reflective letter revision

I came into writing 101 not to worried about not doing well in the class. I had always been good at writing and attended honors writing classes in junior high and high school. Though I was placed in honors classes writing wasn’t my best subject, and I had, and still have, many strengths and weaknesses that became apparent when writing the essays that were required for this class. After the first couple of weeks I received my first essay assignment, and I realized that this was not what I had been used to writing. I felt as if I was almost starting over, and that the skills I had learned growing up were not of any use in this class. I saw my writing skills change drastically between the two formal essay assignments that I had accomplished through the course of the quarter. This portfolio includes two essays that I had written during the quarter that show my writing skills progress.

Essay number one was a huge transition between the five paragraph essays I wrote in high school, and the college level essays that I was expected to write in writing 101. I definitely could see my weaknesses in writing the first essay regarding Bacon’s Rebellion. I had a lot of trouble with creating an introduction that hooked the reader, and at the same time was relevant to the main point of the essay. In the introduction of the first essay I related the president election of this year with the leaders of that time. I thought of it as a good idea, but now looking back and editing my essay I see that I didn’t quite place the relationship between the leaders of that time and the leaders of today in the introduction with a smooth transition. The other main problem that I struggled with when writing this essay was the transitions between the paragraphs. I had a hard time stepping away from transition sentences using, “First, Second, third….,” like I had been taught my whole school life. I tried my best not to use those sort of transition words, but while concentrating on that I forgot to keep the flow between the paragraphs. “Bacon created a favorable living environment for all the colonists by changing the unjust laws so they would treat people as equals. Nathaniel Bacon ran the Government in a more effective way for a variety of people, unlike William Berkeley and his men.” These two sentences show the way the end of the third paragraph doesn’t flow with the beginning of the fourth paragraph. Not only was my transitions throughout my essay a struggle, but I also had trouble when researching Bacon’s Rebellion. I couldn’t find any reliable sources that I understood, which led me to my problem of not using critical thinking at a college level. A sentence such as, “The lower class already lived in poverty, and Berkeley himself pushed them into deeper poverty,” doesn’t show the level of thinking that is needed for such a topic as Bacon’s Rebellion.. Due to the struggle of overcoming the writing process that I was taught as a high school student I received a low score on my first essay. I discovered many flaws that needed to be fixed on my first essay, so I took those into mind and fixed them for my second essay of the quarter. The problems I had in essay number one were not as apparent or not at all apparent in essay number two.

Essay number two gave me a second chance to practice the skills I had learned I needed to work on in the first essay. The second assignment of the quarter was an essay about patriots versus loyalists. I was assigned to the colony of Rhode Island as a patriot. The weaknesses I had in the first essay were no longer an exceeding weakness within the second essay. I created a hook that flowed nicely with the organization of my paper, and grabbed the readers attention. I used a quote in my introduction to create a more interesting start to my essay. "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country"(Nathan Hale). This quote was strong and gave my introduction a powerful hook. I spent a long time on editing the second essay, and it really paid off. The problem with creating an excellent hook was no longer a problem. Transitioning was a big problem in the flow of my Bacon’s Rebellion essay, and because of that I focused on it when writing as a patriot from Rhode Island. I looked over the transitions and read through them many times and I made sure they created the proper flow throughout the essay. “Their taxes are not made with the well-being of Rhode Island as their thought, but rather greedy thoughts of their prosperity. The King of England and Parliament hurt our colony through their unjust laws and taxations.” This essay showed a great example of transitioning throughout my essay. The weakness on research and critical thinking wasn’t much of a weakness when writing this essay. I couldn’t find enough information from the databases to create a college level analysis, so I solved my problem by getting reliable books from the library. My knowledge of my weaknesses helped me to create a piece of work I am proud of.

All the weaknesses in the my first essay became my strengths, but I will still need to work on critically thinking about topics at a college level. Writing 101 was a challenge for me, and a giant leap from one degree of writing to the next. I was aware of my weaknesses in my first essay, and that is what gave me the guidelines to create a better essay for my second assignment and improve my strengths to a level that I didn’t know was there. The skills I have learned in writing 101 will be of great use for the rest of my career life.