English Midterm Essay

Dear Ashley,

I am writing you this letter to tell you all about my English 1102 class. My teachers name is Ms. Ingram and you can tell she is passionate about what she does. This makes the class interesting for everyone else because she enjoys teaching us. It is only halfway through the semester and I feel as though we have already accomplished a lot. I have learned through blogger, group work shopping and cover letters. Even though I used blogger all of last semester we used it for a different purpose. In my English 1101 class we used it mainly to write blogs in groups about our assigned readings and assessing the key points. In English 1102 I think the blog has been more beneficial in terms of helping me learn. I like that we are not just submitting assignments, but that we use blogger to reflect on our research. This helped me to keep track of where I was in the research process and to figure out what I needed to work on. Sometimes when I write I find myself writing down information that actually helps me to discover something I did not realize I was feeling or considered that important. Group work shopping as been beneficial as well. It is a learning experience to receive feedback from your group or others in the class. Before I submit an assignment I read over it numerous times and may miss something that jumps out to other individuals. With their feedback I learn what I need to work on in order to make my paper better. The cover letters are similar to what we did with blogger, but in a simpler format. Before this semester I had never written a cover letter. I like the idea because once again it gives me a chance to reflect and think about what I just wrote while it is still fresh on my mind. I bet you wish you were in this English class now. We have already done so much and I can’t wait for what is to come.

Sincerely,

Lindsay Carpenter

My favorite essay by far has been the “What’s it Like to Be You?” paper. I wrote this piece to tell my classmates and teacher more about myself and give them a peak into my life.  My ideas came from my family, church and overall home environment. These are all big factors in my life and inspired my essay. My audience was my teacher, my classmates and family. I will admit I was a little hesitant to put too much personal information in my essay because I knew my classmates would be reading it and I was afraid of what they might think. I know I should not care, but I am only human and can’t help it sometimes. I tried to be as detailed as possible within my comfort level. This piece was definitely not an easy one to write. When I saw the prompt I thought I will have no problem with this, but as I started writing it was not as easy as I had thought. I had trouble making it flow and going from one aspect of my life to another. I also had trouble being specific at first and figuring out the topics I could elaborate on. This is why I like the peer editing so much. I received some polite helpful comments. I made revisions by separating out a large paragraph and making it into two smaller paragraphs. I also added in some more information about my elementary school and my family. During this essay I discovered how much I miss family since I have been here at college. I was writing and my emotions just came out. I had no idea I had suppressed all of these feelings. I look forward to every minute I get to spend with my family on the weekends before I come back to school. I would expect any reader of this essay to learn some basic facts about myself and what has had a major impact in my life. I talked a lot about my church family because I have grown up in church and could not imagine who I would be without it. I still want to add more information so that would be my major revision to this piece. I want to give my readers even more than I have already given them.

Peace Butter and Jelly was unlike any book I have ever read. I liked that he broke it up into sections going from his life story to recipes to a multitude of poems. This book was an easy read and gave me great insight into the author’s life. I would definitely recommend using this book as a jumpstart for next semester. It got me involved and since I could relate to the book in some ways it made it more interesting. It was awesome to have David come to our class as well and bring the cake. If he could do this with all of your English classes in the future that would be a cool tradition. I was not expecting to read a book like this in English, but I am glad we did.

What an awesome class

Who knew it could be this fun

Who knows what is next!