Cover Letter

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for taking time reading my portfolio. The five articles above are the chosen ones for my writing portfolio through this semester in the writing class of Mr. Corio.

My major is Germany, and thus English has become my third language. And I feel quite a few problems in my academic writing which is probably a rather practical skill, that is why I attended Ron’s class. Thanks to his teaching, my writing skills has been improved gradually. I am happy, and of course proud, of my progress.

In Ron’s class I have learnt firstly how to analyze a story through the settings, characters and many other elements according to the book International Story. And after reading the story, we started to write reading log, which is the first item in my writing portfolio. In the reading log I expressed my own feelings about the story I read, and exchanged views with the classmates through internet. That is a quite interesting process. Getting to know what other readers thinking about the story they’ve read and the way they express their thoughts are two very important things I have picked up in this writing class.

The second paper deals with time-writing. That is another quite important skill I have learnt—to write things in a limited time. In the first two timed-writing, I always met the same problem: The time was over before I could write much enough to clarify my thoughts. And especially, in my first timed-writing, I was quite nervous, worrying about things like what if I did not write long enough or what if I forget the spelling. Of course, they proved unnecessary. Through several trials I did learn some skills in timed-writing. First, taking four or five minutes pondering over the whole structure and what I am to write. Second, writing the main sentences for each paragraph then concretize them. And while writing, do not always spend time on wording. And the last trick is to set aside about ten minutes going through the whole article again and polishing. Those are the skills for timed-writing I have learnt through my writing class.

The following ones are my essay drafts which I worked most hard on in this semester. I was usually confident about my writing, but from draft one to draft three, the problems in my writing uncovered. Improving them little by little should own much to Ron’s helpfulness and his general knowledge in writing. As to me, the problem most likely to be neglected is quotation. Adding the page number and quotation marks when quoting. This is a basic rule, but I used to forget, and this is surely unrespectful to the original author. Similarly is the punctuation problem. It was not until Ron’s remind did I realize how many error I made about punctuation. Another basic writing skill I learnt which left me a deep impression is the thesis statement. I still remember the first time when Ron refered to the thesis statement, I even did not know what it actually was. But later, what I concerned about was how to make my thesis statement clear and strong. That is a progress, isn’t it? And what also changed with the draft number is the logicality in my essays. I polished them over and over.(Hopefully, you can see it through my three drafts.) What determined a good essay is not, as I thought before, good diction, but logically strong and clear. Wording is superficial however somehow a plus, while logicality makes a essay carry conviction.

Moreover, I am here sincerely giving my gratitude to my peers, who worked hard in proofreading for me.And my lovely teacher, Ron!

This class of a adventure in writing is over, however my interests in writing have been greatly triggered. What nice!

Thank you again for reading my portfolio. Hopefully, you could see the progress I have made and what I talk above could give you some inspiration in your writing improvement

Sincerely,
JoJo

18.6.07 10:02