Guo Cheng

Cover Letter

Dear Michele:

Introduction:
In this UWP001Y class, I changed my attitude toward writing and thus strengthened my writing
skills. As a student who can just sit in front of laptop for few hours without writing anything, I
really do not enjoy writing. However, by writing and revising the three assignments I wrote: living
picture narratives, Wikipedia entry, and my podcast, I feel a sense of achievement when I read
them because I see how them become better and better by each revisions. In this letter, I will
talk about how I make these paper better by skills I learned in this class.

This is the very first outline of Living Picture Narratives that I actually changed a lot of ideas afterwards.

Living Picture Narrative:

Writing Process:
The very first assignment I had is writing living picture narratives. It was a new writing
experience because I never wrote this genre before. I started with brainstorming of what I am
interested in. Finally, I decided to write my story of learning cooking only because of a promise
to my friends. Even though there is no thesis written in the story, I know it is important to show
the main storyline in the content. Thus, I started to write with an opening with conversation
between my grandmother and I. Then, I wrote what difficulties I met and how I overcome this.
Finally, I chose to end the story with the love between my grandmother and I because I want the
story not only talks about the cooking, but also the love with families. I learned how to write a
new genre: story. I believe I can write better stories in the future classes because of this writing.
Revising Process:
I wrote a very unstructured first draft full of pictures without captions. It was the first time I tried
to write shitty first draft. This brings a lot of stress on me to revising the first draft after peer
review. My partners gave me a lot of helpful suggestions, and also gave me a lot of new ideas to
make the story more interesting. I added some conversations at the beginning of this story
because I want to bring my audience in the story and feel what I feel. I also add captions under
the pictures so that audience can understand what the pictures show. By doing this, I learned
that it is important to consider the audience when writing. If the audience cannot understand
what the writer want to say, the article makes no sense. After I realize this, I will reread my
paper as an audience, so I know if I can really understand this paper. This skill is also very
helpful for my next assignment, Wikipedia entry.

Wikipedia Entry:
Writing Process:
I wrote a Wikipedia entry about facial sheet masks. It was pretty cool because I usually read
wikipedia articles for background information but never wrote it before. By knowing the
audiences, I was inspired to write about how to choose facial sheet masks by different skin
types because everyone has different skin types. I also wrote about the common components in
masks and analyzed if these components are good to skin. This time, I write with a very well
structured and developed first draft with credible sources. As a result, I had much less stress on
revising it.
Revision Process:
By feedback given by instructor, I was asked to change the usual MLA citation format to
Wikipedia format. It taught me that different genres of writing requires different format of citation.
I will double check the citation before turn assignments in future classes. Peer review gives me
suggestions about adding more general information, so that audience can know more about
facial sheet masks. This leads to more works on doing research that I learned the most from this
assignment. In learning journals, I did evaluations of six resources I might use. It is required to
write 2 reasons of why the source is credible. It leaves me a deep impression because I think it
is very effective on checking if the source is reliable. Thus, I did the evaluation for other sources
I used. It ensures the credibility of my Wikipedia entry. Moreover, since my topic is facial sheet
masks, it is easy to find some sources like ads that has exaggerate words of describing the
product. It was a challenge to find credible sources, but I made it!

This is the example of how I evaluated the sources in Learning Journal.

Podcast:
Writing Process:
I decided to do the podcast in the biology class office hour because I wonder the study
efficiency of students go to study with others at there. As a science major student, I have never
been to the office hour to study because I think it is going to be distracting. Even though it was a
little embarrassed to stare at students, I finished the 2 hour podcast. By taking notes, I had to
describe who is the subject and what happened to the subject. It is not just describe the clothes
he or she wears, but also the thoughts after seeing them do something. For example, I noticed
that a student is frowning when doing post lab, so I realize that the student is struggling with a
problem of post lab. This assignment provided a chance for me to practice description related to
my thesis. Thus, I can improve my description skills of writing. Besides this, I also did research
on study efficiency in a group. Since I had already learned to check the credibility of a source, I
easily find the quote that I will use to reinforce my statements. The evaluation skill I learned in
writing Wikipedia entry is very practical.
Revising Process:
I deleted a paragraph describing the whole environment of the classroom, because both my
partner and instructor think it is unrelated to my thesis. After reading the thesis and this
paragraph out loud, I agree that it is unrelated to my topic even though I think the description is
very interesting. I did a reflection on why did I write this paragraph. I realized that I just wanted
to make the paper interesting rather than considering if it is appropriate to write the description
unrelated to thesis. From this experience, I really improved the skill of metacognition which is
doing self reflection on writings. It will be very helpful for other writing and science class
because I know what I am weak at. Thus, I believe with practices and the knowing of
metacognition, I will not be reluctant to write papers.

This is the note I took for this podcast.

With these experience of writing, I strengthened my writing skills on research and
metacognition. In Wikipedia entry, I met challenges when doing research because there are too
many ads. In order to increase the credibility of the article, I did evaluation for all of the sources.
For example, I wrote down at least 2 reasons of why this source is credible. This is what I
learned from learning journal, and I think it is very useful. In podcast, as I mentioned above, I
learned to self-reflect on what I am weak at. Moreover, this skill can also apply to evaluate if I
need to revise on whatever my partner said. This metacognitive skill is going to be helpful when
I go to the writing center. I can know what I should improve and what I am good at. I really
appreciated that I learned so many useful writing skills in this class. In the future, I will have
more writing experiences so that I can practice these skills I learned. At the end of this quarter, I
am not only more confident with writing, but also strengthened my skills on writing. I feel proud
of myself that I completed three new genres of writing assignments well.

Sincerely,
Guo Cheng