11 December, 2013 Dr.

Leslie Bruce Department of English, Comparative Literature, and Linguistics California State University, Fullerton P.O. Box 34080 Fullerton, CA 92834-9480 Dr. Bruce, The purpose of this letter is to explain the construction of my portfolio and justify the inclusions of each item. In order to satisfy the six Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) I am including my blog, reviews written for my peers, and an excerpt from my persuasive essay as well as this letter. I will organize the items in order of SLO because I think it is a streamlined way of arranging them. To demonstrate my ability to write formally for a professional audience, I am including this letter. In it I attempt to utilize correct grammar and a serious tone, but without being too stiff or impersonal. The main difficulty I had while writing this is managing the word count. I have a tendency towards being concise out of a fear of writing too much, often finding myself writing far too little. However, this was good practice and I think I have managed fairly well. To satisfy the other parts of SLO #1, I include my blog post. It demonstrates my ability to write informally for an audience of peers along with my ability to write in class, as my introduction was composed there. I enjoyed the challenge of giving information while including a humorous edge. Its weakness would be how it strays from the topic of water, though I did include more analysis of the cover and I do think there is a marked and positive difference between my original draft and my final one when it comes to the conclusions at the very least. The closing paragraphs are the best examples of my writing in this project. To satisfy SLO #2 I include an excerpt from my persuasive essay on Emily Dickinson. This essay was problematic for me as my research kept pulling me in different directions. I grew excited by some ideas I had not originally thought of and Im afraid some of the persuasive part became watered down. However, I did like this portion of the essay in which I addressed the manner in which some scholars argue that Dickinson was excessively depressing, naming her antisocial tendencies as a possible cause. I counter this with my own observations and then with a quote from another scholar who points out that death itself is part of the natural world, and there does not have to be anything morbid about it. This item also satisfies SLO #3 as the second scholar is writing for a journal related to the country of India, so a different cultural perspective is present.

For SLO #4 I include this letter as its intention is to illustrate why I should receive a good grade on this project. It is composed of reasons. Meanwhile, I strive to always be sensitive to gender and cultural differences, satisfying SLO #5 with everything included. And finally, I include reviews left for my peers to demonstrate my ability to help others with their writing through assessment and critique. This was a little difficult as I genuinely enjoyed reading the works I refer to in the peer reviews included and it is hard for me to critique others, even when it is a requirement. However, I believe I was able to overcome this and give constructive advice while also noticing things in the writing of others which I can work on in my own (use of commas, for example). In closing, I have enjoyed this semester and I feel I have picked up a lot of things I had been missing, especially when it comes to citations. I have grown more comfortable writing informally for an academic audience and become better at advising others while also accepting advice and critique. I have learned how to better structure a cover letter and gained practice in synthesizing different sources in a coherent manner. I hope this portfolio effectively displays different facets of my writing and illuminates what I have learned this semester. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Bethany Dodd