Dear English Instructors, My prior reading and writing experience upon entering English 91X with Mr. Langmo and Mr. King was average for the people that are around my age range. My reading was pretty good; the only problem about it is me comprehending the material. I don’t always comprehend the material when I just read it. I need to take notes and summarize in order for me to comprehend each paragraph of what the content of the material is being said. However, my writing experience was always strong. I was always a good writer; the only thing that slacked off from my writing was for me not jotting down every information that was stored in my head. The three essays I have written were Martha Johnson, Martha Johnson Revision, and Denise Liu. Martha Johnson and the Martha Johnson Revision was about Martha debating on what she should use with her inheritance money. It was either to use it for a vacation, apartment, school but no work, or save the money. Denise Liu essay was about whether if she should work while she is schooling or not. Her parents disagree of her working and we had to convince Denise on why she shouldn’t work while she is schooling. As with these three essays that I have just mentioned and briefly described, it had open the doors for me as a writer and a reader so I can broaden my thinking and writing for the future English classes along the way. One of my ways of learning how to become a better writer was for me outlining before I did my essays. Outlining is strategy for the writer so that the writer can plan what he or she is going to write prior to the essay. Outlining is also a process because the writer can think thoroughly before writing so that he or she can organize his or her info chronologically, numerically, from worse to best, best to worse, etc. Outlining an essay consists of a introduction, thesis statement, main points for the body paragraphs, evidence and information to support the main points for the body paragraph, and last but not least, a brief conclusion. In the Martha
Johnson and Martha Johnson Revision essay, I outlined it for it was a homework assignment and for my own personal tool to better comprehend the information that I was about to write before the essay. For example, on my outline for Martha Johnson Revision, I wrote my thesis statement as, “Martha’s best choice would be the school but no work because she can get a better job later and make better money than what she can get from inheriting.” However, what I wrote for my thesis statement on Martha Johnson Revision essay was “Martha’s best choice would be the school but no work for she can get a better job later and make better money than what she can get from inheriting.” As for Denise Liu essay, my outline’s thesis statement was, “Denise should use her free time to study for school for there is no such thing of over-studying.” On my Denise Liu essay for the thesis statement is, “Even though Denise wants to make money while she is in school, she should not work for she has school, family responsibilities, and her social life that is more important rather than work.” As you can see, I have revised my essay’s thesis statement through the outline. The outline gave me a perspective of how and what I was going to write out my essay. As for my Martha Johnson essay, we did not have an outline to where Mr. King has not yet told us to write up an outline for Martha Johnson Essay #1. Over this semester in English 91X, I have gained better knowledge of writing an outline and revising it. Practicing and rethinking of what to write got me to where I am as of today. Revising brings me to the second part of what I have learned over the past semester in which has helped me to correct any errors and made my sentence(s) structure better. Revising is a strategy to go over the material and rethink what needs changing and what needs fixing so that the material that the writer wrote will be clean from grammar errors, spell checking, and fragment uses. It is also a process that every writer should do in order to be a better writer. On my Martha Johnson essay, I revised from, “She could use it for a vacation to Hawaii when she
has been dreaming to go there for a very long time” to “She could go to Hawaii when she has been dreaming to go there for a very long time. In the Martha Johnson Revision essay, I wrote from, “Martha Johnson is her name who lives in a medium-size city” to “Martha Johnson lives in a medium-size city.” As you can so far see, there was some unnecessary wording in some of my sentences that were not needed. Therefore, I then replaced it or deleted the wordings so that my sentence structure will flow better. In my Denise Liu essay, I wrote from, “If she was going to work, she wouldn’t be able to have enough time for school, her social life, and her family” to “If she were going to work, she wouldn’t be able to have enough time for school, her social life, and her family.” I replaced was with were which made the sentence structure flow a bit better. There has been numerous times, to where I had to really think about my sentence and fix it so there wouldn’t be any fragments in my essay. How I learned from my mistakes was by asking my friends and family to proofread my essay so they can double check on my work and if they can get the picture of what I am trying to explain in the context. I also asked if they were to change a few of my sentences, how they would be able to change it. However, that question can only go so far that I needed to do it on my own so I would be able to learn it. Annotating was also another highlight strategy for learning as it helped me to better comprehend the material that I was reading. Annotating is when you take notes, summarize, or talk with the text as if the text was another person. For example, the text says, “The dog was jumping around when he saw his owner come with a doggy treat.” You can annotate it by writing around the text and saying, “What was the dogs name and what kind of a doggy treat was it?” You can also add, “Did the owner have a name?” That is what I did in all three of my essays so I can understand what information I was lacking and if so, how was I able imply it into my essay? As for my Martha Johnson essay, we did not annotate it because we did not learn how to
annotate it yet. For some of the other students, they did learn how to annotate prior to the class, but were not yet told to do so as a homework assignment. However, on my Martha Johnson Revision essay, I annotated on, “Martha Johnson is her name who lives in a medium-size city” My response to that particular sentence was, “Name of city?” The information for the name of the city was not provided in the Integrations book. The reason why I think the information is not told is that the narrator must have thought that the information was not needed and was unnecessary. On my Denise Liu essay, I annotated from the text: “Of course, Denise now insists that she must have a job too.” What I asked the text was, “What kind of job was she looking for or is she interested in?” My question eventually got answered as I inferred that she was just interested for a job that she can get while she is schooling. How I have accomplished this skill of annotating was by doing it every single time I read. Ever since I have learned about annotating, I have been doing it more often now and not even realizing it that I’m actually doing it. When I read the newspaper in the morning or when I read a handout from another teacher, I somehow manage to annotate it. I guess it became a natural skill for me and that I started to like it since it was easier for me to comprehend the material after I annotated it. Last but not least, I learned how to infer the context of the material so I can comprehend it better and it will be a good skill to use for my future English classes and for life. Inferences is something that you can assume or get an idea of just by reading from the context. For example, most of my objects in my house happens to be all blue or has some sort of blue color in it and I love it. You can infer that my favorite color is blue since most of my objects are blue. In Martha Johnson and Martha Johnson Revision Essay, I inferred that Martha is a female in her family who is willing to do something in her life. I got my inference from the context that she is coming from a uneducated family and that she wants to use her inheritance money on one of the four
options that she enlisted. One of the four options happens to be schooling. That is where I got my inference from because she wants to change and not follow her family’s footsteps since she is uneducated. On the Denise Liu essay, it said, “The school year has just started and Denise Liu, the second-oldest child…”1 I can infer that she has more siblings rather other than her older sister because the text states that she is the second oldest in her family. If it was only her and her older sister, then the that would make her the youngest in her family rather than the second oldest. How I mastered this strategy is by using annotation and inferences together so that I will be able to infer the text. Knowing the material and comprehending it makes it easier for the person to infer the text. To conclude this cover letter, I plan to have two goals for the next and incoming English courses. One of them happens to be the ability to write my essays better to where my sentence structure runs smooth. Sometimes, when I write my essays, they happen to be too “wordy” in which the reader gets lost through out the context. The reason why I chose this goal is so that I can get the reader to fully understand what I am trying to say towards the person. In order for me to accomplish this goal is by having to use my above strategy and skills that I have just mention and to imply that into my daily routine. I have to question myself, “Is this what I really want the reader to know or is there something more to it?” I believe that if I start early on working toward this goal, the rest of my English classes at CCSF will tend to be a bit easier. As for my second goal, that I want to complete in English class at CCSF is for me to get my comprehension level up. My comprehension level is below average and I do not fully comprehend everything that is said or has been read. I sometimes get frustrated when someone does not understand what I am trying to say but I have think positive and relax. Start from 1 Page 38 - Integrations Reading, Thinking, and Writing for College Success by William S. Robinson and Pam Altman.
scratch and see if I can somehow reword what I have just said. In order for me to increase my comprehension, level is by taking down notes every time I try to understand something and by reading. If I take notes, I will be able to remember and visualize what I have written. Yet of course, by reading I will always improve my comprehension of the material and my vocabulary. I hope these two goals are sufficient to where you, the English instructors, will understand where I am coming from. I hope you enjoy what I have to say throughout my three essays in my portfolio. Thanks!
Yours sincerely,
Justin Yap