Reflective Cover Letter on ENG 170 – Writing and Rhetoric

Dear Reader, 

I never really understood what the point of going to a liberal arts college and having general education requirements. However, after finishing all of the main assignments for ENG 170: Writing and Rhetoric, I now see why its mandated. This class was extremely helpful to get me into the college writing mindset. I’ve never been a bad writer, but this course made me realize the consistent flaws I had during writing and how to fix them. 

I used to write with a very informal tone in high school. For creative writing pieces that doesn’t really matter (which is why I did so well in my creative writing class my senior year), but it’s important in a research project, a rhetorical analysis, or any type of argumentative essay. It was pointed out to me how much I addressed the reader by saying you and how many “to be” verbs I used. The course forced me to take note of these issues in my writing and change them so I can become a better writer not only for this class, but for others as well. 

I have a lot of arguments with friends of mine, and the first half of this class on how to have good arguments, which I think was useful. The arguments were only ever playful debates, but the techniques taught on how to structure an argument, logical fallacies, and how to properly listen resulted in me winning more arguments, which I always enjoyed. 

This Writing and Rhetoric course mainly taught me to be more conscious. With writing, it forced me to be a better reader and analyze written works better, and it allowed me to catch mistakes I was making easier, but it was more about writing. A lot of this class was based on health and wellness and techniques were taught that could significantly improve my health and wellness for the future.

I wish we covered actually having arguments in this class. The entire first half was centered on how to properly debate, but we never did. Allowing the class to pick a topic to formally debate on is good practice for arguing properly, it can help with recognizing arguments and fallacies, and (depending on the topic) it could be a fun lesson. 

As an Adolescence Education: Mathematics major, a lot of the techniques and strategies taught could help me in my future career. Visual rhetoric can be used to help get points across to students that don’t understand the information I am trying to convey, emphasizing the evasion of generic statements will make my topics more clear, and the classes on public speaking will help when I have to structure lessons in a clear and concise way. 

I adapted the strategy of reading my written work from the perspective of an outsider. I know what I’m trying to say in an argumentative essay because it’s my argument, so I might think my points are clear. However, readers or people responding to my argument may not fully comprehend what I’m trying to say, which would be my own fault. I try and look at my work like I know nothing about the topic, to see if someone who actually doesn’t can still comprehend it. 

Overall, this class was extremely beneficial in improving my writing skills, and I’m grateful for it. I feel stronger in structuring arguments and public speaking, and I think the more formal tone that I now write papers with will definitely help in future classes. This class would be perfect if it covered debating more, because that’s something I find a lot of interest in, and it would help with public speaking situations that myself, and other students might find themselves in.