Dear Eugene,

I want to start off by thanking you for this amazing quarter. Your persona made me very

comfortable to be able to participate in class which is something I find difficult engaging in due

to TA’s or professors shaming those who answer incorrectly. I would always carry a fear of

making a fool of myself, however, you never made me feel that way. Thank you for creating a

safe space for me to feel comfortable enough to share my opinion and just be myself in class.

Going into my growth as a writer, I feel I have become more confident in my work. I

believe the activities that contributed to this were freewriting in our journals, reader responses

and Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts”. With multiple journal prompts, you gave us a head start

for an assignment that would be due later that week. Knowing that I already had an idea of what

to do, it would feel relieving to begin the assignment. Even if my freewrites weren’t the best,

they were helpful to get something flowing. As Giles says, “use freewriting to generate ideas and

then organize them with perhaps an outline as a second step” (Giles 196) and that is exactly what

freewriting in my journals allowed me to do. Freewriting really helped my confidence as a writer

as it allowed me to expand on my vocabulary. I knew the direction I was going for and I was able

to use that knowledge to better formulate my sentences from the start. Furthermore, the reader

response activities were incredibly helpful as well. It was helpful getting a pair of fresh eyes on

my work and their opinions on what would improve it. Additionally, everyone was also very

supportive and encouraging. Their input and reassurance allowed me to be less doubtful of my

work and I found myself critiquing my work less frequently as I already had a glimpse of what

my audience thought of my work. Finally, the last component that contributed to my growth in

confidence was Anne Lamott’s “Shitty First Drafts”. Her work made me realize that nothing was

wrong with me or my writing process and it helped me realize that even professional writers
struggle with beginning their writing assignments. A quote that stuck with me is “Almost all

good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere” (Lamott 25). This

quote even helped push me to start writing this reflective essay. With Lamott’s work, I no longer

feel ashamed for not knowing where or how to start. I now know that it’s completely acceptable

to have a very bad first draft and it’s helped me to grow confidence in my writing.

Howard Tinberg’s “Metacognition is not Cognition” has deeply changed my

understanding of writing over the course of the quarter. Whereas cognition refers to the

“application of knowledge through complex mental processes”, metacognition is “to articulate

the various qualities and components that contribute in significant ways to the production of

effective writing” (Tinberg 76). I found myself utilizing both mental processes for both writing

projects. Cognition was necessary to start the structure of a draft and metacognition was used to

distinguish what was necessary in a draft and what in the end serves little purpose (Tinberg 76).

Not only has this been helpful with my writing assignments in this class, but it has also served

me in other courses, such as my History 2B class in which we write a small essay each week. I

found myself lucky that we went over this reading early in the quarter as it benefitted me with

the midterm essays I had to submit for that course.

Additionally, I have become aware that educational and professional writing isn’t the

only writing genre that is commonly used. Having only been exposed to this specific genre all

my life, I never realized the hard work that many authors of different genres put into their work.

For example, for writing project one, I chose to translate my article into a children’s book and it

was a lot more work than I thought it’d be. There were so many factors to consider: the

vocabulary, the tone, the audience, the images and more. I knew that when it came to any form of

writing, logos, pathos and ethos was vital. But when writing in a completely new genre, it really
opened my eyes to how that’s applied to every single form of writing; no matter how big or

small. This project made me appreciate the hard work that all authors put into their writing.

As a writer, I consider a strength of mine to be my ability to organize my essays, making

it easier for my reader. Although we didn’t write any 5 paragraph essays like typical highschool

assignments, I believe I used my organizational skill to neatly format my reflection essay for

writing project one. For that reflection, we were asked multiple questions to answer throughout

the essay. I felt that I was able to make clear which paragraphs were focused on which question

by using the first sentence as the opener for each question: “I integrated information from my

article into my new genre by” (Ruiz Gutierrez 2). By using the question and formulating it into

the start of the paragraph, I was able to precisely tell my audience what each paragraph would be

about. When it comes to weaknesses, I find myself going a little overboard when sharing

personal experiences. Personal essays are my favorite genre to write as the flow of writing comes

easier to me; thus, when sharing a personal story in an essay that is not that genre, I find myself

oversharing without knowing how to keep it short and simple. In the reflection essay for writing

project one, my second paragraph started off with a backstory of me to better explain why I

chose to do a children’s book. However, I found myself having trouble cutting back on some of

that information, such as “Nonetheless, I wanted a challenge and ended up picking the clarinet

because I thought it was more difficult” (Ruiz Gutierrez 1). I felt that it was necessary to include

when it was, in fact, not a vital part of the story or message behind it. To work with this difficult

area in my writing, I would force myself to look over that section of my writing multiple times to

see what was vital and what was simply filler. Thus, in the end I was able to cut it down but, I

still believe there were parts that could be reconsidered.

 If I had more time to work on writing project one, I would have searched for more

characters. For my character Gaby, I had to pay for two templates on Shutterstock to get the

same character with different reactions. However, considering there were a good handful of

characters, I couldn’t do the same for them all as the price would have added up. I had to use

what was available to me, which was Canva and Google, and although I was able to find the

majority, I wish I would have been able to spend more time looking for characters that had that

multiple reactions so that they could be more consistent. If I had more time to work on writing

project two, I would have worked towards creating my script into a “real podcast”. To do this, I

was going to either gather a group of friends, assign them all a character, and have a voice memo

record our interaction, or I was going to use a platform, like Tiktok, to take advantage of the

voice changers. With the voice changers, I would have been able to create the “real podcast” by

myself. My biggest issue was the lack of time; however, either process was going to be a long

one due to the mistakes there were bound to be.

Overall, since my first in-class piece from the first day of class, my sense of my abilities

as a writer has changed from being afraid of writing, from fear of being wrong, to having

confidence to write down my opinions no matter who reads it. This course has made me realize

that there are so many other types of genres of writing in the world and I have learned to

appreciate all the hard work they put into it. Furthermore, I was able to expand my knowledge in

writing and put my organizational skill to practice which has benefited me in many other

courses. In addition, I was also given the opportunity to work on my weakness in writing without

having a constant fear of being shamed for that flaw. I enjoyed creating both projects as they

helped me expand my knowledge in writing and I am so grateful I was able to go through this
writing journey with you as my teacher. Thank you again for an amazing quarter. And thank you

for helping me become a better writer.

Sincerely,

Alejandra Ruiz Gutierrez

 Works Cited

Giles, Sandra L. “Reflective Writing and the Revision Process: What Were You Thinking?”

Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, Volume 1, edited by Charles Lowe and Pavel

Zemliansky, Anderson, South Carolina, Parlor Press, 2010.

Lamott, Anne. “Shitty First Drafts.” Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New

York, Pantheon, 1994.

Ruiz Gutierrez, Alejandra. “Going Against Gender Norms.” 2023. University of California –

Santa Barabara, unpublished paper.

Tinberg, Howard. “Metacognition is Not Cognition.” Naming What We Know: Threshold

Concepts of Writing Studies, Classroom Edition, edited by Linda Adler-Kassner and

Elizabeth Wardle, Logan, Utah State University Press, 2016.