Cover Letter
June 20, 2007
To Whom It May Concern:
I would like to begin by expressing my sincere gratitude to those who spend the precious time reading the works in this portfolio. The portfolio displays what the aims and topics of the academic writing class I attend this spring semester concentrate on. My instructor, Mr. Ron Corio, is shooting for improvement of professional writing skills of his students. With his help and suggestion, the five works, arranged into three sections, have witnessed my step-by-step progress on formal written English.
In the first section, three works, included in the reverse chronological order, are different versions of “Class Distinctions: the Source of Misery”, an interpretive essay on “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant. The major concern about the novel is the underlying points the author tries to express. These three drafts have traced my language learning process by analyzing, writing, reviewing, editing and proofreading. I didn’t start my essay until the outline was well-developed with the thesis clearly stated and with the evidences adequately collected. Although my outline seems good to guide a potential writing, the first trial draft remains far beyond my expectation and satisfaction. The biggest problem I met was how to determine an effective organizational pattern for my essay. Readers would note that there is a huge difference between Draft One and Draft Two as various beneficial structures I have been learning at class facilitate a relatively easy approach to well organizing the essay. When writing Draft Three, my major job was focused on polishing the sentences as well as simplifying the paragraphs in order to make the essay tempting and smoothing. In other words, the final draft did not give to birth within one day; instead, it is a natural product of intention on self-control of writing. Given the three revised drafts of my essay, this section fully demonstrates my growth in English writing.
In addition, thanks to peer reviewing, the feedback or criticism I received has provided me a new way to re-read my work that never occurred to me. For example, when reading my analysis on “the physiological gap” of Mathlide, one classmate suggested that I should discuss in depth the meaning of the second paragraph in “The Necklace”, which reveals the contradiction of value between the society and middle-class women. Mr. Corio also helps me a lot, offering suggestive ideas on my introduction and citation.
The second section is my final timed-writing. Different from the first section, timed-writing places emphasis on high efficiency regardless of careful revisions. This challenging item relies heavily on a wide breath of abilities and skills. Actually, the academic writing lesson I attend has organized timed-writing for three times. The scene of my bewilderment of arranging time effectively during the first timed-writing stays in my mind until now. However, I refused to give up. By communicating with my instructor, I am gradually gasping the key points of timed-writing, that is, to outline the article, and then to write down in spite of grammatical errors or other faults, and finally to spare time for revising and editing. As my writing becomes more mature and more productive, the work I include in the portfolio is representative, required to be finished within forty-five minutes with the topic of creating a filmed advertisement for a movie based on The Grass-Eaters.
I chose as the last section “Reading Log on ‘The Americanization of Shadrach Cohen’ ” of my four reading logs. This work is typically representative of the goals of reading logs aiming at initial reactions exposure. My personal experience is expected to be similar to Shadrach Cohen’s. So I discussed my “increasingly upset” mood as well as my appreciation of Shadrach Cohen’s “great courage to cling to his own culture” in this reading log. To be honest, it was the first time when I felt writing was so smooth that commonplace hesitation to verbalism and phrasing was all faded away. I see such a situation as a sincere naturally-expressed feeling, with no relationship of improvement of writing skills. Writing a reading log has incredible impact upon me because I become aware that any work will not be merely composed of perfect writing skills. Conveying true feelings will lend lasting vigor to work and easily arouse readers’ interests.
Finally, when preparing for this portfolio, I feel lucky and proud. The luck stems from the active academic environment of the class. Mr. Rocio is a strict but patient teacher. Not only does he pick up my incorrect or improper expressions, but also he introduces various professional skills and helpful guidelines for written English. By his instruction, my attention has been drawn to structure, style, format and phrasing. Meanwhile, people in the class are passionate. When I feel uncomfortable with my work, many of them will volunteer to read it over for providing appropriate criticism. The pride derives from my self-improvement on writing. At the beginning of the class, my weakness related to how to convey meaning accurately and how to develop an article logically was all exposed to the sunlight. But as time flies, I have a clear idea of writing strategies. When compared with the freewriting I did in the first lesson of the academic writing, the last one proves to be skillful and fluent, both in content and in style. Now I am aware of varying the sentence structure and exploring the meaning in depth. Although there remain some weaknesses of my overall writing abilities, I think I am getting through, full of confident to reach full improvement. Furthermore, What I have learnt in the class will not end up with this portfolio; instead, the notions on written English will be extended to application of writing in my future life.
Sincerely,
Christine WANG, Yuting
