Hi Dr.

Warwick,

As I write this letter, I want you to know that I am thankful for the space you created

within the walls of classroom 2251. Not only did you create a place of acceptance and safety, but

you also created an environment that welcomed and encouraged growth. I always felt safe to

express my thoughts and share my writing free of judgment. This is perhaps the most important

thing a teacher can do for their students. I know that as I walk away from this class I have your

support and wisdom to guide me as I navigate my future aspirations within the walls of the

classroom and outside of the classroom. My letter to you consists of a reflection beyond the

classroom. I am sitting here reflecting on the ways your lessons have helped me better shape and

understand my own experiences. Thanks to this class, I have not only found ways to apply the

concepts of the course to my writing, but also to frame my personal history. My perception has

completely shifted to impact the way I will forever approach writing and learning in general.

It started with my first-year and it continued well beyond the freshmen year time-frame. I

had found that coming to college was difficult for me. It was uncharted territory that no one in

my family had embarked on before. The most challenging aspect was trying to cultivate

confidence in a community where everyone seemed to be confident in their abilities and

confident that their abilities would guide them to success. I lacked the confidence that everyone

else seemed to have. I had this constant voice in my head that told me I was mediocre at pretty

much everything I attempted. I had never been good at math or science. I had never been great at

writing for my past history classes. I was just about average at writing. Nothing about me stood

out, I felt ordinary in every way and most days I felt like I would never be bright enough to stay

afloat with my peers. The imposter syndrome was alive and well.
 This all changed when I took my first course in an ethnic studies class. I was finally

finding myself to be passionate about something. I enjoyed what I was learning and it reflected

in my writing. That first course, I was told I had received the highest grade for our paper. Safe to

say I was shocked. I knew I had found what I was interested in and what I wanted to pursue. This

class gave me enough confidence to know I could pursue it and potentially succeed. From this

moment forward, I decided the only thing I could be good at was writing an essay. This mindset

was detrimental and transformed me into someone who was extremely critical of all my writing.

It greatly hindered the way I approached every writing project from there on out. It took me

thirty minutes to write two sentences since I was incessantly deleting every word that didn’t

sound like academic jargon. The most important thing to me was this superficial thought process

where I believed the only way for me to prove my intelligence or demonstrate that I belonged in

college was by using scholarly language. So, I want to explore how this class and its concepts

have led me to reflect on the harmful mindset I use to approach writing with. I want to delve

deeper into how these concepts have become somewhat healing to me, because they have

released me from the restraints of a destructive writing process.

First, I want to discuss the way I am writing this letter right now and how I wish I had

approached all past writing assignments. I am removing myself from the editing process at this

stage and simply speaking, or rather, writing. I am writing as if I were speaking, which is the fun

part! When you read this, I will have done both stages, but know that they were not happening at

the same time. I am welcoming Peter Elbow’s first-order of thinking to emphasize the

importance of the “intuitive and creative” (Elbow, 55) that heightens one’s ability to offer

insightful perspectives. I am doing my best to rid myself of second-order thinking at this stage of

my writing process. Second-order thinking is crucial during revision; however, I believe my

biggest problem in the past was attempting to allow second-order thinking to exist

simultaneously with first-order thinking. I had the expectation that my first draft needed to be the

final draft, which is why I always attempted to employ critical thinking at the same time as

creative writing. I do not want to continue with this unhealthy method. So, while writing this, I

am making the effort to remain aware of the opposition between first-order and second-order

thinking. When we allow the separation of the two, “we can build a safe place for generative

thinking or writing” (Elbow, 61). If I had been introduced to this method on prior papers, I would

have saved myself plenty of time and saved myself from my unforgiving writing method.

Moving forward I will not allow myself to be constrained by the critical voice that exists within

second-order thinking. I will find myself to be liberated by the freedom of Elbow’s two ways of

thinking. I can now acknowledge that the initial creative process is equally significant to the

writing process as the revision process. I can ensure I am approaching writing in a less

destructive way and still maintaining my goal of creating a well-written academic essay.

Furthermore, I have come to shift the way I view writing and in turn this has shifted my

relationship with writing. As I mentioned earlier, the essay that I secured a good grade on made

me confident that I could be successful in school. In some way this was wonderful because I

think it helped build my internal locus of control, I began to believe my successes were

dependent on my own abilities. On the other hand, it became a bit damaging because I knew all

of my failures were also dependent upon my own capabilities. I had begun to view writing in

binary terms, as either success or failure, and I lost sight of the other ways in which writing held

value. This class allowed me to better understand learning dispositions and look at how I want to

apply them to my writing. I want to approach writing with the learning disposition of expectancy

value. Expectancy value is the theory that learners “will make better choices when they feel that
what they are working on, or learning, is valuable to them” (Wells, 20). Thanks to project one I

was able to see the value of the subject I was learning about. I was able to choose a subject that I

was actually enthusiastic about and it gave me the motivation to continue writing about it. More

than that, it motivated me to write something I was proud of and felt would hold value to others

too. The wikipedia project highlighted the expectancy value even further by giving us a platform

to share the knowledge we were able to gain. In some ways, seeing the value in my writing or

applying the theory of expectancy value, increased my self-regulation. I was able to “set

reasonable goals” and “to choose to utilize strategies to achieve those goals” (Wells, 21). It has

become clear to me that one reason I struggled so much in past writing is because I started to

view writing as a grade, as something I could win or lose.

Finally, I want to discuss the way this class helped me feel like I could find a community

which I often doubted would be a possibility for me. There were many times I felt like I would

never belong in academic circles or be able to hold my weight in scholarly conversation. This

class has taught me that isn’t true. Project two in particular taught me that I am capable of

finding my place in a discourse community. I had this assumption that a community between

scholars was exclusively for those who could prove themselves as intellectuals. However, these

projects allowed me to see where I can fit into these conversations, why more people are

welcome into the conversation, and the unique voice each person brings to the conversation. I

found the most important characteristic of a discourse community to be “the broadly agreed set

of common goals” (Swales). I think this goal highlights how these conversations are part of a

larger community that is not meant to be exclusive or inaccessible but rather to largely bring

awareness to whatever subject of interest is the center of an individual's discourse community.

My problem in the past has been that I wanted so desperately to prove that I belong in discourse
communities that I forgot discourse communities are founded by people who have the goal of

bringing awareness and effecting change. I belong in these communities because I share these

goals and I work hard to understand the issues and work hard to remain up to date on the

communication and language being used by other members.

Once again, I want to thank you for exposing me to these readings that have altered my

perception of writing. Thank you for reminding me that writing does not need to have this

enormous amount of pressure in order to elicit creativity and impressive thoughts. Writing is not

just a number and sometimes that message gets lost in academia. We write because there is value

to it and we write with a purpose in mind. I hope to continue my writing journey with this in

mind. Thank you for this reminder, Dr. Warwick.

All the best,

Maria Donan