Alyson+Cover+Letter

Dear Dr. Hartman,  English has always been one of my favorite subjects, especially when it came to creative writing. I always loved making up stories and writing poetry. This year, however, creative writing was not the main focus of the course. It truly did not play a role in the curriculum. It was slightly upsetting, but I got over it.  Up until my senior year in high school, my writing was always praised by my teachers. They were always impressed by my word choice and vivid description. Last year, my teacher really pushed me for more. She wanted more explanation. It always seemed like there was no room for a single error. Looking back on it now, I see that the papers that I wrote that year were supposed to be based more on facts and generalizations than emotions. This is a problem that I ran into this year. In the persuasive essay and the public letter, I had a lot of trouble controlling my emotions.  The memoir was my second favorite paper to write. That memory was one of the clearest I have from when I was a child. I really loved reflecting on my childhood and how I was not an incredibly smart child. I really enjoy sharing funny stories from my childhood. They are incredibly entertaining and make me laugh each time I think about them.  The public letter was really hard for me to write without showing a lot of emotion. I constantly had to change sentence structure and wording in order to make myself sound professional. I was very angry about the changes Mr. Sahm made to the school. It really showed in the rough draft of the paper. By the time I turned in the final draft, I was comfortable with what I had written.  The research paper was by far my least favorite paper to write. I had to learn how to do APA style, but that was not the hard part. I had a hard time trying to figure out what my opinion was. Unfortunately, I saw both sides of the argument. Although I believe it is important for people to go to college, I understand if they choose not to go. I found many of the statistics very interesting, which kept me interested in the topic. Had it not been for those, I may have completely given up on it. I am very bad a writing research papers. The paper I wrote for my English class last year was horrible. The information was interesting; however, I was not able to express the ideas clearly, which I felt was a major problem with my research paper this semester.  The multigenre essay was by far my favorite to write. I had many problems at first. I came up with the idea of writing the essay about one of my aunts and her abusive marriage. When I tried to write about that, though, I drew a blank. I decided to write the essay about my neighbor who had died over Thanksgiving break. I felt that writing about it would help me understand why I was so troubled and maybe come to accept the fact that he was gone. Writing about things has often helped me move on from them. This paper truly did help.  The final piece I am submitting in the portfolio is the first chapter of a novel. Fiction is my favorite thing to write. I feel like it really requires the most creativity and imagination out of any other type of writing that I have done. I believe that this piece is filled with emotion, sly humor, and my personal insights on life. I had a lot of fun writing this. However, it is still a work in progress.  Overall, I believe that I did well in this class. I do not necessarily believe that I am a better writer, but I do know more about writing persuasive and formal papers than I did before. I do not like writing them, but I know how to.  Sincerely, Alyson Goldner