Cover Letter

Throughout English I this year, I have learned many things about myself as a writer, good and bad. I think that through this particular year, I have learned a lot more than just the average English student. This class was a very big eye-opener that helped me to realize who I am as a writer today, and also helped me to make goals for what kind of writer I would like to be in the future. My strengths and weaknesses have become much more revealing to me this year, because of the many different types of writings that we have worked with. I also have realized the many things that I enjoy writing or reading about.

I chose the other three writings within this portfolio because of my love for them, my interest about them, or even the information within them. I know that these other writing have all helped me to grow as a writer, because I have learned many new styles, angles to look at for the actual writing, and more. One of my essays from the beginning of the year, Keep Your Eyes Open, has been a beneficial to me as a writer through point of view, stance, and even theme. This Literacy Narrative describes our own experiences with reading and writing, and that moment when it changed your point of view on it. I decided to revise this paper because of the simplicity of it, but also to see how much I have grown and learned throughout this year. Looking back on the writing now, I realize many careless mistakes that I would have passed over just a few months ago. Some of the main things that I decided to revise within my Literacy Narrative was the word choice, and the organization (transitions). I hope to improve my paper immensely by the end of the year.

My other piece of writing that I decided to look over again was for my writing remix. We were informed to choose either a blog post or an essay that we would be able to completely change to audience and genre; changing the overall body to the paper, but keeping the information. The writing I chose was one of my free posts from my blog. It mentions that transitions from being a middle schooler to a high schooler, and how good/bad or different/the same they were. To “remix” this blog post, I decided to make a poem about it, since I find a lot of interest in poems. In one of the recent blogs that we had, we were instructed to construct a poem using at least 3 writing techniques that we had learned in class (assonance, alliteration, simile, personification, etc.). I didn’t realize how enjoyable it was to write a poem, because I expected it to be tremendously difficult. In class, after reading some of the poems and analyzing them, I never thought of how much thought went into making a poem, or how just one break from words can mean something so big. I hope to have as much pleasure making this poem as I have before.

As written previously, I have a very large interest for poems: how they are formed using feet and meters, symbolism, or even tone. Another aspect of writing I enjoy writing is the research paper. Although I didn’t do my best on my paper for that certain assignment, I still had a lot of delight researching my topic. It was mesmerizing to find out certain historical facts that have happened in some of the places that I live! I see how people could find it ironic that I loved this paper, since I might have not made the most fulfilling grade. This is where many of my weaknesses come into play. Many of my weaknesses revolve around not applying myself to the fullest and procrastination. I do have many more flaws when coming to writing, but these are most definitely the main causes of my flaws in writing. I always wait until the last minute, and I have heard multiple times that if I do not start to work harder to apply myself, English will only be harder on me. I hope to soon improve plenty enough for me to be out of my old English ways.

This year, I do not know where I would be without the much work put in. I have grown from my writings, and now looking back, I feel like I was looking at a third graders writing looking at first quarter papers. All of the things I have learned this year will always stay with me in my English career. I hope to keep learning as many things as I have last year, so that I will keep growing as a writer, student, and person.