cover letter

As a writer, I write with one idea in mind, and that is to get my point across to my readers through my own thoughts and feelings through words, keeping in mind the specific audience that I am writing to. But what happens when your own thoughts and feelings aren’t enough, and you’re told to change or “revise” your writing, which in an essence, your writing is what you feel. Is it really fair for a person to critique your writing and tell you what is working well and what isn’t, especially since they’re not the ones who have poured their heart in to their words to show you how the feel.
Throughout the semester as a student in English 11A, I was assigned various assignments, in most of which, I was asked to state my opinion and feeling on the subject. After my “final” draft was turned in, I would later receive it with suggestions and comments referring to what was working well, but what also need to be revised or required more attention. In my opinion, this was contradicting to what I was being taught, that as a writer, the most important thing is that through your writing, you state your feelings and opinions. Don’t get me wrong, I feel that no piece of writing is ever complete, and something can always be changed for the better. But, isn’t that my option? As the writer, I feel that I should have the power to decide what is working well in my writing and what isn’t, not someone else who has absolutely no idea what I’m feeling or what I’m trying to convey to my reader through my words. But, for the purpose of this assignment and receiving a passing grade, I will take into consideration the feedback I received on my writing and revise my pieces based on that feedback, even if it does contradict what I was being taught all along.
The first piece of writing that I have chosen to put in my portfolio was titled “Put An End to Drunk Driving.” In this assignment, we were asked to choose a topic of our choice and state our opinion and a counter argument in a persuasive essay that would per sway the reader to agree with my side of the argument. The feedback that I received from Howard Tinberg was that I should check the misuse of an apostrophe in the last paragraph and that I should cite my source to let my readers know where I obtained my information from. Following his instructions, I have changed the misuse of the apostrophe and although I obtained my information from an article I came across while I was searching the web for information, I was unable to go back an cite my source in my revision due to my inability to find the article again.
The second piece of writing that I chose to include in my portfolio was the paper we wrote at midterms where we had to describe the difference between type A and B writes, and decide where we fit in between those two categories. Following that, we were also asked to choose are strongest and weakest piece of writing, and share our plans for revision. After reading Tinberg’s comments and suggestions on this piece of writing, I do not agree with what he has asked me to revise. Howard stated that, “Perhaps you could comment specifically on what the feedback what saying about what worked well in your writing?” If you take the time to carefully read my essay where I discussed both my strong and weak pieces of writing, it will be clear to you that I have discussed what worked well in each piece, but focused more on what I feel should revise, because after all, that is what the assignment was asking us to do; discuss and plan for revision.
The third piece of writing that I have chosen to put in my portfolio was a piece that we did early in the semester, which was writing a memoir. I chose this piece because I wrote this memoir about a very important, meaningful time in my life. Professor Tinberg commented on the smaller problems, such as the misuse of a comma and changing the abbreviation of my high school to the full name so that my readers would understand what I was talking about, which I more than gladly fixed. However, I do not agree that the memoir is split in two due to the excitement of no longer attending high school and the difficult loss of a love one. The memoir starts out simple and carefree, just as most high-schooler’s are, but goes onto show the reader that life can be perfect at any given time, but in the blink of an eye, your life can unexpectedly be turned upside down. As much as I appreciate and take into consideration his comments, I feel that I this memoir shows exactly what I intended it to show, it’s just up to the reader if they can see that or not.
My final piece of writing I chose to put in my portfolio, which ironically was my last written piece for the semester was my research paper titled “Teenaged Pregnancy.” This assignment asked us to choose a trend in today’s society and discuss and document the causes and effects, along with the statistics and facts. Although I was successful in documenting the causes and effects of this trend, I was not as successful in providing statistics and hard evidence to support the claim of the decreasing trend in teenaged pregnancy. After re-reading my essay and following the advice of professor Tinberg, I went back and re-researched my topic, more thoroughly and documented the decrease of the trend through documented statistics and known facts based on the opinions of experts.
As the end of the semester is quickly approaching, I have began reflecting on my learning experiences in this course and how I’ve grown as a writer. I came into this course with a solid back round as a writer, but I am leaving with an even stronger back round. This course has helped me not only as a writer, but also as a critical thinker. I have learned that simply writing a “good” paper is not enough, but to write an “excellent” paper you need to be aware of the audience you are writing to and also to include your feelings and emotions in your writing, which I feel, is the hardest thing to do as a writer.