Karla Moreno Rodriguez

Mrs. Pfeiffer

3-4 (A)

Nov. 29, 2018

Throwback to Letters

Expressing your feelings of gratitude toward your friends can be difficult. For one, you

don’t know how they will respond. Secondly they might just confuse the gesture for something

other than what it really is. Imagine how weird that would be? Maybe I’m just making it worse

by writing letters instead of just sending them a quick heart or happy face emoji at the end of a

text message. Now you may be thinking letters? Isn’t that what they did like in the 20th century.

Well yes . . . but there are still old schoolers who enjoy writing letters like me, I know so 1960’s

of me. Don’t get me wrong, I love emojis as much as the next person does. Emojis may just be

tiny figures but they really are a great insight to how a person is expressing themselves. That’s

the difficult part of writing letters, it’s hard to add emojis or any type of modern technology uses

of expression. I literally have to write “*insert laughing emoji*” in the letter to incorporate it in

the letter, as you will soon come to see.

Despite the difficulties, writing these letters for my friends is something I truly enjoy. I

am fond of both the process and the outcomes of these letters. All 3 letters that I have chosen for

the writing processes all have different individual audiences and different purposes to why I

wrote them. Depending on each purpose and individual, I've noticed that my writing process

changes both in how much I take in time, particularly in planning, and the emotions I tend to

evoke.
Birthday Cards

Typically most of us have written a birthday card. We have it easy since we already have

the “prompt” laid for us - the birthday of that certain person. Planning is simple as we just build

on on the ideas of “Happy birthday” or “I hope you have an amazing day”. Therefore, the

amount of time thinking and planning this card decreases. Looking back to when I was writing

the letter, I could see that I tried to add on to these ideas. Adding on too “You’re old now!!”

with “I think I can see those wrinkles forming” adds a bit more of comedy toward the piece.

Adding different comments than the typical sentences you see in a birthday card adds a more

personal touch to the piece.

Another factor that played into the process was the individual. The friend I am dedicating

this card to may be a great friend, but he isn’t one of my closest friends. Looking back at the

piece, you may notice that the biggest attempt of tone was humor. It isn’t as sentimental than the

other letters, instead it is joke after joke. As humans, I believe once we have built trust we are

more able to express ourselves toward them. I have came to discover that I have incorporated it

into my letters as well. Since I can’t fill in the letter with sentimental sayings, I choose to use
humor instead. Comparing the birthday card to both the thanksgiving letter and personal letter, I

am able to notice how I can evoke more emotion towards those friends than to this certain

individual.

Personal Letter (Draft) + Thanksgiving letter (Draft)

 If you notice the personal letter, you can see that I listed characteristics that related to the

idea that the individual is indeed special using examples to support these claims. Before even

making a draft of this letter, I paused for a moment and thought what makes this person unique

to me and why do I consider him one of my closest friends? 5 minutes later I had already made a

well consisted list of various reasons why. Next step was to see which of these ideas were similar

to each other or if they related in any shape or form. As I grouped them together, I was able to

see what overall quality they had together and the different examples I could bring up to make

them see these ideas. Using this, I started on my first draft.

Similar processes were seen with the thanksgiving letter. Acknowledging the holiday, I

tried to revolve around that idea. Thanksgiving is all about demonstrating gratitude towards

loved ones and friends. Keeping the situation in mind, I started thinking of ideas of that would
both validate my point and support the holiday. During the interview with my friend, she

mentioned how the writing was able to make her both laugh and reflect on our friendship. “I

enjoy reading this letter because it’s just you. You keep your personality in your writing. When

reading this, I am able to hear your voice in my head.”. I realized that by adding my own

personal touch on these writing situations, I am able to both capture my audience’s attention

while adding different emotions.

Both the thanksgiving letter and the personal letter, we can see that they are both more

lengthier than the birthday. One obvious reason could be because they are not limited to a card.

They are both on paper that can be continuously added until all that is told it stated. I don’t

believe that physical limit is the only impact. Going back on to when I was writing both of these
pieces, I see myself taking the time to sit down and just think of what I was going to mention.

Questions starting popping in my head - How should I start it off? Should I put down this

experience or would the other one make sense? Will they get this reference or should I just

choose another one?

Overall I believe that while analysing the different letters, I was able to learn more about

my writing processes and myself in general. Depending on the relationship I have with an

individual, I discovered my writing process alternating on time spent through deep thinking and

certain emotions that were trying to be displayed. Looking at both the thanksgiving letter and the

personal letter, we can see that they are both more lengthier than the birthday card. When I was

writing these pieces, I see myself taking the time to sit down and just think of what I was going

to mention. Having a different relationship within each friendship which structured each letter

differently depending on how sentimental they became. The time spent throughout each writing

was spent to evoke a certain type of emotion related to the individual. Considering the individual

and the situation, it is important to consider a different planning set-up, time and effort, used

within each writing piece.