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John Burns Unit One Reflection Letter College Writing 112 Section 71 March 27, 2007

Dear John,

After having written one paper for a college level writing class, the time has come to reflect both on writing in college, and what I have discovered about my own writing. I can safely say that I have learned much from both the class activities we have done, and from Professor Kent. Before beginning this class I had no idea how to write like an admirable writer. I would compare my writing level to theirs and only see a void. Generally, I only wrote to persuade using whatever came to mind, I rarely thought thoroughly about what I was saying, and how it would support my claim. I rarely thought about things like who my audience was, or what they might presumably know about my subject. What I have learned from my writing class this semester is simple, before I can hope to write successfully at the college level, I must learn how to write successfully at the college level. Soon after I began writing for this class I began to see certain qualities absent from my writing. One of the first of these missing qualities was that college level papers need to stay related to the topic. In my first draft of an identity narrative, I trailed off a few sentences into the first paragraph about how my preoccupied brain made it difficult for me to pay attention in class and write essays. This statement was clearly unnecessary because it did little to support my claim for that essay, the claim being that identity is meaningless. In the last few sentences of the essay, I dismiss writing about identity altogether, I argue that identity is something best shared through dialogue, not an essay. Both of these digressions show that my ability to stay on the track laid out by my claim was lacking. After seeing the feedback from Steph, and learning in class that it confuses readers when unrelated digressions are included in an essay, I knew I had to write only about things which would clearly support my claim thereby making my essay both easier to understand and more convincing. This taught me that college level writing, and my own writing, both require sufficient knowledge of how to effectively communicate ideas. However, learning to effectively communicate ideas by staying relevant was only the beginning. Each class I would see something else my writing had always been missing. One class I would see that I never clearly incorporated ethos, pathos, or logos into many essays I had written. In another class, I would understand that examples are only efficient if they have a clear relation to the claim and not just a clear relation to a small idea in one paragraph. There were things I did well, but there was much I could learn to make my essays better. The most important thing I have learned is that the most important part of writing is revision. Try as I might, I will always have sentences that are poorly written or ideas that do not quite fit. I can only fix those problems by learning about what it is I have done wrong, and then going back and making it right. The concept of ‘learning then applying’ is the fundamental element of education. Even now that I am at the college level, this notion has not changed. I still have to absorb information, and then use it both to demonstrate my ability, and so that I will be able to use it later in life. In writing, the only way to write better is to learn to write better, and the best way to learn to write better is to see where your writing needs improvement. Although, as I mentioned earlier, it is important to learn about writing well, it is equally important to write, then go back and make your paper stronger. Writing at the college level is based on the same elementary philosophies as any learning endeavor; only the concepts are more difficult and take time to master. It has not been easy to absorb college level concepts and information, but that is because college level writing is preparation for real world writing, which can be challenging and unpredictable. This first unit of writing was demanding, and I expect all subsequent units to be as well. I also expect that I will continue to learn new strategies to develop my writing ability. By the end of this semester, I want to be able to look at my writing before and after this class and see improvement in countless areas of my essays. As difficult and involving as writing at this level is, I know it is something I must do in order to continue to become a better writer. John? 23:27, 30 March 2007 (EDT)