December 14, 2020

Roxanna Razavi

Re: ​Portfolio Cover Letter

Dear Giorgina:

I came into this class with a pretty closed mindset, as I was never a big fan of English class

throughout high school. Although I have always been a strong reader, writing was something that

I looked at more as a chore rather than a skill. This class not only helped push me across certain

unexplored boundaries when it came to writing, but redefined my individuality as a writer as

well. My portfolio reflects this redefinition, since I was able to pick different forms of expression

that did not necessarily take the classic “essay” form.

Going into Writing Project 1, I was a bit wary of how this form of writing would further develop

my own writing style. However, I was quick to realize that this project required the development

of a very specific skill―genre translation. By taking a professional and informative article, and

translating it into a very friendly children’s poster, I learned how to take one’s writing style, and

change up its genre in order to fit another audience. The hardest part in this project was deciding

how much information was just the right amount of information to be included. In the final

revision stage of this project, I decided I needed to add just a bit more information, and instead of

adding it onto the poster itself, I decided to create a script as sort of a lesson plan, so that it

would be as if I was explaining to the kids the process of what was going on.
Moving onto Writing Project 2, I felt more confident in my abilities of distinguishing different

genres, yet I was unsure how I was going to tackle translating an entire topic of interest.

However, I began narrowing down which topic I wanted to choose first. This made it easier to

narrow down what exactly I had to research. I went with a topic that I had much experience with:

the piano. More specifically, how expression through composing music with the piano is as

equivalent to writing papers for me. After doing much research, I struggled with the fact that

everyone in the scholarly world ended up agreeing with me! This was frustrating because I had

no opposing argument to refute, but instead of giving up, I realized that I could just base most of

this project off of my personal experience with composing music. In the end, I was able to put

together a nice video describing my experience, as well as what I found through my research.

Then, throughout the revising process, I had to add more of what I had researched to my actual

project, just to balance my experience with enough supporting evidence. This ended up being a

project I enjoyed, particularly because I was able to share something that was very close to my

heart, while also becoming more well versed in portraying specific research through an angle

that I wasn’t used to.

Now going forward, I will definitely be approaching writing projects throughout college with a

much more open mindset. My strongest feature of writing, usually being creative writing, has

now been further developed through practicing expressing myself in different ways. I am

excited, to say the least, about how much further writing will take me in college.

Thank you for everything,

Roxanna Razavi