December 10, 2015

To whom it may concern

Reflecting on all of my work throughout my first semester in college has made me
realized how much I have grown as a writer. There were three parts that contributed to my
growth: progressions, facilitation, and participation. For each progression I did, I learned the
concept of revision. Through this my context, tone, and style would change every time I revised
my essays for it showed me how no writing is ever done there will always be something better to
add or remove. Each progression prompt would always be different, therefore, my context, style
and tone would change depending on who my audience was. This helped me realized how my
writing should be different when addressing my audience.
A lot of effort went into my group facilitation. The thinking process on how to display the
message in the context visually and clearly was indeed a challenge. For this, my group decided to
display the impact of the message and asked critical thinking questions for the audience
themselves to process and think for themselves. For example, our discussion was about
technology on how it was being used to substitute a valuable thing in life: love. For this we
showed clips of a television show that strongly displayed the outcome if technology were to be
used instead of an actual human being to show feelings of love. Critical questions followed in
order to make the audience think if this action was correct. Although the content in our
PowerPoint presented the points of the topic clearly, the questions were there to help the
audience create their own connection and opinion. This technique was indeed useful for the
presenters and the audience were engaging in this intellectual conversation. This exercise taught
my group and the whole class to work efficiently with one another in order to fully understand
each other and transmit a well-developed idea.
My participation and contribution to the class was also part of my development. My selfmotivation is what help me greatly throughout the class. I have always been determined to do my
best in anything I do. In the process of helping myself I like to help others as well. Peer-review
and group projects would be beneficial for it gave me an opportunity to interact and help my
peers. My priorities in this class were to do well in my essay and effectively understand each
concept presented in the class. I was capable of scoring well on my essays and improve on my
writing. These were my priorities and I was able to accomplish them. My ability to participate
openly in class was not the best. I know I lack greatly in this aspect and I tried to improve on
this, however, I was not able to. In my future classes, I will find the motivation to keep doing
well and challenge myself greatly in order to grow as a scholar.
Finally, I would like to thank my Professor. Professor Collins showed me the importance
of writing by applying it to the real world. Not only was I able to see the importance of writing,
he also motivated me to do well when I thought I was not capable of doing something. He saw
potential in my writing and encouraged me to continue. My past English teachers would rarely
encourage my peers or me to improve on our writing.
Sincerely, Jaqueline Sanchez