May 8, 2014

Dr. Leslie Bruce

Department of English
California State University, Fullerton
800 N. State College Boulevard
Fullerton, CA 92831

Dear Dr. Bruce,

The purpose of this letter is to illustrate how I have improved in my writing skills by
accomplishing the student learning outcomes (SLOs) from the course requirements. I have
included documents from this semester in the order of my highest improvement of the SLOs to
demonstrate to you the progress I have achieved from this advanced writing course. The
documents consist of: an argumentative essay that was recommended by my peers to revise, a
writers notebook entry to fulfill one of the SLOs, and some peer reviews from and to other peers
to help each other with comments on revising a paper.
My first document is an argumentative essay. The reason I chose this paper to revise for
my portfolio is because it fulfills the majority of the SLOs and it was recommended by my peers.
This paper covers SLO #2, ethical citations. My weakness in citation became one of my greatest
improvements throughout this course. I have struggled with the proper use of citations in my
papers but my argument essay shows how I developed to cite for the appropriate sources. With
this knowledge I can ethically cite properly in my future papers.
The next improvement I have achieved is SLO# 1, to write informally and formally. This
requirement is to write to certain audiences with a purpose. The document I included is an entry
from my writers notebook from the date of 2/20/14. In this text, I was able to write informally
by answering questions from Palmquist textbook freely. Reading then answering these questions
helped me understand profiling better. I was then able to come up with what I wanted to profile
and how I was going to write my profile essay. To achieve the other half of this SLO, I had to
write formally in that case I included my argumentative paper on Natural Gas: Stricter
Regulations for Clean Energy. This essay was on a contemporary issue related to water for
Graeme Lockaby.
The third SLO requirement is balance argumentation. To fulfill this, I have included my
argumentative essay. In my essay I had to argue about a topic that is related to water and also
include some opposing arguments by using counter arguments. I was able to contrast the benefits
and cons of fracking and argue about how stricter regulations are needed to be enforced before
continuing. My paper needed a little more information on water contamination to inform my
counter argument which was one of the comments you included, therefore I have revised my
paper.
The fourth SLO I have accomplished is about persuasion and organization. My
argumentative paper was to persuade on why stricter regulations was needed. I was able to
organize my thoughts and by using references in my argument, I was able to address the situation
persuasively. I had trouble to persuade in my paper because I did not have enough evidence
during my rough draft. My peers commented on how I need more citations to include in my
paper so I can back up my claims.
Next SLO requirement is the fifth, using effective sentences. I had to recognize the
contexts of language to effectively write my argumentative paper. I included my argument
document because I have shown great improvement on using effect sentences throughout my
paper. I did not have to worry about gender differences because my paper had no sexist
perspective. Although I had many grammatical errors that were pointed out by my peers, I still
had errors in my final draft. I need to improve on my sentencing structure as well as my
subject/verb agreement. My grammar problem is one of my weaknesses in writing therefore
some of my sentences are not effective.
My last SLO requirement is the sixth, collaboration. For this SLO I have included my
peer reviews to others and the peer reviews of others to me. This requisite is to improve my
writing skills and my peers by commenting and advising the papers. I was able to help my peers
by reading then commenting on how they can revise their paper with my criticism. Also with the
help of my peers, I was able to improve my writing skills by taking their criticism in and revising
my paper. Their advice was more than beneficial to me as I was able to improve my writing
skills as shown effectively in my argument essay.
I have accomplished the six student learning outcomes requirements during this course.
Although I have many problems that I need to work on, I have improve in many ways with the
use of your teachings. I can now take the knowledge that I have learned from in this advanced
writing course to successfully write my next papers. I am satisfied with the outcome of all my
work and effort I put into this class. I hope that this guide will help you see my accomplishments
of the SLOs requirements.

Sincerely,
Thi Do