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Isaiah Sulivan

Professor Sinha

April 28, 2019

Stretch English Composition II

Dear Professor Sinha,

At the very beginning of this course, my writing was extremely unrefined and fluffy. I

was very bad at being concise within my writing and it caused me to feel like I was unable to get

the message across for my topic. However, as the year began to progress, I began to learn how to

make my writing meaningful and make every word that I say count. I feel like I have made great

progress in just a single year and I am now able to continue my writing career with the

confidence and skills needed to succeed. The specific elements that helped me from the Stretch

English course were most definitely reading the American Essays and having to write about

them. Those assignments allowed me to really dive into the story and be able to relate and

formulate my opinions. The Speech and Grammar book was another helpful tool that I feel was

great from the class. I felt that I had a decent grasp of grammar before we had begun the class,

but as we continued through the semester, I realized how much I still did not understand.

Within this portfolio, I have attached the Leavers and plagiarism essays, the problem-

solving research paper, and this portfolio letter. My favorite piece is most definitely the problem-

solving paper because I can relate to it in many ways. I have experienced racism on numerous

occasions, and writing about racism in America allowed me to really dig deeper into the topic

and not just scratch the surface. The hardest piece for me to write was most definitely the

plagiarism essay, but not because I did not know what to say. My previous approach to
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plagiarism in general used to be set in stone, but after reading the Gladwell essay I was at a

stand-still with my opinions and feelings. Writing that essay gave me the opportunity to put how

I felt on paper and really discover something in myself that I did not know was there. The

concept of literature changing my opinions slightly scared me at first, but now realizing how

powerful it can truly be, I am excited to continue down this path of writing and literature.

The lessons that I have learned in the Stretch English course will help me reading and

writing tasks in other courses because it gave me a great base for how to approach writing. I now

feel like I have the necessary knowledge to continue in a fashion that is adequate to experience

success in my future classes as well as any future job opportunities. When we began I was fairly

bummed that I would have to take it for an entire year rather than a semester, but looking back, I

am glad that I chose to take the time to actually learn how to properly engage in writing.

Even though I learned a lot this year, I do realize that there are places where I still need

improvement. For example, I know that my transitional sentences could be better. I feel that they

are sufficient for now, but some things can always be better. I do also feel that my vocabulary

could be improved. I sometimes struggle to find words that sound more eloquent and would flow

better in my sentence structure, but I only know so many words. I feel that if I take the time to

try and learn more vocabulary, my writing would take a large leap in the right direction.

Sincerely,

Isaiah Sulivan