Mandeep Kaur

Professor Melton
English 5
May 16, 2016
Cover letter
The transition from high school English to college English has been an eye-opening
experience. High school A.P. classes taught me many different writing techniques, but to me the
different techniques were a waste of time as well as extra, unneeded work. Not utilizing those
techniques gave me average grades throughout my English classes and to me the average grade
was enough. In English 5, I was reintroduced to those techniques and I was told that these
different methods can really help a writer, even if the writer isnt necessarily struggling. The
transition from my English class in high school to my English class in college has taught me a
lot. English 5 taught me how to develop my average skills into above average skills. In this
course, we learned a lot of the similar things we learn in high school, but instead we were
expected to perform on a college level. I learned how to enhance not only my writing skills, but
my reading and researching skills on a higher level. Throughout this semester, I have seen an
improvement in my reading, writing and researching skills. These improvements have taken
place because of the assigned class readings, writings, and research that has taken place.
Many informative readings have been assigned in English 5. Reading, dialectic journal
articles, the assigned textbook They Say/ I Say, by Gerald and Birkenstein, and academic
journals from research I was able to obtain information on numerous writing and reading criteria.
These different assignments allowed me to meet course goal one. Course goal one states To
help students understand the ways that readers read and writers write in and beyond the
university. From the assignments, I was first, able to develop a better understanding of

academic reading. From constantly reading academic writing from different authors, it made the
scholarly writing easier to understand. Second, I was exposed to different writing styles from the
various reading texts in this class. Reading them gave me the sense that it is ok to write in a
certain way because all authors express their ideas differently. Lastly, my annotation skills
improved. With improved annotation skills, making meaning of the texts and understand what
the text is actually saying has been easier. From reading the various texts, I personally believe I
have increased my reading skills. It has also fulfilled goal two because I have been able to
understand the process of reading. The process of reading relates to the annotating and the
understanding of the text. Goal two requires the student to make sure they are looking for certain
key elements when they are annotating the text because that fulfills the process of reading
aspect of the course goal.
Overall, my writing has also evolved throughout the semester. Writing dialectic journals gave
me the chance to figure out what the authors main point was from an article, what the author is
trying to get at, by analyzing their words, and lastly gives my own opinion on what the author is
saying. Writing the three major essays in class has also helped me become a better writer. Not
just by writing those essay, but by going through the different stages of writing. Creating an
outline made the task of writing the essays much simpler. After creating a rough draft, the next
step was to get it peer reviewed in class. Talking to my peers about my drafts allowed me to
actually talk about the flaws and the strengths in my writing. It gave a new person the
opportunity to read my essay, correct any ideas that are not clear, and determine if the essay has a
smooth flow to it. Peer editing meets course goal five. Course goal five states Help students
understand and engage in reading and writing as communal processes. This goal was met
because my peers and I discussed readings through an academic manner. Other things done in

class to meet the goal were different group discussions, the dialectical journal presentations, and
class discussions. Being able to present and communicate academic ideas is important for this
class because it was required of us. The group presentations on dialectic journals allowed us to
present an article. We had to present what the authors thesis is, the main points of the article, and
a conclusion of what the article is really trying to inform us on. These assignments helped me
grow in my communication skills as well as developed my academic reading skills and
annotating skills. Communicating ideas allowed me as a student to really think and focus on my
skills. This leads to course goal six, which states To help students develop a metacognitive
understanding of processes of reading, writing, and thinking. Communicating helped fulfill this
goal because talking about an article opened my eyes to the authors writing processes. After
discussing our own writings from peer revisions, it was required to write revision plans. These
revision plans were set to help us think about what improvements we can make upon on writing
and what exactly we are going to change. The metacognitive thinking that takes place allowed
me to think of my writing process and really think hard about what I can improve and on what
my strengths were.
Along with my reading and writing, my research skills greatly improved throughout the
semester. Although we did not research for every essay or every assignment, I was able to obtain
a sufficient amount of knowledge on different researching techniques. This class introduced me
to the Sacramento State online library. The school library provides many research articles and
other legitimate information that can be used for research papers. This ties in with course goal
four because the goal states, To help students understand textual conventions (that is, genre
conventions and citation style conventions...). This goal was met because the online library
offers many sources of academic research. The database has scholarly articles, journals, videos,

documentaries and many other informative pieces that would benefit our research. The database
gave many different genres and styles of research articles to choose from, as well as a variety of
subtopics on the topic we chose. The online research was truly beneficial in helping create my
annotated bibliography. The bibliography was only successful because the researched articles
gave me the opportunity to find credible sources and with those sources I was able to write out
an average research proposal. Through research, and by the many other assignments from
English 5, I have learned how to style my writing in a way that suits the audience. I have figured
out how to shape my writing so it focuses on the specific group, which is the audience. This
leads into course goal six, which states, To help students think critically about academic
discourse communities as contact zones where different cultures both connect and come into
conflict. This course goal was met through mostly all the assignments done in class. The three
major essay met this goal because students were required to write essays in a professional style
because the audience of our papers were mainly the professor and secondly our peers. The
presentations also let us distinguish discourse communities because it allowed for us to present to
an audience, in this case our classmates, in a professional manner.
English 5 has helped me grow in my reading and writing skills because it opened my eyes
to many different techniques. I never utilized the small, easy techniques given to me in high
school, but being reintroduced to them in college and actually putting those to use greatly
developed my skills. This class never failed to disappoint me. This class made writing so much
easier and better to go through than any other class in high school and college. After completing
this class, I know I can move on and develop my skill even more in upcoming English and
writing courses.