Cover LEtter
The course English continue writing courser ENG 221RW mainly focused on the concepts and clarifications of “place”. Although at the very beginning of this course, I found the idea of place pretty abstract and hard to define. However, after doing all the readings required in the course and discussions with classmates, I developed a better understanding of “place” and the connection between human beings and places.
For the formal persuasive essay, I needed to narrow down the concept of “place” into a specific thing that I can show certain important characteristics of “place” and dig in to understand “place” better. Regarding my experience of studying abroad in America as an international student, I was driven to develop my essay through the idea of homeland.
Because I have many thoughts about hometown in my daily life, I found it easy to write the proposal of my essay. Except for getting ideas from the readings I had already read for the class, I also did some research on the website Project Muse and Google scholar. Eventually, I found Richard Ll Nostrand and Lawrence E. Estavilles’ s work Homelands: Geography of Culture and Place across America most useful and appealing to me.
When I was writing the proposal, I had a lot of ideas going in my mind. However, during the meeting with my instructor, Dr. Lauren, I realized that I needed to find a way to reorganize all the ideas my had and made it more well-structured.
I started my essay by defining “place” and presented the argument that “place can have variable definitions according to different people”. After that, I continued to discuss why each place had its uniqueness and the “people-homeland dynamic. Most importantly, I made my essay focused on the idea that hometown can shape one’s philosophy and identity.
When I recalled the actual writing process, it was not that hard for me. I believed it was because I had prepared a lot for that. And I got a relatively impressive grade. This experience reminds me that as long as I prepare well for the assignments I will eventually achieve a nice outcome.
After submitting the version one of the paper, I received feedbacks from Dr. Lauren. I was given clear comments and instructions from those feedbacks. In addition, I realized the high order concerns and low order concerns for my paper. I revised it according to Dr. Lauren’s instructions and felt myself improved during this process.