May 9, 2014

Dr. Leslie Bruce

English Department. Room: UH-435
800 N. State College Boulevard
Fullerton, CA 92831

Dear Dr. Bruce,
The purpose of this letter is to demonstrate my competency of the student
learning objectives you outlined. I will show how I have become skilled at each
objective and validate each with examples from my work. I will be submitting the
reflection chart as part of SLO number 1, informal writing, and the Review article, both
the original and corrected version created by my group, showing how I have mastered
Student learning objectives #1-6.
My portfolio starts with the reflection chart which shows informal writing. In the
reflection chart I paraphrased the things that needed to be worked on, as my peers and
you suggested and made comments where I felt I needed improvements. Moreover I
feel I will develop further as a writer, by leaving myself enough time for edits and to
review my work. The review article is the next item included in my portfolio, first the
original and then the corrected version; both versions were worked on by the group. Of
the 3 major assignments we have completed this semester, I feel the review article
demonstrates all of the SLOs to the fullest. First it shows I can write formally to an
audience of my peers. This is a formal article written for the Journal of Geology. The
article displays my ability to organize and ethically site and present from a variety of
sources. In the Review article, as shown in the works cited, we read several articles on
this subject and some articles of which we did not cite. Also, I am able to organize
thoughts and communicate clearly. Hopefully you can see that we worked hard to
organize our thoughts and that the review article displays this clear communication.
We were consciences to be sensitive to gender and cultural differences, especially when
speaking about the oracle. As well as when mentioning researchers such as
DAlessandro et al. We were considerate in the way they were discussed, for example in
the second paragraph under the topic springs. Over the course of the semester I was
able to improve my writing skills by working in groups with other writers and by the
end show this strength in revising the review article. When we originally submitted our
article, you corrected it and gave us some suggestions on what to change and areas that
needed fixing. As a group we immediately got together and discussed the corrections
and fixed the article to what we now believe is a very strong piece of work. Finally, this
completed work shows I was able to robustly write multiple drafts, work with a team of
people, and make revisions to get us to the completely amended review article.
As you can see all six of the students learning objectives have been covered in
just these two documents. Although I still do not like to write, I feel I am better able to
get my words on paper without the struggle I have always faced. I have improved
vision on how a document, formal or informal, can come together. Also how
prepositions, adverbs, subjects and adjectives all play a role in creating the perfect
paragraph. I will still need guidance in this area but feel stronger as a writer and
therefore my rough drafts in the future might not be as rough.

Sincerely,
Shawn A. Robison
Shawn A. Robison