letter to myself

Sepideh Rahimi
English 1B- Lewis
Final in- class Essay (letter to myself)
June 25, 2010

Dear Sepideh,
Throughout this last quarter in English 1B you had some good and bad times. This class gave you a lot to think about and challenged you quite often. But I remind you it was all for a good reason. Pushing through it, I guarantee, has helped prepare you for future writing challenges that you will, without doubt, come across. Not only in writing has it helped you progress, but in critical thinking and analyzing as well. You learned many new concepts and techniques in the past twelve weeks. In general, there wasn’t just one important thing that you learned. I feel you learned a few important things including: better writing skills, time management, critical analyzing, and lastly many thought provoking topics about California.
First of all, your writing has improved since last quarter. Your teacher really challenged you with the essay topics you were given, especially since you tend to have a difficult time writing papers. One thing though you might want to still work on is your organization. Yes, I believe you have improved somewhat in that area, but you can defiantly improve. On the topic of critical thinking, you were challenged. You learned that in order to fully understand something you have to keep on re-reading it several times. While doing this you realized that you have to focus in on different parts each time. You should be thankful you had a teacher that taught you those skills. On the other hand, you weren’t particularly fond of the writing logically book. Knowing you, you probably would’ve rather spent that time doing something else like reading or improving you writing ability. But that’s ok I’m sure it did give you some sort of benefit. Another thing you did learn that needed some help was your time management. I know ever since you’ve been in school, It’s your style to do things last minute, but good thing you’re starting to realize that way of working doesn’t always work out so well. It makes you more stressed out. So therefore you at least figured out now to starts paper few days to a week before they’re due. Also you did a good job for doing your homework assignments and get to talk a lot about the state California. That was interesting because you have lived here for four years and getting to hear other people’s opinions and views was fun. Moreover, the California song analysis was a cool assignment. Getting to learn about the California Dream through music was a great way to grab your attention. You have never sat down and fully analyzed song before and learning how to do that was a great experience. Since then I realized you’ve taken that skill and analyze many of the songs you hear. You also have learned to incorporate some of the other skills acquired through this class into your life.
Since starting this class, I’ve noticed that everything you read, you know how to pull apart and better understand. Your knowledge about this state and history of it has improved as well. Though I know you think too much of the class was based on California and Multiculturalism. You would have liked if the class only focused one or two sections on that topic. But besides that, in the future you will continuously use these skills you have learned. You have many more years of school to go and many more papers to write. Now you know where your strong and weak areas are and can focus on them. I know you would like to thank your teacher for his time and devotion he put into this class and for giving you the opportunity to experience of thinking and wring critically. In the end, the overall class was beneficial to you and you will take these skills with you and put them to use. This was a tough quarter but you got through it and for that you are very thankful! Good luck in the future and keep up with the effort, for it will leave you more satisfied.
Sincerely,