I have always felt as if writing has been my weakest subject but in the last few years I have felt genuine improvement. I mainly contribute this to the fact that I've just had to write it a lot more. Throughout my junior and senior year English classes I have been slowly increasing the frequency of how often I write and how long I have to write for. I believe this to be true in all things, but in my case especially practice makes perfect. I am far from being perfect but I believe that I am on the right track to get there.

A few assignments that have helped me in this class are the Critical Reading assignments 1-3. Coming into college I feel like one of the few strengths I do have in writing was my ability to aptly Rhetorically analyze. So I think in that sense I don't know if I've necessarily gotten better but I do think this class has helped me to become a better writer overall mainly in the register I use while I am writing.

Starting off this class with CR 1 I was overjoyed when you asked me in class if you could use my piece as an example. One comment you made is that I did a very good job of analyzing this quote, “. Mandel writes ‘The snow was falling fast around them, shimmering in the blue-white light. Arthur wasn't breathing’(4). The imagery used in describing the snow falling gives a sense of calm to the reader before the abrupt statement that the actor was on the cusp of death. By using the soft imagery before the harsher statement, Mandel amplifies the impact of the current situation on the reader.” I think that this quote especially shows how I came into the course with a pretty strong understanding of rhetorical analysis. After not taking a writing class for almost a year the intensity and frequency of the assignments at the beginning of the quarter was definitely a wake up call but I think I made a pretty smooth transition. Even though my analysis was strong coming into the class you can see throughout this class that my writing language isn’t quite as formal as what it should be for a college level writing class. One thing that you would see throughout my pieces is me using a lot of the same transition words making the text as a whole seem very basic.

Moving onto CR 2 some of the comments you made on my work was that I didn’t quite understand what a motif was which was one hundred percent accurate. I think I didn’t actually understand it until I was thinking about what the paperweight meant in terms of the whole story which I end up mentioning in my Final Draft. Even though I may have not got the point of the assignment I can already see the improvement through my vocabulary and use of verbs to introduce the ideas of the author is trying to portray to the reader.

Finally in CR 3 I feel like is one of my strongest analysis’ to date this is due to the fact that I felt very strongly about the idea about art being necessary for the survival of personal identity. I almost wrote my RA about this until I found a more specific thesis. I also see a huge improvement in my register in this piece because I’m not repeating verbs as much as I did in earlier pieces this quarter. For example I use the line “Mandel describes” in a lot of my pieces and I remember strictly not using that sentence in this piece which to me was a victory in itself.

All of my work so far has built up to my final draft of my paper which I think is one of my stronger pieces. I even asked during my peer review sessions if they would look for places where I could improve my vocabulary. I am extremely proud of how far I have come but know that there is still a long way to go. If I had had more time I probably would’ve used it just keep going back through and revising so I was using more intellectual register. One way you can help me to become a better writer Is to just keep making me write. I don’t feel as if I’ve learned a ton of new information but I do know that you have helped me hone my skill.