Laisa Mena Rivera

Professor Malcolm Campbell

WRDS 1103

December 4, 2022

Dear Reader,

This past semester I have had the pleasure of having and completing my first

writing class in university. I have come to learn writing is something we use every day in our

lives, from reading a scandalous headline to sending an email or text, to writing an essay or

obituary. It's something we use every day to communicate, to express our frustrations or

knowledge regarding a subject. Writing allows you to show who you are. If you write a witty and

comedic paper the readers can assume you are a witty and funny person, or if you write a formal

and complex paper readers can assume you are educated and knowledgeable. I learned that

writing opens new doors to learning about other subjects or discovering new hobbies or ideas.

Another thing I learned about writing is that revising is key. My last two assignments lost points

mainly due to a lack of revising and careless mistakes that could have been easily fixed.

The first assignment, the literacy narrative was my favorite assignment and I think

my best assignment. It was exciting for me to think back on my journey with the English

language and by doing so I realized it was also my parent's journey with the English language. It

was an eye-opening experience to recall my first memories of my mother buying my siblings and

us our first book to me learning to sound out letters. Through this assignment, I was also able to

understand that there isn’t a perfect English language, there isn’t such a thing as “broken”

English. I think it’s something I struggle with all my life, from being my parent's translators at

grocery stores or parent-teacher conferences, and even having to listen to my parents apologize
for their “broken” English. I appreciate this assignment it has a special place in my heart and one

I am the proudest of. This was my first college essay and although I did mess up the format it has

had a great impact on me as a person for the pure reason it allowed me to accept myself as I am.

The question proposal assignment wasn’t too difficult for me but it did prove to have its

challenges. I had never done an assignment like this, in high school we would simply write

essays with paragraphs and skip the brainstorming stage. The question proposal assignment

helped me develop as a learner and writer because it helped me understand the process of

brainstorming. I was able to write multiple questions down about the same topic and find sources

that I think would help out. I was later able to pick apart the sources and questions I wanted to

use and further research. This assignment wasn’t the most interesting but I think I did a fair job

on the assignment, and my grade reflected it.

My annotated bibliography helped me develop as a learner because it taught me how to

analyze and break down a source. I learned how to summarize, evaluate, and find the degree of

usefulness of a source. This assignment took me the longest time to research and break down. I

struggled greatly with citing the TED Talk in my paper but I learned to cite manually websites

and articles. The question proposal and annotated bibliography help lead to the research-based

extended inquiry. The research-based extended inquiry was my least favorite assignment but the

format was the one I am most used to. For this assignment, I heavily replied to my annotated

bibliography, but I had to do further research to complete it. I learned to find multiple reliable

sources and got comfortable with manually citing sources.

The peer review sessions were done in class, my team members and I would sit in

a pentagon shape and peer review the person sitting to our right and left. We didn’t change the

seating though the semester and it showed to be an effective system. We would read each other's
work and comment on complements and areas of improvement. Peer reviewing for me was

helpful not only did I receive feedback about my work, but I also had a deadline to make. The

idea of having a deadline for peer reviewing in class helped me start my assignment for fear my

classmates would think less of me. Because of the deadline, I stayed on track to complete my

assignments. I learned the importance of revising, the power of feedback, and positive

reinforcements.

The most important work I did in the class was the free-writes. Free writing was an

escape for me during class. I would answer the prompt or question but somehow, it always came

back to how I was feeling or the things I worried about. They always seem to reflect my current

mood, from my heartbreak to my anxiety to boredom. The freewrites also helped me brainstorm

ideas or questions for my assignments. I think these were important because my goal as a writer

is to communicate my thoughts and feelings on paper. I researched the health benefits of writing

for people with depression for my extended inquiry project, and it has been proven writing can

aid with symptoms. As a person with depression, writing out the freewrites was important to me.

It helped me let my frustration and happiness out on paper. The weekly freewrites are the most

important work to me because they helped me brainstorm introductions or questions for the

upcoming assignments and allowed my brain to wander and spilled my emotions onto the paper.

My strengths and weaknesses remained the same throughout the semester. My

weaknesses continue to be creating smooth transitions for my essays and in-text citations.

Although I wouldn’t consider myself an expert in manually citing articles, I have improved from

high school. I consider myself to be open about my feelings, thoughts, and upbringing in my

writing, and I think that is a strength. That was especially a strength when I wrote my literacy

narrative. Overall I find writing to be a struggle and a challenge. I was always told I was better at
math than writing and I never devoted myself to writing. One of my greatest weaknesses is being

scared my writing will not be good enough, so I tend to do the bare minimum or not submit an

assignment.

The creation of my E-Portfolio is something that I am proud of. This semester proved to

be challenging and aimed at my thinking and becoming a better writer. This semester aimed to

teach us the process of writing, research, and the importance of adding touches of our personality

into our work. This letter was aimed at us to reflect on our work, our mistakes, and our

accomplishments. I went about writing this letter honestly and thoughtfully. I wanted to hit on

every assignment and explain how I felt about it and how I would like to do better.

I will take away from this class the importance of writing simply, so others can simply

read. I often worry that I write at a middle school level and should add complex words, so others

know that I am at University. I will take away the importance of revising, peer reviewing, and

brainstorming. I will also take away the importance of free writing to get the brain moving. I will

take away the importance of caring and taking time for things. I will never be a writer or minor

in it, and I will never write a book or publish an article, but I will always admire those who do.

Writing sucks, but I sure do love a good book.

Sincerly,

Laisa Mena Rivera