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Mathias Lam
Megan Malcolm
English 220.003: Expository Writing
December 11, 2015
Cover Letter: Student Learning Outcomes
This English course is an advanced expository composition course for students who wish
to increase their skills in gathering, reporting, and interpreting information as well as making
compelling arguments based on solid evidence. For me, I was required to take this course as part
of the College of Fine Arts requirement, and I did enjoy this class in terms of the subject and
learning new skills in studying film and literature. Hence throughout the class, I have gained an
understanding and achievement of the student learning outcomes, which are the personal and
department outcomes.

Since the beginning of the course, I have achieved the personal outcomes that expanded
my knowledge further about the monsters in literature and film. These outcomes involved the
ability to culturally analyze film and literature, critical thinking in terms of culture, the
understanding of values through examining contexts, refraining from paraphrase or summary,
and activeness in the course.
This course allowed me to expose to cultural issues relating to horror and the monstrous
and to foster an appreciation for artistic endeavors in these areas. I achieved that goal by
listening to the instructors lecture, completing the online literary responses, and putting the
effort and paying my attention to the content in the readings. The nineteenth century literature
that was assigned in the course was pressed on the issues of race and slavery, which was why

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they include elements of the racial grotesque. This topic gave me the awareness that the literary
writers in the nineteenth century were somewhat aroused by the Otherness and slavery in
America. I already knew that nineteenth century America was focused on the slavery of
Africans, but I did not know that there were nineteenth century writers that created the grotesque
out of the African race and out of slavery. As a result, I am glad that I have achieved this
outcome because it is very important that I use this outcome for future references.
This course also allowed me to hone critical thinking skills by examining patterns in
artistic works that have reflected our own cultures attitudes towards the monstrous. From
hearing the instructors words during the lecture and the viewing of the video clips from movies
such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I was able to understand and be familiar with the patterns that
reflect cultures attitudes towards the monstrous that is being dealt with in these works of art.
Through examining ideas and attitudes in literary, filmic, and cultural contexts, I have
increased intellectual maturation and clarification of our values. The discussion about nerds and
misfits in reality and in filmic context made me understand more of the qualities of them. I am
Asian, but I am not the type of Asian under the nerd category given my clothing and what my
personal life is like. In this course, I also gain further understanding of child films such as
Monsters, Inc. and Frozen. Monsters, Inc., a film which I enjoyed as a kid, is an animated family
film that separates itself from the actual, fearsome monsters and views the monsters in a positive
way instead of a negative, discriminating way as what politics does. While watching Frozen, on
the other hand, I was not aware of the films relation to mental illness until someone in the
course presented her topic of childhood films relation to mental illness. With that said, I am
glad that I have increased my intellectual maturation and clarification through learning this
material.

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This class also allowed me to go beyond paraphrasing difficult texts to analyze them, to
interact with them, and to think critically about them. While reading the difficult texts, I noticed
family issues between the characters, such as those in Edgar Allen Poes The Fall of the House
of Usher and Kate Chopins Desirees Baby, which helped me get an idea as to what is
happening and what the main argument is before having to summarize it. Given that I am an
Asian American, I can somewhat relate to the stories in terms of cultural relations and struggle
with race and ethnicity. I also see connections between readings given their subjects. For
example, both Charles Chesnutts Po Sandy and Henry Clay Lewis A Struggle for Life are
nineteenth century stories that view race in very depressing ways. They are intended to destruct
the Otherness in horrible ways only they can imagine. By taking notes on the readings and the
lecture, I not only saw connections between readings, but I also became more confident about
my critical thinking skills. Overall, this course has allowed me to set aside from summarizing
the text and focus on important details of the text.
As an active participant, I have been promoting teamwork, presentations which I was
really confident about, creative engagement with material, and class discussion and providing an
atmosphere where knowledge can be discovered rather than handed down. The peer review was
what helped me in terms of my mechanics and grammar in order for me to prepare for the next
step. In my presentation, I was glad that I was able to clearly summarize my research paper and
entertain the audience with what I am sharing in my presentation. I also tried hard to be creative
in my writing since this course includes material that I am interested in such as cultural analysis
of literature and film. I am also glad that I was able to speak up during the class discussion
because I often tend to stay quiet in my other courses given that this course relates to my strength
of analyzing and observing cultural differences, a skill that I learned in my History 102 class.

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Since this course was entertaining given the instructor, the course material, the lectures, and the
assignments, I have become very active in it in my own educational experiences.
The personal outcomes, as a result, enhanced my experiences in cultural analysis of film
and literature, critical thinking, understanding values as an adult, allowed me to refrain from
summary, and encouraged me to become active given my passion towards the material in the
course. Hopefully they will guide me in the future whenever I encounter the similar subject
material either in museums or in future courses in graduate school

In order for me to pass and participate in the course, it was my responsibility to complete
all assignments in order to achieve the department outcomes. These department outcomes
include analyzing rhetorical situations, finding and evaluating information, composing
documents, presenting documents, and reflecting on major assignments.
During this course, I have analyzed the rhetorical situations of my research paper and that
of the readings. Since my research paper focused on slasher films, I wanted to direct my thesis
on the origin, the sociopolitical or cultural intentions, and the expansion of the slasher film.
Since I am studying film and am expected to analyze film in terms of its response to
sociopolitical and cultural issues, the audience would be students who are studying and enjoy
film, especially if they like slasher films. In some of the online literary responses, I have been
putting effort into analyzing the subject, purpose, audience, and constraints that influence and
determine the genre of a certain work. In the past I felt guilty for not rhetorically analyzing
literary works as I read them because I was more focused on the plot and characters of the film.
I did not consider the authors purpose or audience but instead the constraints that influence and
determine the genre. However, through taking notes on the lectures and weekly readings and

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doing rhetorical analyses of the weekly readings on the online literary responses, I successfully
achieved and became more aware of how to rhetorically analyze situations and literary works
using the knowledge of cultural issues and facts.
During the process of my research paper, I have used my thesis to gather information and
evaluated that information to determine if it is useful for my thesis. Due to the preoccupation
with other assignments and projects, I did not research enough detail for the research paper
before I started it. However, the information I had prior to the beginning of the assignment gave
me a good start since that information was what I needed anyway.
Like all my other research papers, I was always proficient in organizing my content into a
logical structure. For my research paper, the main points were organized into chronological
order: the origin of the slasher film, the cultural or sociopolitical reasons for slasher film, and
how the slasher film got famous and expanded to other media. Therefore, during my short
presentation of my research paper and the process of the research website, I introduced the main
in this specific order.
As always, in my past papers, I had to proofread before printing just to decide on what to
leave in and what to omit. However, since this semester was very hectic, I seldom took the time
to proofread the document before submitting, which is also something I feel bad about. At least,
I was able to fix grammatical errors, spelling errors, and word usage. However, I should
probably get feedback on how to structure my paragraphs because I sometimes make my
introductory paragraphs very long. At least I always put at the end of the introduction, and my
body sections are always structured coherently given that I should always break each body
section into separate paragraphs if it is long. Therefore, I have the potential to structure my
paragraphs and the entire document itself to make it readable.

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After observing my past papers and the literary responses, I have finally reached the point
where I have to explain my understanding of the course outcomes and how I have achieved
them. Hopefully my explanations sound logical and effective given that I may not have
understood the outcomes clearly.
So far, I have been working all semester to analyze rhetorical situations of my writing
and other readings, finding and evaluating information that will help my research, writing the
documents and organizing their content into a logical structure, revising the documents for
coherence like I do in my film classes, and reflecting on my major writing assignments by
explaining the outcomes and how I achieved them.

During this course, I had a great time learning and keeping note of the material that was
assigned and discussed in class. I also enjoyed the level of interaction in the class given the
humor and excitement. The personal outcomes helped me enhance my skills in critical thinking
and cultural analysis, whereas I have been completing all assignments in order to achieve the
department outcomes. Now that this class is over, I have successfully achieved the personal and
department outcomes and will hopefully use whatever experience gained in the course for future
reference.