May 4, 2017

Dear Mrs. DiSomma,

Over the course of my time in this class, I cant count how many essays that I have had to write.
But, a few have stood out from the rest. One of them being the very first full essay I wrote, the
Personal Statement essay. This essay was written at the beginning of the year, all the way back in
September. We as a class were assigned with writing about something that had happened to us
that changed our life. I chose the day when I first saw Back to the Future. I wrote about this
because it had, sparked a love for film and visual storytelling deep within me. This was
important to me because, not only did it help grow me as a person, I discovered my passion as
well. Another one of our assignments that I am proud of is that Good Food/Bad Food/Proposal
slideshow. Around the end of the first semester in December, we were tasked with the job of
creating a slideshow about what we believed was wrong with food in the modern day. I talked
about the fact that the ingredients that are used in our fast food in ruining our nation. I spent a lot
of time researching and making sure all the facts were right, which seem to have paid off due to
the comment, Yes!! You really know your stuff!! on my rubric. Along with this, I made sure to
add some levity to the more serious topic at hand by adding a few jokes and a game at the
beginning to connect the audience with the presentation. On the rubric, some comments stated
You are so funny! and that I was, comfortable up there. I was glad to see that the work I had
put into the slideshow had paid off. Towards the beginning of this year, back in February, I wrote
an essay about Bullying and how it affects them in all stages of their life. This was very personal
to me because I was bullied as a child so I wanted to make sure that the audience knew the
seriousness of the topic at hand. Due to it being a research paper, I made sure all my sources
were correct, and that there was a healthy amount of them. It was important for me to show to
the reader that bullying, does forever damage a person. In the second paragraph of the essay, I
summarized the story of Katelyn Stapleton, who was bullied at a young age and was thankfully
helped up by her mother. This was meant to show to those bullied that the people around them
are there to help. Although, Im not sure that was the best placement in the essay, especially since
the conclusion to the essay was quite weak and could have been improved with an uplifting story
like that.

However, the most important part of the essays that we wrote over the year was not the final
draft, but the prep-work that came before. One of these being the outline to Pushed Into the Wild,
my Literary Analysis paper. This essay was a timed write in class, so having the time before hand
allowed more time to think about what quotes to use, and the best topic sentence to hook the
reader into the paper. For example, in the outline, all my parenthetical citations had been done
wrong at first. But, it wasnt until a second look the day of the essay that I realized that they had
been written incorrectly. So, I fixed them during the actual writing of the paper and saved myself
from losing some points on the final draft. Along with outlines, researching and annotating
articles helped tremendously this year. For instance, in the pre-writing stages of Americas
Children Behind Bars, I went through multiple articles and a couple films to gather knowledge
about a topic that I didnt know too much about. It was important that the essay sounded
professional, that there was a real understanding of the topic. Films like, Young Kids, Hard Time
Directors Cut helped me see life in prison as a youth through the childrens eyes which was used
to build the pathos in my essay. Another example of how prep-work influences a final essay was
in my essay, The Issue at Hand. Before writing the final draft, we were assigned to write out our
thesis and body paragraphs, essentially a form of a rough draft without the opening and
concluding paragraph. This helped me improve the style and flow of the essay before the final
product had to be turned in. Now, I have a better understanding as to how to transition into new
topics and improved my ability to insert quotes and commentary without anything feeling
choppy.

This class has helped me in improving my writing skills in a big way, some of them being
integrating quotes, creating works cited pages, citing evidence, finding evidence, and annotating
text. When it comes to quote integration, there is no clearer example than in my essay Pushed
Into the Wild. It was important to make the quotes feel connected to the paper, an example of this
goal is in the beginning of paragraph 3. McCandless has not only tried to disconnect himself
personally, he has been physically cut off from society as well. As Chris went to Alaska [he]
moved into the abandoned bus on the Stampede Trail(39). I integrate quotes by building the
sentence around the quote. I look at the first word of the quote and see how to start a sentence to
lead directly into the quote with it making the most sense. Another skill I have grown better at is
creating a works cited page. When the year began, I thought the process to create a works cited
page was to fill in the articles information on EasyBib. Now, I can write out on by hand without
the use of the internet. In The Issue at Hand, each essay that was cited was done by hand with no
use of the internet. I occasionally look at my template when writing a works cited page to make
sure that it is everything is in the right order. When we began this class, I already had some idea
of how to cite evidence in my essays, but in this class, I refined that skill. I was already good at
citing evidence from books and articles, but in this class, I also learned to cite video. In my paper
Americas Children Behind Bars, I quote a film by writing, However, as one juvenile told
documentary filmmakers, youre tense all the time (Young, 13:50). When citing a video, you
cite the director of the film, and the time in which the quote took place. That is something I
would have not learned in high school if I hadnt taken this class. Speaking of evidence, I was
also able to refine my skills in finding solid evidence. As shown in my Food Presentation, in
which I was given a perfect score on finding multiple good sources for the presentation, I have
gotten better at finding reliable sources for information. Finally, I have definitely improved at
annotating text in articles in novels. When I joined this class, I was absolutely terrible at
annotating. I didnt know the format and due to my difficulty paying attention, learning how to
seemed near impossible. But, now I am able to successfully able to annotate text and find more
in the text of a novel or article. I have a system of reading through the text once without writing
anything down, then going back through it and dissecting every sentence. While it does take
some time, I feel like it is is easier for me to write a paper after it is done.
When it comes down to it all, I love writing, I have for years. I love getting to craft something
from nothing, and just the act of writing is therapeutic to me. I see my writing, and I know what I
do well, as long as what I need to work on. For example, when it comes to writing a paragraph in
an essay, I believe that is a strength of mine. I know how to properly structure a paragraph
whether it is a research essay, literary analysis, or a narrative. I know not to ramble on for too
long as to keep the reader's attention, and to use diction as a tool to keep the audience in the
essay or narrative. However, I know that I do need to work on commentary in my essays. At
times I see myself not connecting my commentary to the thesis and not necessarily explaining
why the quote is important. I do not think all my commentary is terrible, however, I do need to
work on this aspect of my writing. I also know that conclusions are something I need to improve
on. I often write too short of a conclusion that does a poor job at wrapping up the essay. I want to
find a way to keep a conclusion feel fresh and new, even though the entire premise behind a
conclusion is that you restate everything you just said. Although, I am confident in my ability to
parenthetically cite evidence. As previously stated, I understand how to cite a novel, news article,
and video successfully.

Something that I can do now that I could not do well at in the beginning of the year was
integrate quotes. Often, when I used to write my papers, I would write He said this or She
said that, which is not often the preferred method of putting quotes into an essay. Now however,
I have gotten quite good at it. In my essay, The Issue at Hand, sentences like, when this
discrimination of the street occurs, the failure of the profiling system is easy to see when, in
nearly nine out of 10 searches, police find nothing (Natarajan 2). Here, the quote perfectly
flows with the sentence around it, which is what I try to do with every quote.

I have improved my critical reading skills by taking a deeper dive into the topics and novels
themselves. I have taken more time to analyze the text to better improve my essays. Although, I
do believe that I still need to work on my flow in my essays, because twice in my essay Pushed
Into the Wild, two separate paragraphs were given the note to fix the flow of the paper. I am
going to need to take a second look back at my work before turning it in. That way, I can see
what sounds right and what does not. This will be important because if an essay is choppy or has
a poor flow, not only would I get a lower grade on the paper, but it will not be enjoyable for the
reader as well.

In the end, I have realized that college level reading and writing is much more difficult than that
of high school reading a writing. The process is a lot more singular, with you doing much less
group work and the ultimate responsibility being on you as to whether or not the work gets done.
This course has showed me that in order to succeed, I will need to work harder than I have the
past few years and keep myself on track as to not fall behind in my classes. Due to this class, I
feel much more prepared for the classes ahead of me next year. While I am sure I will still have
some difficulty, I have learned how to keep myself on track and know how to properly analyze
text and construct an essay based off a prompt and the previous resources presented to me like
online articles and video.

Sincerely,
Matt Davies-Morris