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Dear Professor Feldman:

As an international student, English writing seems a big challenge for me. “What do you

mean?” This is the sentence I am most afraid to hear. It is quite difficult and unfluent to use

English to express what I want to say. Although I have learned some basic English writing rules

through previous Linguistic classes, when I took this class, I found the contents and materials are

more difficult than I thought. When I first saw “genre,” I was so confused and nervous since my

writing skills would be below average of my peers being. After learning and practicing in this

class, I grew up more like a writer and had a better understanding of genres, rhetorical strategies,

and discourse community. For my final portfolio, I focused on revising Writing Projects 1 and 3.

For Writing Project 1, I spent a lot of time searching for resources and examples. Although it

was one of the worst projects during the course, I enjoyed exploring these resources and writing

about the topic that I was really interested in. For the Writing Project 3, I think it was one of the

toughest projects among the three and was one of my pieces that I revised and rewritten several

times.

In my original Writing Project 1, I analyze how genres of storytellings and philosophy

differently define love. Although there is a lot of material I need to read carefully, it is really

interesting when I learn something new from it. Before this class, genre is a brand new words for

me and I even didn't know the meaning of it. Then I searched on dictionary and read examples of

it. Lisa Bickmore explains genre as typical act of language used under certain situations again

and again. And Kerry Dirk’s work to explain what is genre convention. The professor also gave

us some activities to understand those abstract concepts. Through this learning process, I came

out of some ideas and own understanding. However, when I read my draft again, I found my
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previous topic was too broad and thesis was too plain. Just like the professor’s comment of my

paper that I tended to oversimplify and rely on sweeping statements about complex topics. Also,

this paper lacked specific and strong evidence to support my claims. It seems that my paper was

like a steel frame without bricks and floor. Those evidence and analysis can truly build up a

house. In my first draft, there are many simple and straightforward evidence, but they were

unrelated to my statement. I forced those evidence into my statements so that my paper is

unconvinced and bored. In my final portfolio, I rewrote my WP1 and changed the whole topic

since in the previous process, I think my original topic and genres are hard to analyze. After ten

weeks learning genres, I had a deeper understanding of those concepts and prompt. I tried to

connect those knowledge and own thoughts to my first writing project. I have to say the second

time to write this prompt was easier and more fluent for me. Later writing practice strongly

helped me to rewrite and find evidence.

As for me, Writing Project 3 is more complicated than when I wrote WP1. Although I

have a better understanding of genres and discourse community after I wrote Writing Project 1

and 2. It became more specific that I can have some ideas about it. And WP1 just have a general

and wide prompt to write. It is totally different from my past writing projects, so I lost when I

saw it. However, WP3 has more precise and specific prompt which I can have some ideas about

it. It means that when I saw this prompt, immediately I came up with many ideas and arguments

for it. Different from previous writing projects, WP3 has two parts. When I wrote first genre

translation part, I was confused about “translation” and “summary” that I thought they were the

same meaning. Even though I changed academic genre to nonacademic genre, the translation

was more like a summary. After I learned from class, I started to change my mind and wrote a
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new translation work for my WP3. Through this creative project, I used many ideas I learned

from writing class and related them to my new genres. In the revision process, I used a lot of

time checking words and correcting grammar mistakes in it. Then I got some feedback from the

professor and my group members. All of these suggestions are helpful, especially some questions

about my thesis and conclusion. It was too short and meaningless at first and even did not have a

thesis. After I read the comments from my group, I added an interesting hook and specific thesis

at the beginning and changed my conclusion to be more logical.

Through this ten weeks, Writing 2 has taught me to be confident about my writing and be

brave to express my opinions through my words. Although some parts are challenging and heavy

work for me, I enjoyed every process of writing. I’ve learned to jump out of my stereotypes of

writing and revised my paper in a more effective way. Writing 2 class has allowed me to practice

and learn about academic writing. Words are not just words to represent its simple meaning, but

it has power to communicate thoughts and emotions. Lastly, I am overall very grateful to have

been a part of this course and those group members who have given me suggestions patiently.

Sincerely,

Chuyi Wang
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Work Cited

Bickmore, Lisa. “Genre in the Wild: Understanding Genre within Rhetorical (Eco) Systems.”

Press Books, p​ p. 1-10. 2019.

Dirk, Kerry. “Navigating Genres.” ​Writing Spaces: Reading on Writing, ​vol. 1, 2010, pp.

249-262