Damiela Thomas 

1 Hawk Dr,

New Paltz, NY 12561

dthomas19@newpaltz.edu

November 26, 2021 

Dear ePortfolio Reader, 

With a gold coin and a push of a button, I would love to travel through a time traveling machine to visit back the first day sitting down in my English class. I was extremely nervous and my anxiety level grew when I first came into the class. Due to Covid and the pandemic, it was my first in-person class after a year of working remotely and not to mention my first year as a college student. So I was scared yet excited at the same time. From my first day till now, I strongly believe that I made a phenomenal amount of progress in this course. English 160 has made me a much better writer and editor with the help of the FOCW units, peer review and revision workshops and my private meetings with Professor Katie. It was easy to correct and learn from my mistakes in my papers. If you were to ask me what is my most favorite and least favorite paper I wrote in this course, I would proudly say it would be the movie review paper and Op-Ed paper. 

The movie review paper was an assignment that was newly introduced to me yet I wasn’t  nervous about writing it, I was more so happy. I know what you’re thinking, how could someone not be nervous about doing something that is new to them. The answer is: the title of the assignment. It removed all the negative feelings I would have. I love watching movies, especially from actor and director Tyler Perry. In this paper, I accomplished the summary portion because it was done effectively and efficiently. However, I struggled the most with my introduction when writing the review because I didn’t know how to start and connect it with Acrimony. I learned plenty during this assignment especially in the Revision workshop. A couple of skills that I learned were “the usage of I” is not to be used in a movie review and also instead of quotation marks around the title of a movie, it must be in italics. This was surprising to me because I was taught differently in high school and so this takes me out of my comfort zone from something I was used to. But of course, there are some areas I have to work on such as analysis of other elements in movies and smoother transitions between different parts and ideas in my paper. Overall, I enjoyed writing this paper because it was not only fun but something new that I was introduced to. I enjoyed writing about something I enjoyed and my passion for writing definitely shined through in the movie review as well as other papers. 

My least favorite paper in this course was the op-ed paper because I struggled with it a lot.  It was stressful and so it was one of my worst papers I’ve ever written. I knew what my topic was beforehand, which was college tuition. But, from coming up with an original title to structuring to researching to citing and just about everything that comes with it, I didn’t like it at all. It reached the point where I didn’t want to do it no more yet alone turning it in. I struggled with finding good sources especially for my rebuttal paragraph. With the expectation of the library source, I don’t think the other sources were effective in making my claim/thesis strong. I had a hard time making my topic stronger and to be more specific as well. For me personally, I think the researching part of the paper strips away the fun of it which made it unenjoyable. However, I did like the idea of us having the opportunity to choose the topic of our choice because from middle to high school we were given a specific topic and everyone in classroom wrote about that one topic. However, as a result, I received a high grade on this paper which turned out to be one of the best papers I wrote in the course although it was my least favorite paper I ever wrote. Based on my movie review and op-ed paper, I do feel as though organization was the most successful because I was able to gather my ideas and thoughts in each of my paragraphs well and detailed. 

Upon entering English 160 I had high hopes that this course would help me to grow as a much better writer and improve my english skills which it definitely did. Before this course, I was nervous but I walked into it with a lot of faith and a positive mindset. English throughout my years in school has been one of my strongest subjects along with mathematics. And so part of me knew that I would do great but the other part made me question things because when we hear the word “college” the phrase “it’s very hard” automatically comes to mind which makes me scared. But, I knew that I needed to expand more in this subject because high school made English be so repetitive especially with papers such as argumentative writing. I didn’t get the chance to elevate as a writer. We would be doing argumentative writing for a couple of weeks before we move on to something else. However, English 160 introduced me and made me try different flavors in writing such as literacy narrative and movie review. I wasn’t scared to taste them all, I just went forth with trusting the process and I am so happy that I did. Additionally, English 160 helped me in deciding on what my concentration was going to be since I am majoring in Childhood Education. Before, it was a race between English and Math but thanks to English 160, English made it to the finish line first and won. 

I strongly feel that I am ready to move onto Writing & Rhetoric/ENG170 based on my progress and skills because English 160 prepared me well enough and I do feel that this course can also help me improve in areas such as better transitions in my paragraphs, ethical citation of credible research, persuading an audience in my papers like the movie review as well as becoming a great writer. I am fully dressed with all the equipment I need ready for the English 170. I am definitely hungry for new flavors in writing and getting the feel of what “rhetoric” is all about. 

Sincerely, 

DAMIELA THOMAS