Revised Letter

Over the last 2-3 months I have taken writing 101 and successfully completed my first quarter of college classes at Puget Sound Early College as a junior in high school. I came into this class having just completed my most challenging writing class to date with Alison Kestle at Mount Rainier. There I developed skills in writing shorter sentences, theses, and really long papers with slightly better grammar. While I would love to point out all my improvements and nothing else, my weaknesses and places that need improvement are also very real. My newly developed strengths are also the ones in most need of refining in many aspects. Nonetheless, I have learned to be more pointed in my writing though some of my standards are not quite as high as others. I am proud of the things I have accomplished in my writing as well as what I have learned working in groups despite my continuing imperfections.

In each of the essays that I have supplied you should notice the variety of sentence lengths as well as the pointedness in each sentence and paragraph. This quarter I have had to focus more on having my topic sentences of each paragraph actually govern the topic of the entire paragraph which is harder than it sounds. This is seen in my Bacon’s Rebellion Essay in the 6th paragraph of the essay. The paragraph starts with a sentence about Berkeley’s mistake in banning trade and this subject carries all throughout the paragraph. As a result, my editing skills have gone through the test and I have improved very much in that area as well. The facts I have supplied are not random and without a connection to the main topic but support very well what I am endeavoring to show in each paper. This is seen in my paper arguing against the ratification of the constitution, “The government’s power gave them the ability to enforce laws contrary to the states current laws in their own constitutions (Fisher, Federalism and Shared Powers). This was in effect forcing the residents of that state to comply with what the heads of the government thought right and good for them.” This form of despotism was the very thing the former English colonists were trying to get away from with the constitution. Also a major improvement has been my ability to work in a group to write an essay. Learning to collaborate was a major step for me and I really feel like I learned a lot from it.

My current strengths are also the very things that I am still in the process of improving. Last year in my sophomore year I learned for the first time what a thesis was and how to write one. Because of this I am also still learning how to write them in a clear, concise manner that directs my paper. For example in the rough draft of my Bacon's Rebellion my thesis stated that something had to be done about the many colonists entering the colony each year. However this had nothing to do with my subject of how classes caused Bacon's Rebellion. Still what I have learned is not fully disgraceful. Another weakness is using words that sound intelligent out of context. This is not overwhelmingly noticeable all of the time but occasionally pops up in my writing. A major aspect of my writing that needs help would be my ever present habit of adding extra words in that are unnecessary. These words have been pointed out by many of my classmates and my hope is that you will not find them in either of these essays. Habits do tend to die hard though.

My academic writing is always evolving and growing. Over the last year or so I have learned how to say what I needed in few words with a more directed point. This skill also, not surprisingly, flows into my personal writing as well. It helps me write what I want using less space and not confusing whoever I might be writing to. This is something I haven’t paid that close of attention to but becomes obvious when I start to reflect on how I write and the way I try to say what I need to.