Crystal Rustami 

English 170 

Sophie Field 

November 30th, 2022 

Dear Reader, 

Before this course I thought my writing was decent, but there were things to improve on. I always liked writing essays and compared to other subjects in school, I did better in my English classes. I was excited to take this course because I really did want a chance to improve my writing. I have always liked writing and completing the assignments throughout this course and getting feedback on them has made me enjoy it even more. In the future, I would like to take more English courses because of how much I enjoyed this course. Before this course, writing a paper seemed almost like a daunting task. However, after taking this course, I realized that it doesn’t have to be a difficult challenge, it can be much easier if I complete assignments slowly over time and not all in one night.  

When it comes to brainstorming ideas, choosing research topics, and writing theses, I believe that I got used to doing those things in high school and I now have a pretty cemented routine. After taking this course, however, I realized the importance of outlining and drafting papers. Prior to this course, I would usually try and write papers in one night. I now understand that completing a rough draft at first and then going back to it after receiving feedback makes the entire process much easier. I also used to barely edit my papers, but now I’m no longer afraid to go back and check for any formatting or spelling errors, and to fix any sections that are not clear enough. 

Looking back on my assignments, I think that I did a good job of using rhetorical strategies. Especially in my political cartoon research paper, I used very strong language that can successfully provoke responses or emotions from an audience. I think that I had strong introductions that hooked readers into my essays. However, I do think that I could have done a better job on my conclusion in my inferential analysis essay. I tend to struggle with writing a concluding statement that emphasizes to readers the overall importance of my topic, but it has been something I have been working on. I think for most of my first drafts throughout this course I had difficulty organizing my thoughts in a cohesive manner, but I think I did well with fixing that for my final drafts. I think the writing prompts we had to complete every day at the beginning of class were very helpful and beneficial exercises. I have never done something like that previously in any high school class, and just writing my thoughts down for five minutes has really helped my writing and it was an activity I enjoyed doing throughout this course. 

After spending time evaluating the work I have done for this class, I am very happy with my writing. I think that for most of the assignments I demonstrated my ideas clearly and cohesively and provided in-depth analyses of evidence in my papers. I am specifically proud of the analyses because that has always been something I have struggled to do well in the past. I also think I have a deeper understanding of MLA formatting rules and it is now easier for me to do MLA style in-text citations, as well as annotated bibliographies. I do think there is still much to improve on when it comes to my writing, for example using more advanced vocabulary and the complexity of my arguments. But as of now, I am proud of how much I have improved compared to how I used to write in high school. 

I think I have made good progress during this semester in regard to achieving my goals that I wrote down at the beginning of this class. There are still many ways I can be a better writer of course, but I am glad that this class has helped so much already. The rhetorical analysis activities we did throughout class has allowed me to become much better at writing analyses in my essays. I still think that when it comes to using more advanced vocabulary and organization, I could be better, but I know that those are skills that I will slowly improve with time and experience.  

I believe that I have mostly met the learning requirements of this class. I got better at researching topics, editing and reviewing my work, synthesizing ideas from multiple sources, and developing arguments. I do feel like one thing I could have done better was participate more during class and group discussions. However, in the end, I really believe that I am ready for upper-level college writing. I am very thankful for this class for making me feel so well prepared and confident in my writing abilities. I am excited for my future in writing and eager to take more English classes in the future.