Amy Dersh

716 Love Ave

Los Angeles, CA 90305
Jackie Hymes
18111 Nordhoff St
Northridge, CA 91330
22 September 2014

Dear Professor Jackie Hymes,

I enjoyed writing the progression one narrative essay because it was refreshing to be able to write
about something personal, rather than having to write a critique about a story that was assigned
in class. The writing technique that I used for the narrative essay was different than how I usually
approach an assignment. Typically, I just dive right into my first draft of an essay after finding
out the assignment. With this essay, I started off by writing a list of ideas to discuss. I narrowed it
down to a main topic, which was Hurricane Sandy and the emotional hurricanes that had led me
on my journeys in New York. I had a bit of trouble figuring out how to conclude my first draft of
my narrative, especially since there was so much to say. After I finished my first draft, about six
students got to peer review my essay in class. I found the peer review to be insightful and
enjoyed this process. I then went back to the writing board and fixed up my essay. I had so much
to say that I felt a bit overwhelmed at times. Trying to describe a painful time that I went through
was hard, but I did my best to describe my story as well as I could.

For grading, I think that I deserve an 8 out of 10 for the assignment requirements because MLA
format is a bit confusing to me ever since I started using Pages on my Macbook. I thought before
that I knew how to properly do MLA format, but lately, I have started to second guess myself. At
times I feel like I am formatting things properly, but then I look back at my assignment and I
have noticed that Pages likes to switch up my formatting automatically and incorrectly.
I believe that I deserve a 50 out of 50 for content. I felt that I went into great detail in my
narrative and used a good amount of dialogue.
For organization, I would give myself a 25 out of 30. My narrative has a few sub-stories to it, so
hopefully it all makes sense in the order that I wrote it in. I had so much to say and sometimes it
was hard to explain events when there was so much other chaos going on in the essay.
I would grade myself a 7.5 out of 10 on mechanics. I proofread my narrative multiple times and
had others proofread it as well, but sometimes there are small errors that I or others may have not
caught.

I really appreciate your teaching style and how you met with each student one-on-one and gave
us all advice about our essays. You have made the classroom feel like a safe environment, which
makes it easier to open up and really write from the heart. I am very glad that I am in your class
this semester.


Thank you,


Amy Dersh