Dear Dr. Ahmed,
I have grown in ways that I could not have expected over the past fourteen weeks in my English 101 class. When I think about myself as a writer right now, I feel confident about my ability to use descriptive language to have my readers really see what I am describing. The feedback I received from my professor and my peers mentioned quite often how my essays come alive when I connect my life and my life’s challenges (such as my vision loss or outdoor memories) to my writing.
One thing that I am still struggling with is finding ways to create smooth transitions from my topic and keep my writing focused without straying off or getting repetitive. I also find that I must manage a fair amount of anxiety when looking at a blank sheet of paper. I have found that if I start with questions and then use talk-to-text to answer those questions that those steps help me get jump-started and ease the anxiety. I do have to be careful to make sure that my punctuation and word accuracy is right because talk-to-text is not perfect. At the same time, between my anxiety and vision problems, it was a tool that was extremely helpful. I also learned that my anxiety about starting means I focus too much on writing perfectly on the first try. Having the freedom to receive feedback allowed me to try new things as a writer.
Over the past fourteen weeks in EH101, I have learned that growth as a writer is not about achieving perfection. It is about developing strategies to manage anxiety, learning from both successful and frustrating assignments, and discovering what kind of feedback helps me improve. These unique strengths and difficulties popped up across the four major assignments.
The four major assignments each challenged me differently, but the Multimodal Remediation Project taught me the most about perseverance. The Multimodal remediation project taught me the most about persevering through assignments, especially when technology decides that it can take a break and just check out. It was the most fun project that we had because I enjoy editing and creating videos. With my newfound perseverance, I know for myself that I can do challenging things. I specifically remember having to get organized and stay organized while filming and drafting the video shoot. It is hard-to-find specific footage through heaps of takes. After I created an organization system it was much faster to complete the Assembly of my video, especially after my footage and editing deleted itself.
I remember one moment while I was making the video I found a way to use the software that I was not familiar with so that way I could preset the video transitions automatically. This memory stood out to me because I was having a challenging time with the software, and I was getting close to crying uncle and not making the transitions. However, luck was on my side at that moment, and I was able to quickly get the transitions done.
My least favorite would have to be the literacy narrative because of my lackluster performance. I did not have good flow between topics, and I got off track a little bit. I was also out of practice when it came to authoring essays so it was a little bit rough. There was quite a good bit of confusion on my end on that assignment. I at first did not fully understand what to focus on and how to get my main message across. I also did go into a kind of panic when I realized my mistake. After freezing for a few minutes, I got help from my executive function coach so that way I could move on and keep working on the draft. After I met with her, I was able to move forward with the project.
Beyond the assignments themselves, the revision policy and feedback shaped how I approached writing. The revision policy changed how I approached assignments because it prevented me from being overly perfectionistic in my rough drafts. Instead of trying to make everything perfect on the first try, I could simply get words on paper and then receive feedback on a rough draft.
As far as feedback from you, my professor, goes, I was unable to locate and find the comment section from you until this past Friday. During this whole time, I thought you were going to provide feedback on another paper in the future, like you were rotating through the class giving feedback to a section of the class at a time. I feel like I missed some key improvements due to my struggles with seeing things in Canvas.
Regarding feedback from my peers, I valued feedback from Trinity Fraley. She was quick to the point to inform me of some misspelled words on my multimodal remediation project around the two and a quarter minute mark. When it came to receiving feedback, the in-person peer reviews were probably some of the most beneficial activities of the semester. I liked being able to have a discussion with someone about my writing instead of just them leaving chat GPT-style comments on Canvas.
There was, in fact, peer feedback that I found unhelpful and caused a bit of confusion. During in-person feedback sessions when Canvas was down, a classmate told me that my references needed to be in some specific formatting with which I was not familiar. When I checked with our instructor afterward, I learned that the formatting she suggested was not what we needed for the assignment. This experience taught me to verify conflicting advice directly with the instructor, especially when I am feeling confused about requirements.
While I came into this class expecting to learn about writing, I also learned skills I will use in other courses and everyday life. The writing skill that I am going to take from his class is how I approach rough drafts. I know I have mentioned this before, but it is something I really found important later in the semester. Without the change in how I tackle my rough drafts, I would have been stuck on unimportant details within my paper instead of making progress on the assignment. This shift in mindset will help me in future classes where I need to produce multiple drafts under deadline pressure. However, one skill I wish we had covered more is how to do proper research for an academic paper, not just one with two or three sources, but a paper with extensive research. I feel this will be very crucial moving forward, especially for English 102 next semester.
Sincerely,
- Everett Sjolseth
Everett Sjolseth | The Renaissance Changemaker 