Dear Professor Feldman,

This class was quite a journey. The concepts taught in it strengthened my skills as a

writer who can metacognitively reflect on himself and effectively analyze textual pieces. The

prompts and assignments given to me served to challenge my writing abilities. Because of this, I

realized that growth is done through a variety of aspects, ranging from critical thinking to peer

collaboration and feedback. I learned that the class is challenging for its complex concepts yet

rewarding for its hard work.

In particular, the assignments instilled a strong critical thinking mindset within me. I

always thought of critical thinking as something obvious that everyone partook in since people

had to “think” in order to conduct analysis of readings. However, I realized that it is much more

than that. This realization came upon me when I read Mike Bunn’s “How to Read Like a Writer”

piece. This piece exposed me to the idea that authors always use certain rhetorical strategies that

blend with their given genre in order to appeal to a particular audience. From this, I developed

questions in my mind to answer as I read any text I wanted to analyze. For instance, I would ask

myself, “Why did the author choose this specific word as opposed to another?” or “What is the

effect of the anaphoric nature of this particular sentence?” These questions delve into the

rhetorical aspect of analytical writing, however I think this also coincides with genre analysis

because they dig deep in discovering the author’s purpose of their choice. This mindset created a

foundation that I would build upon throughout the course; my reading and writing skills were

consequently affected by it as I evolved into a stronger writer than I was in high school.

In high school, I viewed writing as a difficult act to perform. Crafting essays, whether

analytical or argumentative, was challenging for me because I struggled with my introduction

and conclusion paragraphs. I felt that my analysis in the body paragraphs was fine, however I
knew where my weaknesses were. It was because of Writing 2 where I significantly grew as a

writer and ultimately tackled these weaknesses. You and my peers offered me insight and

feedback on my own writing, which led me to return to my first drafts and revise anything that

needed to be polished. My introductions started to include stronger hooks and improved

contextualizations while my conclusions included better finishes for my essays. My messy first

drafts for my writing projects reflect my knowledge at the time of writing them. I believe that the

growth of my knowledge was bolstered by reading other papers, writing reflective journal

entries, and collaborating with my colleagues. Due to this growth, my messy first drafts became

polished second drafts. These second drafts served to be my final drafts before my final Writing

Portfolio. They were better than their predecessors, but always had room for improvement. For

example, my Writing Project 3 appeared to be near-perfect in my eyes, but I quickly realized that

I had a perfect opportunity to condense my infographic’s text if I wanted to include it in my

portfolio. This scenario, along with others similar to it, caused me to genuinely believe that

writing is a subject that teaches personal growth and analysis of various texts through reflecting,

collaborating, and reading.

In hindsight, I learned from this course that writing can be viewed as a subject of study

instead of an object to play with. In the case of genres, I rarely put much thought into how texts

were physically presented prior to this class. When reading a blog, for instance, I did not give

much consideration to the stylistic choices authors made in order to guide readers throughout

their article. I always thought it was obvious when blogs incorporated various font sizes or

headers. However, prior to the course, I never realized the concept of “genre conventions” and

how they play critical roles when creating a piece. Various fonts and headers were the parts that

contributed to the bigger picture of the genre of blogs. It is from here where authors manipulate
these genre conventions to align with their rhetoric. Toying the relationship between genre and

rhetoric fulfills the ultimate purpose of persuading an audience to agree with the author’s claim.

I learned all of this from Writing Project 1, when I compared various examples of the

recipe genre and determined which example served as the top exemplar of the genre. Writing

Project 1 proved to be the foundation for my understanding of genre analysis since I used what I

learned from it to continue my writing journey for the last two writing projects. A lot of first- and

second-order thinking was done in order to write my way through the course. This “first- and

second-order thinking” concept reflects my tendency to brainstorm main ideas for my pieces

before I begin to write. The technique worked for me because I allowed myself to freely write

my thoughts and then proceed to organize them in a fleshed-out essay. My thoughts transformed

into words because of this process, thus leading me to grasp and analyze the complexities writing

had to offer for personal growth. This thinking process intersects with my understanding of

critical thinking within the course.

However, this class was not a walk in the park; I struggled to wrap my head around the

idea of writing as a subject rather than an object. In high school, I always just wrote without

realizing the genres or discourse communities I indirectly discussed. Entering this course was an

academic shock and took time to adjust my understanding of the concepts. The concepts the class

encompassed, genres and discourse communities, seemed simultaneously obvious and difficult to

grasp. Eventually, drilling and training the idea that “writing is subject” into my head shaped my

perspective. This new perspective was the key to critically think and analyze the readings and

prompts we covered in class, thus preparing me to successfully construct my writing projects.

Eventually, I am going to use what I learned in this course for my future writing classes

and even in the real world. In particular, the critical thinking aspect of this course is what speaks
to me the most because it gives me a sense of security. It signals to me that I am actively reading

texts and genuinely understanding the main ideas of them — consequently allowing me to gather

my thoughts and craft an essay. In terms of real-world application, critical thinking will let me

brainstorm solutions to conflicts or draft cover letters that utilize rhetorical strategies to appeal to

an employer. This course taught me a lot on the subject of writing, and I am grateful for its

lessons. Ultimately, I deeply value this class for teaching me how to reflect, critically think, and

write. The skills I learned will be useful for whatever I plan to pursue in the future. Therefore,

thank you, Professor Feldman. I would not have become the writer I grew into today without

you.

Sincerely,

Ian Z. Pancho
 Works Cited

Bunn, Mike. “How to Read Like a Writer.” Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Library of

Congress Cataloging-in-Publication, 2011.