November 30, 2013 Dear Reader, Hello and welcome to my portfolio!

My name is David Alejandro Perez-Lira and today I have included within my portfolio, two essays I continuously attempted to fix. I show you these essays mostly because I feel comfortable about them. The first essay that I included is one named, Love Does Exist. The reason I wrote this essay, was mostly because not that many people are aware of what love is. Such a difficult topic in the lives of most people that I decided it was something I just had to write about. The inspiration for this essay began because of the assignments we had to go through in our second progression with Professor John Kublerwhich by the way, is a wonderful professor teaching us about contemporary issues, social relationships being one of them. When writing this essay, I knew I was addressing the concept of love through various authors opinions, the film, Crazy Stupid Love and interviews I personally conducted. Within this essay I also brought up the concept of dominance between groups of people and the issues it brings within relationships. It wasnt easy describing love in my essay but, through the background information included in my essay, I know I was able to get the Jist of it. The second essay included within my portfolio is one I wrote for my third progression named, Student Loan Crisis: Something Must Be Done. It talks about the student loan crisis on how its become a really difficult subject for the United States and the students who partake in the crisis. I give off sympathy to the students who go to college borrowing loans for their education not knowing the reality of their expectations after they graduate. When I decided to write this essay, my main purpose was to let the reader know how difficult life is for students who borrow money attempting to get an education and that there is a solution for the crisis. Through various opinions of authors and videos, Im attempting to give out a solution to the crisis and I describe that there are people out there who disagree with my opinion, using the skills I learned from the book, They Say, I Say, also using concrete evidence from my supporting authors and their articles to describe the benefits my solution. In the end of my article, I try and persuade the reader that something can be done in order to fix the nations student debt crisis. Throughout this semester I have learned to become a better writer and thinker. I know for a fact that towards the end of English 114A, I legitimately learned how to write argument based essays, which was the main basis of this interesting semester. My skills began to grow when my professor introduced us to this book called, They Say, I Say. When reading this book, I was given various examples on how to back up my statements showing evidence written by other writers, experts and personal experiences. I learned more when I had to demonstrate my essays to most of my classmates giving me constructive criticism, and I learned more when presenting our work through various acts. In class, we went through various complicated subjects no other would think of addressing, and it opened my eyes that there are far worse problems the world it facing in todays time.

In conclusion to my cover letter, I must say that this semester has been a great experience for a freshman like myself. I would like to thank my professor John Kubler for exposing me to his wonderful lectures and for giving me a chance to improve my writing skills. I would also like to thank the reader of my letter for taking the time to actually read the letter. I hope that when reading my portfolio that you enjoy the work Ive created for English 114A. Sincerely, David A Perez-Lira