the entire essay or paragraph are areas of my writing that still need work. Meaning/clarity in reaching my audience and achieving my purpose and organization or structure of an entire essay or paragraph are two specific skills I struggled with throughout this course because I would tend to get off topic or become repetitive and then would never end up achieving the purpose of the essay, therefore throwing off the little organization/structure I had in the beginning of my paper. Although I believe a specific skill from this course that became a strength for me was, creating a focused and debatable thesis. At the beginning of this course my thesis’s were lacking and unfocused, but by the end of this course I was able to create effective, focused, and arguable thesis’s by learning about how to create a focused thesis and learning writing skills that help make a better thesis throughout this course.  

Upon completing this course, I feel more confident in my writing skills and ten times more prepared, than before this course, regarding college writing expectations and other professional contexts. This course has changed my negative attitude towards writing into a positive one where writing a paper can be so diverse and fun in the sense of using different modes, and rhetoric, and can act as an effective tool in expressing yourself instead of feeling like the worst chore ever.