Areli Soto

arelis1@uci.edu

Date: December 9th, 2015

Professor Gregg McClure
Writing 39B Professor
University of California, Irvine

Dear Professor McClure:

All in all, I can honestly state how throughout these past 10 weeks in your Writing 39B course, has not only
challenged me in becoming the best writer that I can be, but has allowed me to take on the new skills that I
acquired from those challenges, and apply them in my everyday life. At first, the work seemed very tedious
and overwhelming, and I was definitely intimidated instantly by this class. However, as we continued on
with the course, I was able to understand the entire process of each assignment, and how in the end, all of my
skills that I had practiced and acquired in my essays and assignments, would become showcased in my two
main projects and papers, the Rhetorical Analysis Essay and the RIP Project. Therefore in result, I have now
been able to acquire new skills such as understanding the rhetorical situations of texts by closely analyzing
certain texts and experts, understanding the needed convections of scholarly writing through drafting
scholarly essays, the practice of writing to enhance my communication skills, the importance of reflection
and revision in writing, and several of personal skills such as openness, engagement, and metacognition
through the process that allowed me to constitute my Rhetorical Analysis Essay and my RIP Project.
Our first assignment, the Renzor and Cash Response, was the first assignment that allowed me to
understand and read texts closely within the rhetorical situation, and how later, I would begin to practice and
understand the convections of scholarly essays and works, as well as understanding how each piece of
writing reflects and grows out their rhetorical situation. In the beginning of the quarter, my anxiety and
intimidation of the class was highly demonstrated through my first conference with you in week 0 and the
assignment that I had turned in for the Renzor and Cash Reflection. In the assignment, I instantly became
intimidated through the complex terminology of rhetoric, when at the time I had always been used to the
practice of Analytical Analysis, and could not distinguish the difference between the two. However, if you
refer to RA Process, Artifact 1, you will soon see how your explanation definitely saved me from my
confusion, but uncovered another one of my weakness, disorganization. Through the length of this
assignment, you can analyze how I had a vast understanding of the assignment, but I knew it could be more
concise. Likewise, it was at this very moment where I already began to see improvement in myself, but I also
began to notice other weaknesses that I had to improve. However, the next few assignments would then
allow me to tackle on my next two major assignments in the course.
Then, the No Way Out Outline Assignment helped me understand how a rhetorical situation works in
a text, or in this case, a film, and how to construct a sufficient scholarly essay describing the rhetorical
situation and its growth throughout the text. Before my construction of my exploratory drafts and
assignments for my Rhetorical Analysis Essay, you assigned us an assignment where we had to not simply
rhetorically analyze a video, but also set up an outline, as if we were going to constitute an actual Rhetorical
Analysis essay. As you can analyze in my assignment by going to the RA Process column and scroll to
Artifact 2, you can already see how I begin to practice not just the understanding of how this piece of film

Page 2

grew out of its rhetorical situation, but how I also began to constitute the convections and understandment of
a formal and scholarly essay. Therefore, the beginning of this new found skill would not just help me in
constituting my Rhetorical Analysis Essay, but even my RIP Reflection Essay towards my own short-film
and its constituting rhetorical situation. In the same way, this very assignment began to make me think
outside of the box, and have a much more open mind towards texts and the assertions that they make. Next,
with the help of the notable author and philosopher of horror, Noel Carroll, I would soon be able to constitute
several of exploratory and practice assignments that would become the building blocks to constitute my
Rhetorical Analysis Essay.
The most notable assignment that definitely prepared me for the body paragraph of my Rhetorical
Analysis Essay was my pre-writing and exploration assignment for it, which enhanced my understanding of
the rhetorical situations of texts by closely analyzing certain texts and experts, and constituting them into a
scholarly piece of writing (Go to RA Process, Artifact 5). In this assignment, I was able to correlate my
knowledge of the constituting elements for an art-horror piece as stated by the notable author and
philosopher of art-horror, Noel Carroll, but also my knowledge of what constitutes rhetorical situation in this
very assignment. In fact, Noel Carrolls explanation of constituting elements such as a threatening and
impure monster, occurent emotional states between the character and monsters, and theory of impurity,
allowed me to understand how the rhetoric situation can grow out of the novel, I Am Legend, by Richard
Matheson (Carroll, 50;52-56). Likewise, in this assignment I was able to begin to point out where the author
projects the rhetorical situation that perhaps the vampires in the novel were not the actual monsters in novel,
but the protagonist himself. Moreover, this assignment allow me to express how Mathesons rhetorical
situation grew out of his novel towards his audience and constitute a deep and engaging assertion of how
constituting the genre of horror through the protagonist as a monster, he then projects the assertion that one
should fear not simply the threats of society, but the threats of oneself that then lead us to our own mortal
fates, which I would be able to grasp as I concluded my Rhetorical Analysis Essay. Thus, this assignment
allowed me to understand the rhetorical situation and its expansion throughout the novel alongside the horror
genre.
Now, as I embarked on my Rhetorical Analysis Essay, I was able to grasp an open mind through the
revision process, and enhance the scholarly writing and understanding of a rhetorical situation through the
revision and finalizing process of the essay. From the Peer Reviews, which can be seen by clicking on the
Selections tab and scroll to Week 5, my colleague definitely had several of suggestions to make, and this
began the journey of understanding the revision process, but most importantly, how no piece of writing will
ever be perfect. Then, as you may have recalled, the thesis statement of my Rhetorical Analysis essay was
definitely the most difficult part of all, specifically my assertion. However, the several of revisions and
suggestions that you had told me (can be observed under RA Process Tab, artifacts 6 and 7), definitely
made me not simply understand the importance of a clear writing process and coherent constitution of a
shortly rhetorical essay, but also a sense of engagement in my essay and the novel itself with its rhetorical
situation. As you can analyze as well under the RA Process tab artifact 7, you can see the evolution of my
thesiss assertion and how I slowly began to grasp this sense of openness of my mind, and look at the novels
rhetorical situation in a broader scope. All in all, I was very pleased with the final draft of my Rhetorical
Analysis essay, yet I knew that I still needed to improve my organization in my scholarly writing, which I
would then constitute later on in my RIP Reflection Essay.
Then, I believe that the RIP Project was a combination of al the practice and study materials,
assignments, funneled into one well thought out project. This was still a very engaging process and helped
me express my communication skills, collaboration and responsibility, as we constituted the short horror film
project and our tropes presentation in order to project the learning experience as we consisted these projects.

Page 3

The major component that the RIP project probably most benefited me was the fact that I had to work in a
group, which I have always loathed since I am usually the one who does all of the work. However, by
transferring myself into another group with more people in it, I was lucky enough to find myself within a
group that took on all of their obligations and responsibilities with the assigned roles that they played both in
the Tropes presentation and the RIP film. My organization skills were also projected through the process of
this assignment as we tackled on the filming project with a lot of time constraints and editing process as well.
Moreover, I believed that my group and I were able to highly exemplify our collaborative understandings of
genre expectations and the sense of capturing strong rhetorical situation to specific audience through our
informative Tropes presentation (under RIP Process, Artifact 3), and our RIP short horror film (under RIP
Process, Artifact 1). We were first able to further our knowledge of genre expectations and how they further
a rhetorical situation for our audience, and once we picked a centering trope for our film, it was time to
constitute a new type of visual accompaniment to exhibit our vast intellect in the course. Overall, I believe
the film was a great visual example of not simply my improvement, but my entire groups improvement in
the course.
Although my group and I were able to constitute a well-organized short horror film, I was able to
clearly exhibit my newfound knowledge of genre expectations, rhetorical situations, and metacognition in
my organization skills of constructing a more fluent and clear scholarly essay for my RIP Reflection essay. In
the RIP Reflection Essay, I do not just analyze and explain the moments where my group was able to
successfully portray our rhetorical situation as well as genre expectations in our essay, but I also exhibited
how I improved in my writing. In my previous RA Essay, you had noted that although a good essay, it lacked
organization and I needed to focus on one idea per paragraph. Now, as you can analyze in my RIP Reflection
Essay (under RIP Process, Artifact 2), I definitely tried to keep my essay very organized, with strong topic
sentences that tackle on one element per paragraph. However, my taunting weakness seemed to reappear as
you stated that although it was a good essay, it still lacked structure, but now in my long sentences.
Therefore, this also exhibited the lesson that I have learned in this class, which is that no matter how many
revisions you make to a paper or how well you think you did; there is always room for improvement and
more revision. In fact, I have learned that the more you revise, the better of a writer you become. This is a
lesson that I generously thank you for Professor, and will definitely hold on for my future career as well.
Overall, the entire series of you Writing 39B course definitely helped me gain the skills of
understanding the rhetorical situations of texts by closely analyzing certain texts and experts, understanding
the needed convections of scholarly writing through drafting scholarly essays, the practice of writing to
enhance my communication skills, the importance of reflection and revision in writing, and several of
personal skills of openness, engagement, and metacognition through the process that I can definitely see
myself practicing as I continue my journey in becoming a law school student. The understandment of
rhetorical situations and how to project a clear and specific assertion to the jury or judge in a courtroom will
definitely help me in constituting a strong argumentative case for my clients. Likewise, the skill of
understanding certain convections of scholarly writing, such as source integration in essays, will highly
benefit me in law school and in the court room for credibility and legality components to my future briefs
and cases. Moreover, the overwhelming skill of mind openness and metacognition definitely expanded my
way of thinking, and I believe will definitely benefit me in charging a specific case and constituting a formal,
strong, and argumentative trial for my future clients in Criminal Law. Overall, I am highly grateful for taking
this course and all of the marvelous skills that I benefited from these assignments, and the course overall.
Thank you for a challenging, but insightful and engaging quarter Professor McClure
Sincerely,

Page 4

Areli Soto