December 14, 2023

Dear Ms, Williams

The purpose of this letter is to explain the revisions I have made as part of my final exam in
English 111. I have decided to revise Formal Assignment #1.

My writing during this course has improved greatly according to my family. They said that last
year my writing was like that of a middle school student compared to how it is now. As for how
Formal Assignment 1 represents these changes, it shows that stage where I was still a novice
writer but I was transitioning into the more advanced stages of writing that are needed for
college-level writing courses.

I chose Formal Assignment 1 to represent my best work for a number of reasons. For starters I
need to say that it wasn’t actually my first choice, Formal Assignment 3 was what I wanted to
use. However, the site I used to create that assignment didn’t allow me to go back in and make
changes to it. I wanted to do Formal Assignment 3 because it was the one out of the three that I
could do the most revision on. Since I could do that one Formal Assignment 1 was my second
choice and looking back at it, even if I did revise Formal Assignment 3, it still wouldn’t be my
best work compared to Formal Assignment 1. Formal Assignment 1 shows more about me and
everything I’ve been through in school. I didn’t choose Formal Assignment 2 because it had little
to no available revisions that I could make.

I had to derive all of what was in Formal Assignment 1 from memory. Since Formal Assignment
1 is about my educational journey throughout my entire school career, I had to just sit down and
remember what I could from kindergarten all the way through 11th grade where I currently am,
and with some help from my family I was able to get all the information and key points I needed
to finish it.

My instructor gave me the most feedback out of anyone. My family gave me pretty basic
feedback, saying things like, “It looks good” or “Keep doing what you’re doing”. As you can see
they didn’t give me anything truly helpful or any real advice. The most significant thing that I
changed was the paragraphs. My instructor said that my paragraphs were too long and that they
only needed to be around five sentences in length. When I first read that I didn’t really
understand why that was necessary to point it out since I had read books and articles online with
paragraphs that were much longer than just five sentences. However, after re-reading my paper a
good few times and editing it instead of having a few long paragraphs, I broke them up into
smaller paragraphs containing only 4-6 sentences. After reading it and looking over it again after
I edited it, I realized that my instructor was right. It looks much better now.
Each time I re-wrote the assignment it got progressively better each time. Pre-writing was when I
was just getting all my information down and getting everything set up. While drafting, I do the
majority of the editing and make sure everything is good enough to submit. Once I get my grade
and my instructor leaves feedback I proceed to revise my paper. After revising my paper should
be the best it can be.

The strongest part of my essay is the story it is trying to convey. Another reason I chose Formal
Assignment 1 over the other two. After editing the paragraph lengths the story is a bit easier to
follow and everything is not fully cramped together.

Given further opportunity and further instructions I would indeed like to revise my paper further.
In my opinion, there are a few areas in which I would like to improve. Mainly the area I talk
about is my grandfather. I didn’t really go into as much detail about his role in my educational
journey as I would have liked to. Also for whatever reason I feel like the essay itself is kind of
rushed. I feel it just rushes by my educational journey too fast, given the time I would like to
expand in detail further about what kind of teachers I had to put up with during my time in
school.

I’d like to start out with that this was one of the best English courses I’ve taken throughout my
high school life and just my school life in general. The main things I took away from this course
are time management and concentration. I have trouble managing my time and the assignments I
have to do with said time. At my school, I had an hour in the online room that being what this
class was supposed to be. So during classes when I had no assignments due for that class I would
just sit on my phone even if I had something to do for other classes, but since I had this class
anytime I had a free period I would work on something for this class. I also struggle with paying
attention, not sure if I have some kind of attention disorder or if I just get bored easily but this
class has made me keep focused because I had to get things done in this class. I would definitely
take this class again, ten out of ten highly recommended.

Sincerely,
Caleb Roberts
croberts3@student.lincolncharter.org