Dear Cath, 

Thank you for such an amazing semester. I learned a lot (insert picture of alot monster). LOL. 

But in all seriousness, I learned so much about myself as a writer and a scholar. I always 

struggled in writing, not because of my ideas, but because I could never fully articulate what I 

wanted to say with my writing. Prompts were just prompts to me. My ideas were never fully 

formed. I never went beyond to fully finish a thought. I never took the extra steps to transform 

my paper from a good piece of writing to a great one. This was always a critique from my 

teachers, but they also never took the extra steps to help me actually combat this consistent 

problem. Until this semester.  

I went in to this class expecting it to be just another english class. I remember thinking: “Wow 

here goes another semester where I have to write four mindless essays that mean nothing to me.” 

I went in with the mindset that I was just going to create basic, average pieces of writing. I did 

not expect to grow as much as I did.  

The first class, you gave us the rundown of how your English 102 class was going to go. I was so 

excited when you said we only had to write one essay and that we would focus on that one piece 

of writing for the first half of the semester. I knew that because of that, I would be able to write 

about something I cared about. I also didn’t know that English 102 was mostly argumentative 

work. I love arguing!  

For our first journal entry, you asked us to write about something that made us mad or angry. I 

started off in that mindset that I was in. I couldn’t think past things that actually made me mad 

like people chewing with their mouths open or the culture shock I feel as a Latina in a mostly 
caucasian university. These are very basic ideas that, yes maybe you can write an essay about, 

but it wasn’t out of my comfort zone.  

It really took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to talk about for the classical argument. 

I really drew a blank. You gave us the opportunity to really write about something that is 

important to us and to our communities and I could only think of very basic ideas and topics to 

write about. I was frustrated. It wasn’t until one of our class periods, when we were having a 

class discussion where the idea to write about the prison system in American struck my mind.  

So at this point I had what I knew I wanted to talk about. Next step, how to talk about it. Starting 

this essay was extremely difficult. During our group conversations I felt so embarrassed because 

some people had already written about half of their essay and I hadn’t even started! It was so 

hard for me to actually start this essay because I wanted to do the topic justice. This is not a light 

issue and I knew I couldn’t B.S my way through it.  

The week of our one-on-one conferences I decided to head over to the Tempe campus and go to 

the library to see if I could find anything on prisons in America. It was difficult for me to find 

anything online about the private prison industry and its impact on minorities so I figured maybe 

it would be better to check in-person. Sure enough, it was!  

I checked out at least 8 books all pertaining to the overall topic which was private prisons and the 

ugly history of why they came about and why they are still prominent today. I was excited, I was 

finally making a stride in the right direction. However, I still could not start the paper.  

I had all of this information in front of me and I couldn’t figure out how to use it. I would read a 

couple chapters in each book and try to find what could be useful to my paper, but nothing was 

clicking with me.  

It finally came down to when I was supposed to meet with you for our conferences and I don’t 

know if you remember but I came in SUPER nervous! I didn’t even have a first draft. I couldn’t 

even write one sentence in that google doc. However, when I expressed my concerns to you, I 

feel as though you understood what I was feeling. It was really reassuring to talk to you and 

listen to your suggestions on how I could combat this issue.  

After our conference, I was finally able to get something on paper! Like you suggested, I created 

an outline of everything I wanted to say. This was so helpful to the actual start of the paper. I 

also watched a documentary on Netflix called ​13th​. That also really helped me grow closer to my 

topic and learn more about the message I wanted to convey with my writing.  

Once I started writing that first paragraph, I felt the rest of my argument falling into place.  

I was finally able to use some of the books I checked out. Little pieces just started coming 

together and it really helped formulate my thoughts.  

I worked on the essay, little by little, putting the last finishing touches of it on the day it was due. 

I really used the entire time I had to write it.  

I had never felt so connected to a piece of writing before. Not even writing about myself! I feel 

like I really put my all into this body of work.  

When I put the paper on your desk, I felt a sense of accomplishment. Once I turned it in, I really 

didn’t think about the grade. I would’ve been just as happy with a C or an A because I knew that 

this piece was my best.  

When I got my paper back, and saw that it was an A-, I was thrilled. It felt like my worrying and 

stressing was for something! My work was recognized. I stepped out of my comfort zone and I 

wrote about something that isn’t talked about and that not a lot of people know about. It’s hard to 
write about something that no one is writing about because you really don’t have anything to 

compare it to or help guide you.  

I really took everything we learned in class to heart and I believe I have grown so much as a 

student. I have more confidence in myself to be able to combat challenges that scare me and face 

those challenges in innovative ways. 

I also learned how to love fallacies. We had talked about them before in my Speech and Debate 

and English class, however I feel like you were able to dig a little deeper with us and you showed 

us how to avoid using and actually use them in writing. I was honestly pretty terrified of the 

fallacy quiz because during the practices, I felt like I couldn’t get one right. The more we talked 

about them as a class and the more you showed us real life examples of them, the more I grew 

interested and the faster I got the hang of them. Don’t get me wrong, fallacies are pretty difficult 

but now I know how I can identify them and either point them out (when necessary) or use them 

to my advantage!   

English has never felt like such a learning space for me until your class. I went from writing 

underdeveloped thoughts and ideas to learning how to articulate my thoughts and the information 

that I have in order to create something my audience can hear and understand when they read it. 

I know I have a long way to go in my writing career, but I do want to thank you for teaching me 

not only about how to write a classical argument but how to grow as a student and writer.   

Thank you, 

Isabella Escobar