Dear Ms. Hofmann,
This semester was not as bad as I was expecting it to be. I enjoyed all of my classes
and I must admit that this class had to be my favorite. I am not just saying that
because I am writing a letter to my English professor but I actually mean that.
Everything that we did in this class has helped me think more outside the box in any
situation or topic that is brought up in any of my classes. The three main
assignments, the informal writing, and me as a writer has helped prepare me for the
next three and a half years.
For the three main assignments, my revisions seemed easier to do for the final just
because I had more feedback to work with. For the Literacy Memoir I added and
moved a lot of things around. Instead of starting with the question “What is
literacy?” I decided to start it by talking about my family and the way they have
impacted my reading and writing. I added in more details about how my family
influenced my reading and writing, like I added more examples within the paper or
went into more depth on certain parts of the paper. For the SRTOL essay I added in
the quote from SRTOL and discussed how teachers should not try to teach students
their opinion of what they think “proper” is. I added my opinion about code
switching. Last but not least for the Discourse Community Ethnography I changed
quite a bit. I changed my direction of my paper. Instead of talking about the
differences between my sister’s team and my previous team I decided to do the
differences between our team and how much more her team follows Swales
requirements for the discourse community than my team does. I also added the 6
requirements of Swales. The paper that I think evolved the most, even though it was
close to being a tie between my literacy memoir and my discourse community
ethnography, it would probably have to be my discourse community ethnography.
The reason for this it would have to be because I took it in a different direction. I
think the paper that stay most stable would have to be the SRTOL paper because I
was headed in the right direction with the paper but it just needed more detail and
examples. The paper that had to be my favorite would be the discourse community
ethnography because I got to write about a part of my life that means a lot to me and
I got to find out more about my sister’s team. The paper that posted the biggest
challenge to me would have to be the literacy memoir because trying to remember
your beginning days as a reader and a writer and even just thinking about the
influences people have had on my reading and writing was hard because of the fact
that I never really took the time to think that my family really had a big impacted on
my literacy. I would have to say I learned the most from the literacy memoir just
because of the fact that it really opened my mind up and made me think about things
in a new way. It made me think of things in a broader way.
For the 8 inside and outside assignments I chose the Alexie/Malcolm X assignment,
“One Voice” assignment, “Out Of Place” assignment, “Authority” assignment,
Discourse Communities assignment, and the reading responses to Mirabelli, Swales,
and Wardle. The Alexie/Malcolm X assignment was use having to describe what we
thought literacy was and then talk about those two articles. I chose this because it
was one of the first assignments we did in the class and it was weird to go back and
read what I wrote at the beginning of the year and see how far my writing has come
in a semester. The “One Voice” assignment was about the article we read about the
lady who’s teacher called her out in front of class about how she said the work
“lawyer” and how the way she said the word was wrong. I chose this because I liked
this article because it made me understand how teachers all have their own opinion
on Standard American English. The “Out of Place” assignment was where we had to
write about one time we felt out of place and why. I chose this because I liked how I
got to think back on my trip to Paris and how it had a big impact on me. The
“Authority” assignment was where we had to describe the word authority in our
own words and talk about a community where I had authority and where I lacked it.
I chose this one because of the fact it made me think. I had to think about how to
word authority and think of a reason of why I lacked or had authority in the certain
communities. The discourse community assignment was where we had to talk about
a discourse community that we don’t consider myself a part of. I chose this because I
always thought about this in the back of my head when I talked about football with
friends. Finally I chose the three reading responses because it gives you an idea
about what my main papers are about. I talk about my opinion to the readings and
the questions I had while reading.
This class has helped me come along way in my writing. It has made me open my
mind and think outside the box on even the simplest things or topics. I would have
to say the discussions we have had in class has help me as a writer. Being able to
speak my opinion and hear other people’s opinions has helped me expand my
knowledge, which will help my writing. One thing that has surprised me about
myself is the fact that I spoke so much in class. In high school I never spoke and
hated being called on to express my opinion but for some reason in this class it was
so easy for me to talk and open up with my opinion. I feel like I became a little bit
more of an effective reader or other people’s writings because I use to not be able to
give good feedback but now I learned a lot more on what to look for and how to give
feedback. This class has been very beneficial to me because of everything I learned
from opening my mind up to setting or working with an online portfolio. The view of
me as a writer has changed a lot over this semester. I feel like I have opened up a lot
and know what I need to go into detail on. I use to hate writing but after this class I
don’t mind it.