A Reflective Letter to Myself

Dear Allison,

Here I am at the end of English 1B. It was a challenging journey full of long nights and constant fight against procrastination. Yet, those challenges, especially in essay writing, have helped me express my thoughts and arguments more efficiently. During my time in this class, the opportunity to be able to expand my comprehension and appreciation about reading, writing and of California with its dream was something that was very valuable. However, throughout the course, one of the most important aspects that I learned is how the organization and the type of essay influences the impact of the writer’s message.

After a shock of the grade I got on the first in-class essay written about our own interpretation of the California dream, I knew I needed to improve my writing skills for the real challenge that lay ahead of me — the first out-of-class essay about the California dream in music. Now this essay was quite difficult for me due to it requiring so much analysis and preparation. Normally when I write an essay, I think about the prompt and write my thesis straight away. Then I will trying to find supporting material. However, the problem was that I couldn’t even think of a thesis for this one. I knew that the message the Chili Peppers wished to send was a negative one, but what exactly proves this idea in the song? Once, after I tediously analyzed the song, I felt confident in my thesis and had found supporting evidence. Nonetheless, I was very worried about how I would be able to structure this essay in a way that would effectively represent my interpretation of this song. That was my main struggle with this essay, I couldn’t understand how to structure it nor figure out the best method for writing it. Even when I came up with a organization that I thought was foolproof, it proved to be part of my downfall when they essay was graded. I the realized that I had a problem with the paragraph level because I had started to make too many points in each paragraph, which caused confusion of the main point of each paragraph for the reader. From here, I knew I had to be more conscious of the structure and type of essay that would portray my ideas in the most compelling way.

After the previous essay, I was shown another challenging essay structure that I was very nervous for and that was the second out-of-class essay about Native dreams through poetry and history. This essay proved very different than the past two we had previously done for it was a compare and contrast essay. I remember doing these in the past, but it had been over a year since I had been in an English class and this proved very difficult for me to structure. Thus, I looked up some formats online and there were several different ways to structure it. The other hard part proved to be on the reading level for I am not very knowledgeable in deciphering poetry. Therefore, during this thinking process, I had to use my skills as a reader combined with my skills as a writer to fully understand what each poet meant. Because of this I was able to figure out a general meaning and expand on this. Once this was accomplished, I then had to figure out the best format to help my compare and contrast essay to really take flight. Thinking about my thesis and the points I wanted to make, the structure of the block-by-block method seemed to fit my needs. When I was finished writing this essay using that organization, I believed an important aspect to this essay was that the structure was important to understanding all the features of each paragraph. I thoroughly enjoyed that essay’s arrangement and think that if I had taken a different perspective or a different structure, it would not have been as effective.

The most challenging essay for me, overall, was the in-class essay about the immigration question through fallacies. I have worked with fallacies before in English Language in high school, but there was not much emphasis on them so I was at a loss on how to even begin writing this essay. Thus, when I started writing this essay, I decided to use the format that i believed would provide the most clear arrangement of my ideas. Since this essay was timed, I could not just try different ways to structure this essay. I had to think fast and type quickly to see if the arrangement I chose would help or hinder my essay. At the end of it, I think I made the right decision and, after some proofreading, I turned it in without a second thought. When I received my grade, I was ecstatic to see my result for something I was so unsure about. This made me realize that as a writer, I had improved in my analysis of how structure plays an important role in development of a point and understanding of a topic.  

For me, not taking an English class for a good amount of time and then throwing myself into a higher version of one caused me to be very anxious on how it would affect me. However, through this class, I have gained valuable knowledge on not only the importance of reading, writing, and analyzing, but also some insight on the significance on how the organization and the form of essay play into the overall meaning of the written piece. Having this knowledge will help in the future for it provides me with how to logically organize my written works in a way that supports my viewpoints efficiently. Also, knowing the history of California and unveiling the deceit of the dream it sets out for unaware immigrants helps shape my viewpoint of California a bit differently. It allows me to use this information that I have learned about in a way that makes me want to understand the mistakes from the distorted past in order to build the brilliant hope that the future brings.

Sincerely,

Allison (Myself)