December Thirteenth, Twenty Twenty-Three.

Dear Mrs. Williams,

The purpose of this letter is to explain the revisions I have made as part of my final exam in
English 111. The revisions that I have made to this paper created a stronger, more professional
essay and this letter will describe how I got to that point. Reflecting on my essay will show the
growth that I have made over the past couple of months.

Before taking ENG 111, I didn’t receive much feedback from my teachers or peers. I haven’t
done a writing-focused course and did not do peer reviews often. During this course, I was able
to learn things from my classmates and you to help me improve my writing. It was very useful to
do peer reviews which I had previously not done as much. This course helped me use a writing
process to go through my thoughts about what I was writing about before completing an essay. If
I ever felt like I didn’t know what to write about or had writer's block, I learned the steps I could
take to overcome that. The discussion boards provided an understanding of what we were
learning and acted as a guide for the assignment.

I chose this essay to represent my best work because I was able to give the reader an insight into
my struggles and how they have affected my education, unlike my other formal assignments. I
have learned a lot about the different things that can affect my education, some of which I didn’t
realize had an impact until writing the essay. In addition, this essay was written at the beginning
of the semester, so as I go back and revise it, I can see my improvement. My education narrative
was written back in October which was 2 months ago and I have learned a lot since then. I am
now able to notice the errors I made when I first wrote my education narrative and see my
growth. In the past, I have not looked back on previous essays to revise, so I have not been able
to see my growth over time.

When I was completing my first draft for my education narrative, I looked at my previous essays
and the student examples that you showed us to draw inspiration for my essay. I began my
writing process by putting all of my thoughts in bullet points on a blank document. My bullet
points were short and simple points about teachers, important personal events, and my opinions
on school. I built upon each of these points, turning them into paragraphs. Once I had these
paragraphs, I filled in between the lines and put my events in chronological order, and this was
my rough draft. I used my peer review advice from my rough draft and your feedback from my
submission to complete my final drafts. My peer review partner pointed out what they liked
about my essay but also what could use some work. These critiques not only helped me improve
my Education Narrative but also gave me some insight into what I can work on for future essays.

The most significant changes I made when revising my essay were breaking up long paragraphs,
going into more depth about my teachers, and adding a quote. These revisions may seem simple
but I do think they improved my essay dramatically. If I remember correctly, you had suggested
that I should split my essay into smaller paragraphs. Breaking up long paragraphs helped my
essay flow together and made it easier to read. Going into more depth about my teachers added a
more personal feel to the essay and allowed me to fully describe their impact on my education.
For example, in my original final draft, I did not describe how Mrs. Smith went the extra mile for
her students and how she helped me get ahead in elementary school. After adding that to my
revised essay, I am more pleased with it. My peer reviewer and you made a difference in my
essay because you read my essay as an outsider, not knowing what it would be about. My peer
reviewer liked my ability to express what I was feeling through certain times and grasp the
reader's attention. However, she suggested a new title, recommended I talk more about my
teachers, readjust some sentences, challenge myself with vocabulary, and add a quote. I
originally did not have a quote in my introduction but after my peer reviewer suggested it, I
loved the idea. I chose a quote that always comes back to me. I think the first time I heard it was
in elementary school and so in adding the quote to my essay, it brought back some nostalgia.
Adding the quote created a stronger start to my essay and grabbed the reader's attention.

Before we were to start our essays, you gave us student examples to read and understand what
our essays should be like. I liked that these essays were provided and we wrote annotations on a
discussion board. One of the many things that I took from the student examples was writing in
chronological order. I liked how their timeline made an organized essay that was easy to read.
When I read others' discussion posts, it was interesting to see that some of us noticed different
things about the student examples. I started my essay by putting all of my thoughts in bullet
points about the main effects on my education. These short points turned into paragraphs as I
added more details and that created my rough draft. My peer reviewer made suggestions to help
improve my essay before submitting my final draft. These suggestions were things that I didn’t
notice about my essay because I had gone over it so many times as the writer. So, when I had a
reader give me feedback, I think it helped my essay a lot because it came from a different
perspective. There were quite a few revisions I made thanks to my peer reviewer and you. When
I revised my essay, I sort of went through a similar process. Because I hadn’t revisited my essay
in some time, I jotted down the key points in my education. I double-checked these points with
the ones that I had already discussed in my essay to see if I missed anything, which I didn’t.
Finally, I reworded some of my wordier sentences and made them sound more professional.

I feel that the strongest part of my current revised essay is my introductory paragraph and my
timeline. As mentioned previously, my opening quote wasn’t always there. The quote that I
started with has stuck with me from the moment I heard it and describes my mindset about
school. In this paragraph, I also briefly touch on the main points that have affected my academics
to give my reader insight into what my essay would be about. Another thing that I feel was
overall a strong characteristic of my essay is the timeline I wrote in. The timeline helps the
reader follow along with the main factors affecting my education from a young age. The timeline
also helped me, as a writer, feel organized and jog my memory on more details I wanted to add.

If I had more time or instruction, I would love to add more to my essay. Maybe expanding upon
more teachers who helped and even the ones who didn’t. I also think it would be a good addition
to going more in-depth about outside influences like my swim coaches and the impacts they had.
I believe that many things can contribute to how we perform in school and elaborating on those
things could help strengthen my essay. For me, that would be my swim coach. Both the good and
the bad ones have taught me valuable lessons that I apply in my everyday life, including my
academics. Lastly, I could strengthen my essay by replacing simple words with a better
vocabulary.
Overall, this semester helped strengthen my writing skills. I learned how to write my essay as an
author and revise my essay as a reader. This course also taught me that peer reviewing is a very
helpful tool because it may be easier for other people to notice your mistakes. The discussion
boards helped me prepare for each formal assignment and the student examples jogged my
thought process and understand what my final assignments should look like. The comments that
you have provided under my discussion boards and formal assignments have also helped me
discover what I can do to improve my writing and I always consider them. If I were to take this
class again, I would focus on using more technical vocabulary and learning where to split my
paragraphs.

Sincerely,
Norah Chamblee
@nchamblee@student.lincolncharter.org

Norah Chamblee

ENG 111

Professor Williams

8 October 2023

My History of Education

Michael Phelps once said, “If you want to be the best, you have to do things that other

people aren't willing to do.” I first heard this quote in elementary school and it has stuck with me

ever since. From a young age, I worked diligently to outperform others, in swimming and school.

My schooling experience has been filled with many highs, but just as many lows. Having gone

through COVID-19 quarantines, being a year-round student-athlete for most of my life, being the

new kid, and having personal challenges, it is safe to say that many factors have affected my

education. One of the many things I have learned is that a lot can change in a short amount of

time.
 To begin with, I went to three different schools as an elementary student. Having to start

at a new school three times was difficult. Most people go to the same school for all of their

elementary years and have known each other for that long. From the beginning, my parents have

always had high expectations for me which led to me being hard on myself. In elementary

school, I always wanted to get the best score on tests and be the smartest in the class because that

is what I felt my parents expected of me. I wanted to impress my teachers, parents, and

classmates with exceptional grades.

I started my third-grade year as a new student and only stayed at that school for a year but

I had an outstanding teacher, Mrs. Smith. She was a very influential person in my education.

Especially at a young age, the adults in our lives can have a huge influence on who we become,

and she was one of those influences. Mrs. Smith believed that I could do anything I put my mind

to and she wanted to help me reach my goals. If I became upset after getting an answer wrong,

she helped me understand that obstacles like that will only make me work harder next time. She

went the extra mile for each of her students to get ahead in their education. She kept a fast pace

in her class and we learned so much within that short school year. Although I do not talk to her

now, she helped progress my education at a young age.

It was around that time that I discovered my dislike for reading. It's not that I was

necessarily bad at it, I just didn't like to read books. I thought they were boring because I felt I

wasn't actively learning anything. However, I was very invested in learning math and science.

When I moved to a new school for the last time in fourth grade, I met a lot of cool people

and made friends easily. Around 5th grade, I realized that I naturally succeeded in the classroom

and did not need to try as hard to do good. I grasped the concepts very easily and enjoyed

learning. I still preferred math and science over reading and history at this time. This continued
through sixth and seventh grade. At the end of my 7th-grade year, the COVID-19 pandemic hit

the world by surprise. When schools shut down at the end of the 2020 school year, I quickly lost

my motivation to learn. Along with losing my motivation, I also lost some friendships. During

the pandemic, I spent the majority of my time focusing on other things and did not care about my

work. I continued to do fully online classes during my 8th grade school year. Again, I spent most

of my time at the beach, watching movies, or working out; not focusing on my education. I

skipped a lot of my Zoom meetings and was careless about my assignments. I still finished off

the year with all A’s but did not comprehend much information.

I remember feeling very nervous going back to school for my ninth-grade year because I

hadn’t talked to any of my classmates in a while. There were still rules and regulations that made

it difficult to talk to people and rebuild friendships. However, within a few weeks, I had some

good friends and was doing well in school. I enjoyed my science class, learned a lot about

history, and had a good math teacher during my freshman year. I still disliked reading and

English classes because I thought they were boring. To make it worse, most of my teachers

throughout middle and high school were unexpressive and did not seem excited to teach my

English classes. By the end of the school year, I had felt accomplished about my schoolwork.

Fast forward to my sophomore year when things started to get rough in my personal life,

which affected my learning. My grandpa, who was a big influence in my life, was getting very

sick. He had had cancer for some time but around September of my 10th grade year, it started to

get worse. My grandma had Alzheimer's and couldn’t take proper care of him so my mom had to

live with my grandparents to help out until his passing in December. Between September and

December, my mom was hardly home and my dad worked late nights. All of my siblings and I

were also very busy and did not spend quality time with each other. My family dynamic had
drastically changed and I didn't have the support system I used to have. It became hard for me to

focus in school and I was usually very tired. After my grandpa passed away, my grandma had to

move in with us so my mom could continue to take care of her. All of my siblings and I had to

help my mom out more than usual. I was very busy, considering that I had school, swimming,

and weightlifting, and then when I got home, I helped make dinner and clean up. I hardly had

time to finish homework and wasn’t learning all of the material I should have been. I found ways

to keep my grades up but I wasn’t processing and applying what I was learning. At that moment,

I felt like school was of no importance.

After a few weeks, I learned to adapt to what was happening in my life and started to

focus on school again. My math teacher, Ms. Hansen, made the class fun and encouraged me to

apply myself more. I also had an enjoyable English class with entertaining classmates that helped

me like the subject.

In addition, I have been a year-round swimmer since I was around 8 years old. My

practices have been 6 days a week, every week of the year for the past 8 years (with exceptions.)

Throughout all of my years of competitive swimming, I have learned many lessons that apply to

all areas of my life, including school. Swimming has taught me patience, dedication, motivation,

learning to make goals, and setting my priorities straight. Many nights, I stayed up late to finish

my work because practice consumed my time, but I was committed to getting it done. It has not

been easy balancing school, swimming, and everything else that has happened in life. But, I have

learned to always stick with what I believe is best and works for me.

As I have gotten older and I look back on all of the people who have influenced my

education, I realize that I wouldn't be where I am today without them. I am so thankful for all of

the good and bad experiences throughout my education that have taught me important lessons.