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Cassidy Holt Ms. Ingram English 1102 - 063 24 February 2013

Dearest Samantha, You will most likely be very surprised by this letter. Or maybe you wont. After all, we do talk about English quite often. Most would consider this a good thing, I think, since we are both English majors. I know that Ive mentioned to you before the English class that Im taking right now, English 1102. I might have told you a little bit about the first paper that we wrote the Whats It Like To Be You? essay and the book we were assigned to read Peace, Butter, and Jelly. In fact, Im almost positive that Ive mentioned Peace, Butter, and Jelly to you, probably even more than once. It was that book that looks kind of like a cookbook but inside there are also sections for short stories and poetry. Short stories, food, and poetry a pretty good mix, right? You can probably tell from the description I have given that I enjoyed this book. A lot of books that are meant to be inspiring only reiterate the same old motivational things that you usually hear. This book was different. And it was inspiring, and I could relate to it on many different levels, and it wasnt so much what the book said always as the discussion it started in class. Thats usually how you know a book is good, right? When you cant seem to run out of things to say about it. Of course, you know that I usually dont talk as much as I should in class, and really I recognize my mistake that I should have spoken up. I did have a lot of things I could have said in class about it.

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One thing my teacher, Ms. Ingram, said in one of these class discussions about Peace, Butter, and Jelly was something like, Have you ever visited a place and knew that it would someday be important to you? Well, you know thats the sort of thing that happened to me when I visited Charlotte. Thats why I chose to come here from Indiana and I am asked all the time, How did you end up in Charlotte? and I never had a good answer before that class discussion. The same thing happened to David Siedel, the author of Peace, Butter, and Jelly when he visited Charlotte and ended up moving here many years later. I guess, out of everything in the book, that is what I connected with the most. And the rest of his story really just made me feel better aboutlife. Life in general. He dropped everything to move to the Dominican Republic. He lived a completely spiritual life in an Ashram for many years. He took chances and trusted himself. You know that Ive always had a fear of being grounded, anchored to one place for my entire life. One thing I learned from David and his book is that that fear is completely irrational. And I learned that really, where I end up is up to me and how much I trust myself. Take risks. Just go for it. During his visit David talked about being an entrepreneur and all of the different businesses he started and how it was all because he trusted himself. I think that is one thing I really need to work on. Speaking of things that I need to work on, there are many in this class that I would love to discuss with you (mostly just because I hope you are in the same boat and then we can relate on this and not feel alone). Peer editing. At the beginning of the semester I was terribly distressed about this concept. You know that I get nervous showing people things that I write, especially people that I havent known for very long. Youve known me forever and still I sometimes worried about showing you my writing. However Ms. Ingram said something else that comes to my mind whenever I started to feel panicked during our peer workshop. Its just getting feedback

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from your readers. Nobody in English 1102 is going to judge me. At least out loud. Because Im pretty sure judging out loud is against the rules. I also started thinking about how I want to be a writer and if Im ever going to publish anything I have to get used to the idea that complete strangers will be reading my work. So whats the point of freaking out? As long as I write something that Im proud of I should be fine. So I decided to take on this new philosophy during our first workshop and it went really well. I didnt avoid taking risks in my paper because I was nervous about what my group might say, and it turned out that they had a lot of nice and helpful things to say about it. So Ive improved in feeling better about letting people read my work and how to view and use feedback from others, but one thing in this area that I feel that I still need to work quite a bit on is giving feedback to others. When peer editing papers, I have the tendency to only want to write down things that I liked about the essay. I dont want to be that type of editor. I want to know how to give really good advice when it comes to being a reader, but usually I cant get past the fact that a piece of writing is that persons artwork and I tend to just want to take it as it is and either like it or dislike it. I hope as the semester goes on I get better at providing good feedback. Another thing is risk-taking. When I think about this one, I usually associate it with the main lesson I learned in English 1101 (the first half of this class, which I took last semester.) I set off with the resolve that I would try as hard as possible this semester to take risks in my writing and make them as not boring and not essay-ish as possible. I wanted to not feel restricted by the usually guidelines that are enforced in high school English classes for essays. I want to surprise the readers and I dont want them to say in their head, I feel like Ive read this a million times already, you know? I want my essays to be distinctly mine. I want to put as much

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creativity in them as I can. So, when I sat down with a pen and a notebook to start my Whats It Like To Be You? essay, I wrote down everything that first came to my mind and then I tore that page out and threw it away. With that all out of the way, I then thought about what I really wanted to say and how I could say it. I wanted it to reflect me. I wanted it to have a sort of storylike structure because I like writing things that way. I didnt want to just tell a history about my life, because I didnt think that would be a very good way to explain what its like to be me, really. Plus, I thought it would be too predictable. So I started with a story that took up a lot of the paper but there was a lot of symbolism in it (and I was really pleased with the symbolism) and I think it gives the reader a good idea about me without being very obvious or blunt about it. Also because it was a story format I used a lot of dialogue. Here is a piece: You look ahead and see that a forest borders the edge of the meadow before you, the old woman said, What do the trees look like? They are tall pines, I answered. *later in the story* The forest represents the people in your life. Because you said that the trees appeared to you as tall pines, and pines usually have thick, full branches, I think that this means you have a lot of people in your life and your relationships with them are strong, said the old woman.

It probably sounds familiar to you, Samantha, because I took the story from real life and you were there! I mentioned you in the essay too.

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I would also like to say something about the writing process and revision. I think Ive probably talked to you about this before and its always been one of my worst faults as a writer the fact that I hate to revise. I usually think out sentences quite a bit before I write them and therefore kind of grow attached and, you know, hate to change them. I noticed at the beginning of the semester that in this class we have two workshops and three different drafts of each essay. Knowing that revising is something I need to really work on getting comfortable with, I am really happy about this. With the second draft of my WILTBY essay, I revised quite of few things, including adding an intro and several parts throughout it that I thought the wording could use some help. For the next draft I know that Im going to be changing the conclusion quite a bit. So Im working at it. I hope that youve enjoyed reading this. Maybe you were just bored. But too late! Youve already reached the conclusion of my letter. I think you probably can relate to a lot of the things I have mentioned. Maybe you are learning the same things in your own English class. Since we are both writers, I think all of it is useful. I have always enjoyed writing but I feel like in just one year of college, and in this semester alone, I have learned quite a bit about it and I feel like Ive improved a lot. I have a lot left to work on, like Ive talked about in this letter, but the first step is realizing what areas need improving. And I dont think its completely out of line that I feel proud of myself for the things I know that I have improved on. I know that you know how important all of this is to me. After all, I do want to be a published writer someday. And because of that everything that I learn in this class is what Ive come to college to learn. Well, thanks for listeningerrreading. I miss your face. Love, Cassidy

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