Thanks to the COM352 students for contributing a bunch of new pages! I'll be moving these pages into the main area of the wiki soon.

From UMassWiki

Dear Anna,

First and foremost, I would like to commend you on getting through your first unit for your English writing class. I know how you have told me how you had a bit of a trouble starting off your identity narrative but it is obvious that you have pulled through in the end.

As I was reading your final draft, I noticed many good qualities about it. Throughout the paper, it was apparent that you made it a point to connect with your audience through emotional appeal (otherwise known as the pathos strategy). You used many descriptive words in order to try to place the reader in your shoes, which made it easier for them to make sense of the story that you were unraveling.

What I also liked about your paper was the anchor that you had set forth in the beginning of your narrative. It initially grabbed my attention and hooked me into reading your essay.

Note that I am writing to you not to praise your work but to give you some constructive criticism to help you improve your future writing endeavors.

Though your paper was a good read, I felt that it didn’t really make a clear and concise connection with ‘identity’. I noticed that you talked about how your personality is influenced by your past, for example, your friends, family, and life at school but conceptually, you did not specify how the past relates to personal identity. I know that the prompt asked you to explain what you thought identity was but it was unclear as to what the focus of your paper was based on and how it is all linked together.

The structure and transition of your paper was a bit confusing. There were times when you were presently retelling the story and there were other times when you told the past as if you were in the same moment in time. Your voice in the paper was not consistent and I could not keep track of what tense you were attempting to use.

Regarding the mechanics of the narrative that you wrote, there were many questions of diction. Your style of writing seems a bit flowery and long-winded. I hope when you further your writing, you will take this into consideration and not add so many, unnecessary words. Too much baggage obstructs the flow of the essay!

Good luck with your next unit!

Sincerely,
Your transcending self.