Reflective Cover Letter
To whom this may concern,
Before coming to university my writing skills were a little short of just ordinary. Throughout high school my writing skills were never the best. My teachers would have to constantly give me corrections and ways that I could improve. It frustrated me that I felt as though I wasn’t on the same skill level as my peers around me, it made writing one of my least favorite things to do. Though, throughout this first semester at college in Composition 160, I have felt that my writing has been slowly improving with each paper I write. With these improvements, my confidence in my writing has also been going up, which has been making the writing experience more fun and less stressful.
Something that has helped me the most with improving my writing this semester has been planning. Before, I would sit down and stare at a blank piece of paper with no idea or direction that I was going to go in. This led to assignments taking longer than they should have and creating unnecessary frustration. Now, I take the time to organize a list of points I want to make throughout my paper, and plan which paragraph I will be mentioning certain topics. During the writing process I will look back at this for reference, which helps keep me on task with what I am writing. I feel this has also significantly improved the structure of my papers and kept them more organized then they were before.
Even though I now take the time to plan before I write my papers, I still struggle with keeping my work concise and using transition sentences. This is because most of the time when I sit down to write an essay I can’t, I will get writer’s block. Then, randomly while I am least likely to be thinking about it, the paper will start to just write itself in my head. This can happen when I’m walking, laying in bed, or even talking to someone. Then at an appropriate time, I will go to my computer and start to type out what I remember. Since, in person when I talk, I tend to just jump from topic to topic without any transition, while writing I do the same. I find it difficult to write transition sentences because to me, they feel unnatural. I am always unsure where I should put them and which one is the best to use. Another thing that I still struggle with even though it has gotten better, is keeping my papers compendious. You will especially find this in the Literary Narrative paper, which was the first one of the semester. My writing can almost be two different pieces that are combined. The topics are very similar but may not go together in the length of papers we have written in Composition 160. This has been something that I have been constantly struggling with, and trying to improve on throughout this fall semester.
A strength that I have is being able to write imagery. Imagery is a “visually descriptive or figurative language, especially in a literary work.” In my Critical Review paper, “Shitty Shango”, being able to give a description of certain topics was one of my strong suits. For this paper I had to write a review of a place, and I chose my old dorm building. Throughout the paper I had to give a detailed description of why this building was not very good. I feel as though I painted a picture for readers to imagine what this place looked like, and how it was living there.
Though, there are still a plethora of ways I can still improve my writing, over the course of this fall semester in Composition 160, I have enhanced my writing for the better. Now I feel my writing skills are on the same level as my fellow classmates, which has made the writing process easier. It still may not be my favorite thing to do, however I do not dread having to write a paper anymore, and can even find enjoyment in it by being able to express my thoughts and opinions with others.
Sincerely,
Marianna Gadaleta