Dear Professor Carr,

My first semester in college was definitely not one I had planned. If I was told at the beginning of 2020 that I would be sitting at home and learning from the comfort of my bed, one I laugh and continue with my day and two I would say sign me up. Though the semester didn’t go as planned and there were some bumps along the way I think there was a lot that I learned and took away from this experience. For English 110, I didn’t know what to really expect but a recurring thought kept crossing my mind and it was the thought that we are going to be writing so many essays for this class considering this is college. Reading my literacy narrative, its apparent I’m not one who is excited by writing even since middle school. To my surprise the course wasn’t necessarily difficult but more of a great learning experience. While there was a good amount of reading and writing done, I believe that everything I’ve done throughout the class has helped improve my writing level immensely. I found our peer review sessions to be of great help as I received critique and help from my classmates which helped improve my work. In addition to the multiple processes we used to compose our writing pieces the introduction to rhetorical elements was a big eye opener for me. Prior to the course I never had a breakdown of what are the specific things my writing should focus on. I never focused on what my stance or purpose for composing this essay is. The course has provided me with a much more in depth understanding of how to compose an essay that is well written. Our main three pieces of writing focused on three genres which were a literacy narrative, an expository, and an argumentative essay. While our media unfortunately had to be digital due to a pandemic. I would have much rather have given a hard copy and hear your thoughts and ideas in person. The one rhetorical element that stuck out to me was exigence. I never heard of the word exigence prior to the course and have never thought to myself what has prompted me to write this essay. Aside from my personal growth in literature, the course itself was very enjoyable and informative despite it being online. Even through a computer screen I felt that the zoom meetings held many great discussions and I found are theme (social justice) to be one that had much to be discussed about. Our theme had influenced my writing throughout the class as I focused two of my essays on discussing social protests in sports. Overall, I thought the class was a perfect way to bring myself into the college atmosphere with college level work. I feel that had the class been structured different or had a different approach I would have learned much less and definitely would have not improved on my writing. I owe a big thank you to you professor and hope that we will run into each other in the future.

Best Regards,

Michael Gershengorin