Francis 1 Cameron Francis Suzanne Ingram English 1102-025 12 October 2012 Midterm Dear Friend, As you know, this

is my first semester in college, and so far I am really enjoying it as all of my classes seem to be pretty good for the most part. I have excellent teachers, and I have learned a lot of interesting and useful information. This is especially true for my English 1102 class taught by Ms. Suzanne Ingram. This is a very constructive class as we engage in developing our writing skills through various activities such as peer-groups, workshops, readings, and other types of activities. The main focus of this class is to promote analyzation and inquiry as with every assignment and activity we have been presented with different questions. With our Whats it like to be you? essay we were asked exactly what the title suggest: Whats it like to be you?. With our Annotated Bibliography we had to form our own inquiries in regards to a health related topic and then gather solutions through research, but we didnt just gather information. We also analyzed it and evaluated its merit in order to define and develop our own ideas and opinions. With Blogger we have been given various questions in regards to our research in which we had to evaluate what weve research and formulate different ideas from what weve gathered. I believe that through addressing such questions one develops better critical thinking skills which are important for the writing process. This is important for the writing process because with better critical thinking skills one can come up with better ideas, provide more in depth commentary, and approach various problems with ease.

Francis 2 One assignment in particular that I found interesting was the Whats it like to be you? essay. With this essay, the primary goal was to give the reader a good look into your life by really asking yourself many different questions for example What do you like to do?, Why do you do it?, When do you do it?, Where do you do it?, How do you do it?, etc. With writing this paper, I realized my audience would be my peers and my teacher; people who didnt know me at all. I had only just met them for the first time this year, so these were pretty much complete strangers. When writing this essay, I felt it was important to be as thorough and detailed as possible in presenting the facets of my life that are the most important and explaining why they are important to a stranger who knows nothing about me. By asking myself questions and performing self-evaluation, I felt I could form more detailed descriptions of these important aspects which have impacted me. I felt this piece wasnt too difficult to write as it was mainly about myself, and who knows me better than myself. Essentially, my life and personal experiences were the main source of inspiration that I drew from. It was tasking having to reflect upon my life in its entirety and pick out the most important elements which have defined me; then having to evaluate and express their importance was also no easy task as this took some good critical thinking skills and focus on paying attention to specific details. I believe that evaluation and providing details are two skills I worked on with this essay. This essay provided good practice for developing these skills. I know though that there is still plenty of room for improvement in these two areas of expertise. Another source of inspiration was Peace, Butter & Jelly by David Mark Seidel. The question for the essay actually came from this book. In this book, David shows the reader Whats it like to be him and how his life has defined him. I liked his narrative approach in the book as he

Francis 3 expresses importants parts of his past and the impact theyve had on him leading up to his present. This is something that I tried to replicate with my essay. I dont quite think I executed it as elegantly as David did though. My paper didnt highlight the impact as well and lacked some substantial commentary. This is something that I need to work on and look to implement better in the portfolio. I also need to work on refining my paper better so that it has better phrasing and is free of any grammatical errors. This will require better proofreading. I feel the paper was somewhat of a success though as I feel that someone reading it would get a good understanding of who I really am. From writing this paper I did take out many useful skills and found out important parts of the writing process. As stated above, I did work on my evaluation skills as I evaluated different parts of my life, and I did work on my use of details. Both of these skills are very important to the writing process. Evaluation is important because it helps form clear and concise ideas, and use of details is important because this is how you present those ideas and support them. I also realized the importance of reader feedback. When writing this paper, we completed two drafts. With the first one, we got into peer groups and read over our peers papers and critiqued it giving personal feedback on what was good and what needed improvement. This was very helpful as my peers gave me good feedback on what needed improvement as I did the same for them. Reader feedback is important because as a writer you write with the intention of someone reading what you have written. It is helpful to have someone review your writing as they can give you feedback on the impression and/or impact your writing makes and improvements needed to appeal more to the reader. I have gained a lot from doing this paper along with the other assignments and activities in this class. This class has added to my writing ability by providing me with useful skills and

Francis 4 ideas such as critical thinking and evaluation. These skills are crucial to writing, but not only writing but life in general. Why is this? Because in life, as in writing, people have questions and people have problems. With these skills one can better find the solutions to all of the problems they face and all of the questions that arise. I appreciate this class for helping me develop such skills along with providing additional, insightful information on how to be better writer and thinker.

Sincerely, Cameron Francis.