Cover Letter

Phase one of this class was a great way to start off my first English class in college, especially at 8 am in the morning, as I’m not a morning person. I was able to create my LLN confidently after being nervous about it, when first seeing it on the syllabus. This phase allowed me to learn techniques to make my writing more captivating, through the readings and lectures. This was one of my most successful writings and I’m excited for more writings in the future. Now I’m ready to share my insights and reflections that I gained from this phase. 

My essay talks about how education, specifically how English class, can limit your imagination and creativity due to a rough and boring curriculum. My audience is directed towards students and professors. When writing my essay I used language that related to students’ informality. I wanted to start off with a hook that appeals to students because it was my personal message as a student in high school. I want students to see my message and hopefully still be inspired to want to be creative. When teachers see my essay I want them to know their impact on their students, not just english teachers but all teachers. I wrote my story in a way that shows how students think their teachers think of their work. I wanted to show how anxiety can really hit students because of the way a teacher grades work, showing how unpredictable grading in English classes can be. 

This phase was brand new to me, probably the first time I ever learned about this topic of different Englishes in any class. In my English classes I always talked about old English, racism, or poetry. These topics were repetitive and I became an expert on them quickly but I wanted something new. This class allowed me to see English from a perspective I’ve never seen before. There is no one English, there’s dialects or even just someone’s way of speaking. English is a creative and an expandable language but many people don’t believe that, many people don’t believe in the freedom of language, which I don’t understand. Everyone should be able to express what they want in a way that is best suited to them. After this phase I don’t see English as one language anymore, showing how different versions of English aren’t wrong either. The most meaningful thing I took from this phase was the word “Englishes”. It’s not a proper word in the dictionary and in this document it always gets a red underline, but it’s a word that has so much meaning despite its lack of being in the English dictionary. As I developed English in my writing I realized there’s no wrong way to present my ideas because it’s my own way. I thought about this when writing my essay which allowed me to create, what I think, is one of my best essays ever.

When writing an essay the teacher pushes you to show purpose in the most clear way possible, or you are bound to get a lower grade. The teacher usually tells you the topic or what you need to write to get that correct purpose, without their idea of that correct purpose, your grade goes down. This essay was very vague, no rubrics, not a lot of context, you had to develop your own purpose. This is exactly what made the LLN essay very daunting at first. I wouldn’t say I’m a very creative purpose, in fact English was never my subject. This changed when I really had to think about this essay, especially because of the assignment due date. This essay actually made me think back to my only essay I ever liked which was rare. The only other essay where I had to make my own purpose for writing it, my college essay. Without this phase pushing me for my own purpose I wouldn’t be able to remember the one time I was able to write creatively with no restrictions. Personally, the LLN essay brought back a lot of good memories with writing my own purpose which is why it had such a great impact on me. As a result, when writing you must think of who has to understand your purpose, the audience. Without knowing my audience, I wouldn’t be able to write my LLN essay in a way that conveys my voice and thoughts. I wouldn’t be able to write this cover letter without knowing that my professor is the audience, which determines how I can format my writing in this way. Purpose and audience shaped my thoughts for my writing and being able to write my own purpose allows me to enjoy writing. I wrote my LLN essay, a work that I’m proud of due to what I learned in this phase and I hope you think the same.

“The Imagination I Never Used”

When you think of high school English you probably think of trauma, a torture device if you will. You remember the endless random sheets of loose leaf piled in our folders. The teachers who decided they would do something different each year to “have fun”. English in high school followed a strict and demanding curriculum with books that no one liked. It also was just endless essays that no one ever got a perfect score on. You always had a teacher say, “No one ever gets a perfect score in my class”, you’d then realize your whole semester was going to be terrible. English in high school just forces you to remove all creativity from your mind, forced into a four-point rubric that always stresses you out after you read it for the sixth time, realizing it doesn’t matter because the teacher sees differently. Well in junior year, it was different, the first essay I ever got to write without unjustified criticism. 

Junior year, the most important year of high school where you have to submit your college application and write the hardest part of your application, the essay. I walked into class on the second week of school, the long halls and busy classrooms felt disorientating. Knowing that it’s our junior year I knew the dread that we were going to have our college essay be the first thing he grades. To no surprise on that Monday morning, he assigned the essay and all I could hear were my peers muttering under their breaths. Mr Rubenstein then said “This essay will have no rubric. That’s when the infamous question arose, “But Mr Rubenstein, how will I know if my essay is good or not?” This question circled around my head until he answered, “Just answer the topic”, and the bell rang. I hated that answer because every single teacher says that and I always didn’t do well on my essays. In elementary school I didn’t use enough vocabulary to my teachers’ likings, in middle school I used too much evidence to support my reasoning, and in high school I was not close enough to the answer my English teacher wanted. I didn’t believe Mr Rubenstein. I always thought that there was always a trick that every English teacher wanted but didn’t say and it made me frustrated, at least with the rubric I can get close to what they want, now I have nothing.

I got home from school ready to write the essay, with my lonely piece of looseleaf and fresh lead pencil, I got to work. I always had self doubt when it came to my writing but regardless I wanted the assignment done and finished. I was going to write about what hobby led me to my career that I was interested in. Should I write about videogames? No, that’s too violent. Listening to music? No, that doesn’t even match my career. I just started writing till I ran out of ideas that night. What I didn’t realize was that I would take all week to finish this essay but regardless I had six hundred words on my paper. I go to school and submit my work, sitting back down anxiously in my chair. Will he like it? Will he tell me there’s no way I’m going to college? I left that room anxious and felt my stomach twirl. I didn’t feel great about that essay and I headed home, thinking about the essay the whole time.

I proceeded to wait for hours for an email from my teacher about my grade, this would determine how the rest of the semester would go. Then I see the notification and swiftly open my email, my eyes darting and I see the grade, a hundred. “An amazing essay, very original, you should write more personal essays.” I almost jumped out of my chair, a hundred? I had never been so excited for an essay in my life and I never felt more accomplished than at that moment. This was the only English class where I got this opportunity to write creatively, an essay where I wrote with my voice rather than just writing with no care to complete an assignment. For the next couple months of that class I wasn’t scared anymore to write what I wanted because I was able to let my imagination shine through. I also began to realize that being proud of my work was just as equally important as getting a good grade. I used to be so burnt out in English class just writing endless essays that I did not care about, all for a grade. In general, with education, many students get burnt out when they can’t let their passion intersect with their academics. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to go to college, to explore new amazing academic opportunities with my passion kept in mind. Unfortunately, college is a private institution and not all students will end up going to college. As a result we must improve and change the public education system because that is what will shape students to gain creativity and maintain their individual passion in any subject. At the end of the day, no matter what you take from my essay, education shouldn’t push you away towards another subject like math or science just because of personal opinions towards your work, which happened to me.