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Ricardo Jaimes
Instructor: Malcolm Campbell
UWRT 1101
November 30th, 2014

Dear Malcolm,
Going into this class, I felt very comfortable with my writing. But looking back on all of
our assignments, I can still see beneficial growth that resulted from them. I feel that my
expansion on ideas, concept of imagery, and many other writing and thinking aspects have
improved. For example, the most common critique I received from you was to always elaborate
and give explanation to the audience. That was a constant restraint on my writing since Ive
started. Now, going forward, this is something I am conscious of and will most likely catch in the
future. All of the major assignments did contribute towards something in my writingsome
more specific than others.
I gained a better understanding of dialogue and imagery throughout the experience of
writing the Literacy Narrative. It forced me to tryout the use of dialogue more, and to experiment
with my imagery. This turned out to be rather interesting as I did enjoy using more complex and
abstract words to paint a more vivid picture to the audience. Before this, I never had reason to
use a lot of dialogue or imagery. I mainly wrote about factual information. I never had the
opportunity to write about my own past, so there was a challenge that came along with the
assignment. Going into it I had to observe many other examples such as Malcolm Xs literacy

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narrative. These gave me a good understanding of how I should write things out to give my
audience a better understanding of my perspective. Specific details and dialogue gave characters
personality without overtly pointing it out. All of these things that I observed in other authors
writing helped me to understand how I should use these writing elements and tactics.
I do consider the literacy narrative my most important piece of work because it put me
outside of my comfort zone. It forced me to adapt which ultimately paid off in the end. I got a lot
out of the assignment in terms of good writing practice, and I truly did enjoy writing it. It was
challenging at first because I usually dont enjoy writing about myself, but I grew into it and
began to enjoy it.
The genre analysis was another assignment that I enjoyed doing. Because I got to use a
topic that I enjoyed such as a sitcom, my work was more productive and enjoyable. Before I
wrote the analysis, I was fairly confident in myself. I was actually eager to see a grade put on to
my work since I feel as though my writing had improved tremendously during the summer.
When I got my grade back, I was satisfied. The most prevalent comment I received was
regarding the amount explanations I used. In my paper, I would often address things but never
put in reasoning or examples to back it up. For example, in my analysis I kept referring to
common conventions, but I never really bothered to elaborate and explain to the reader what
these common conventions were. This was an issue that seemed to appear frequently in my
writing, but has now grown to be something I am conscious of.
Out of all the assignments, the mini ethnography was my least favorite. Its not that I
hated it. The problem was I felt my writing consisted of mostly trivial things. I didnt understand
the importance of describing my group. I didnt get why I needed to include such important
details. And most importantly, I feel like in this assignment I gained the least; therefore, it was

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my least favorite. I dont necessarily feel that I gained nothing from it, just less than the other
assignments. For example, observing a group and recording observations is something I have
never done before; however, its something I didnt find very difficult. It isnt something that I
could see myself having trouble with in the future and needing help.
Overall, I think my weaknesses as a writer involve abstract ideas and use of figurative
language. I consider myself a very logical person. I have trouble understanding things that arent
put in a literal manner. I dont think I got many chances to address this during the semester.
During the literacy narrative I somewhat improved on it by working on my imagery. The blogs
also gave me an opportunity to improve on delineating ideas. I think my main strength going into
the class was grammar. I felt very confident about that as I had made that a focus during my time
writing during the summer.
My progression in the class is apparent. I faced a few obstacles in some assignments but
they proved to be my best opportunities to learn. I even ended up enjoying one of the hardest
assignments that I had. The most important things I gained from this would be my improving of
abstract concepts. After struggling with that in high school, I feel like many of these assignments
have contributed to my growth in the topic. Thank you for teaching me! It was a great class.

Ricardo Jaimes