December 6, 2019

Dear Professor Williams,

̈Every writer I know has trouble writing”( Heller). This is a simple statement is

something I thought many times during this course. During this course I have pushed myself to

become a better writer and learn new techniques to separate my writings from others. I have

spent so much of my time during this class, planning and preparing my actually writing before

even beginning my writing process. I have grown from the course because of all of the preparing

with rough drafts, peer reviews, and textbook readings.

When I first started this class, I had issues with grammar, organizing my papers, and

including important detail to my papers. My strengths from the beginning were including strong

word choice and creating a unique paper. My issues have been fixed as I have grown as a writer

in this class.

In my best-written essay,̈ The Story Of My Father, A Man Of Many Talents” aspects of

growth are shown in the revised version. My unrevised essay had a major problem of lack of

detail. Only partial parts of stories were told without any reason of why they were an important

part of my father's interview. In every story I told in my essay, I went back and added more

detail to improve the connection from the author to the reader. For example, I revised my entire

second paragraph about my father talking about his High School experience. I added details like

̈he laughs ̈ and ̈he understands,” so the reader knows how my father feels about what I'm

saying.
 Another problem in my unrevised essay was organizing my essay. In the first copy of this

essay, I had essays with work citations, unclear details, and grammatical mistakes. Some of these

mistakes were easily looked over, and I know that I would have not written them in my essay

now. I revised most of my explanation about how my father met my mother. I used confusing

terms when describing how they met, so I rewrote sentences, so the flow of the paragraph would

be more effective.

I chose to submit this essay for my portfolio because I liked what I was talking about, and

I think it had the most potential to be my best work in this class. I also believe that this was one

of my more interesting essays, and I relate to it more because it is about someone close to me.

When revising my old essay to my new one, I read each paragraph and then took apart each

sentence and reworded them and added detail to form a better essay. Some activities that I did to

help me achieve a better essay was looking at old steps in my first essay to think about the ideas I

was originally trying to convey and modify them.

After completing my revisions to my new paper, I feel most strongly about my

introduction, where I state my thesis. I feel like my introduction paragraph is strong and portrays

my essay's main idea well. I believe that revising my paper made my essay stronger and more

connecting for readers. If I had a chance to fix any part of this essay, I would fix the amount of

quotes I have in my essay. If I had the opportunity to go back and reinterview my father, I feel

like that would greatly benefit my paper.

Allison Renegar

Professor Williams

English 111

12 November 2019

The Story Of My father; A Man Of Many Talents

“Relationships won’t always be perfect, the one thing you can do to help support them is

to just be there for them.” As my father has grown older, he has experienced many situations that

have shaped him as a person. Some things that greatly influenced his life was graduating High

School, going to college, and getting a job that is right for him. Some of the experiences he has

been through, aren't necessarily good, like not trying hard in HighSchool, but all of them have

taught him a lesson. As people grow older they are faced with more responsibilities that they

have to learn how to manage. I have benefited greatly from talking to my father about

responsibilities because he is a lot older than me. With responsibilities, problems arise, that you

have to face so you can grow as a person. The more I talk to my father and ask him for advice,

the more I realize how separate his life is from mine and how much he does on a daily basis.

Even though I am in Highschool and my father is older than me, he still finds ways to relate to

my situation and help my problems.

 When my father speaks on himself as a teenager, he laughs, and calls himself a :

“completely immature angsty teenager.” Looking back on the things he did with his time in

school he says his biggest regret is: “spending too much time at the beach and not enough time

studying.” He believes that if he spent more time practicing his studies he could've done more

things with his business career. When my father was young, he lived on the coast of Wilmington

Nc. He spent most of his free time after school surfing, skating and hanging out with friends.

Due to him spending so much time doing these activities, he didn’t always do the best in school.

Because he didn’t always do well, my father pushes my brother and me to try and do better than

him in school. My dad wants my brother and I to have options of what we can do for work when

we grow up. Even though my father pushes us in school, he understands how stressful school can

be, so he refrains from pushing us more than we can handle. Most of the time when I complain

about High School to my dad, he understands, and just says: “I just want you guys to have

options of what you want to do after school.”

In college, my dad went to University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) and

experienced things around that time period that changed his life. When my dad was in college, he

was in a fraternity, and he says that being in a frat: ‘taught him the importance of brotherhood.”

Because my father had such close relationships with his ‘brothers’ in college, he always tries to

help my brother and I's relationship when we have conflict. He believes that the relationship

between siblings can be a really great support to have in your life. My dad grew a lot from the

start of college to the end of college.

Another life-changing event that happened to my dad right after college was meeting my

mother. One night my father went to his fraternity’s brother's apartment to hang out with him and
his sister. The same night my mother went to hang out with her sorority sister at her brother’s

apartment. When my mother and my father went to this apartment, they met each other. Before

this night, they had been to the same parties and events because their pledge houses were friends

and they had never met each other. My father believes that he was supposed to meet my mother

this night after college because he was more mature then. When my father met my mother, he

felt euphoric, he: “knew she was going to change his life.” Even though my father believes

college isn’t essential for everyone’s life, he believes he grew so much because of it.

My dad has gone through many different jobs in his career before he found the one he is

in now. He worked at bountiful places in his career from: “a dirty seafood can” to “a boring desk

job.” After copious amounts of different jobs, a position opened up for him that seemed like the

perfect thing for him. He applied for the position and started working at The Coca Cola

company. This job changed his life because it allowed him to express himself, travel, and still

have enough time to spend with his family and friends. When asked about his job, my dad says:

“I love how it continues to challenge me, and it doesn’t take up all the time.” My dad believes

that when you choose your job, you should look for what fits with your life and: “look what you

see yourself doing.” My dad always inspires me because he continues to continuously work hard

and want to improve.

When interviewing my father for this assignment, I learned many things about how he

chooses to live. I also learned how different my father´s life is from mine and all the different

things he does from me on a daily basis. I am extremely thankful for the advice my father has

given to me over the years and the support he has provided. I am also inspired by my father’s

ability to balance his relationships, his family, his work, and his health. After this interview, I
look forward to having more conversations with my father about him growing older in the future.

I am also thankful for this interview because I know have more of an understanding of who my

father is.

Work Cited

Patrick, Renegar. Personal Interview. 13 November 2019.