Cover Letter Assignment—Due Friday March 13
20 prewriting points, based on quality and quantity.
Your cover letter should present an evaluation of how you have performed as a student/writer this quarter.
1-2 single spaced pages.
Your cover letter should take the standard business letter format, (See Hacker for this). Use this for my address:
Mr. Dan Peters
YVCC
Yakima, Washington
98907-2520
and formal salutation, Dear Mr. Peters is fine, and a signature line at the end.
Ideas/Questions that might help you get started:
- How would you describe yourself as a writer before the class? How has this changed?
- How did you write papers before this class? How has this class changed your process?
- Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses as you see them in your thinking, reading, and writing for this course. Use the rubrics to help frame this response.
- What work do you do before you begin to write a draft of an essay? How do you develop a strong main point for your essays?
- How would you describe the peer group work as it affected your writing? Did it help you to have other readers for your papers? What sorts of comments were the most helpful to you? Did reading a peer's paper give you any new perspectives on your own writing?
- What have you improved on this quarter?
- What skills do you still need to work on?
- How about as a student overall? (Ways of Seeing the World, attendance, participation, homework etc)
21 comments:
i worte a cover letter last quarter. it is a good way to reflect on the quarter as a whole.
Agreed. It’s nice to look back on the quarter and reflect on what you have learned; what you have liked and disliked, what ideas have changed or stayed the same. I’m sure it is helpful for Mr. Peters as well, as he can get feedback on what to keep or throw out. (Despite my dislike of Ehrenreich, I would keep that book in the mix. Especially since many of the students disliked it. It is good to hear these other perspectives, because it forces one to reflect on why they believe what they believe.)
-Matthew
Matt I really liked all the books that we were assigned to read, especially Nickel and Dimmed! That one is the easiest for many people to relate to I thought. I am not understanding why a lot of people did not enjoy this book...oh well...I am kinda excited to write the cover letter, I have so many ideas to write about.
Yeah, most of us did do this last quarter. I wonder how things will change? I am really interested to see how our minds have changed because of the interesting topics that were talked about this quarter. Poverty, social classes, mobility, economy, government assistance, etc.
I agree with Matt. It was torture reading Nickle and Dimed for me it was boring, but it does bring more points of view about living conditions for minimum wage workers. The one book I liked the most is The World is Flat. It is very interesting knowing how the U.S. competes with the world. That is what grabbed my attention. I know a lot of people learned a lot from the subjects we wrote about. Maybe to some it was even a surprise.
My bad. I spelled a few things wrong. Anyways, Even though I have written cover letters many times before it is nice to see what u did and didnt like about the quarter. Nickel and Dimed was my least favorite because Ehrenreich had too many rules for herself on what she could and couldnt do.
Just a heads up..
make sure you correctly format this paper! That was the only reason I lost points on it last quarter.
My favorite book is probably the world is flat,it deals with so much and i learned a lot and my mom was totally impressed when i explained globalization to her. i seem to remember hating N & D at the time but its grown on me.
thanks for posting this! it helped me out a lot!
I have to disagree with Matt though. Nickel and Dimed was probably my favorite book out of the three, just because you could totally hear Ehrenreich's voice in the back of your head, and you could tell she has a witty sense of humor. She went into detail about things too, I felt like I was there with her as I read. Authors like that make me WANT to read thier books.
I would much rather do this cover letter than take a final like my other teachers give. Good call Mr. Peters.
Luis I have so much extra credit I dont have to write one if I dont want too!
I wrote a cover letter last semester. It wasn't too hard, but it does require you to look back and reflect on your work. Not too hard.
I agree with Matt. My least favorite book this quarter was Nickel and Dimmed. I did not like it because I felt like Ehrenrich felt belittled seeing how the poor live and made it sound bad to be considered poor. I grew up in poverty, but I never lacked. I always had good food to eat, enough clothes to get by, and a decent house to live in. People can live in poverty and not be belittled by it.
Lucas i agree, writing a cover letter is much easier then taking a final. Although i have never written a cover letter before, it seems like it will help to reflect on the quarter.
I just finished my cover letter and i agree it is a nice way to reflect back on the quarter and think about all that you have learned. It took me forever though, i just had so much to say. I had to trim it down because it was becoming so long.
I like to be able to reflect on the semester and how things went. It is so funny to look back to my first essay. I laugh when I read how terrible it was. It is amazing how much you can learn in just a short period of time.
I also favor Nickel and Dimed. I think its generally because it followed more of a storyline then the other books. Don't get me wrong, learning about globalization and how messed up America will be if we continue doing what we're doing is very interesting, I am just not quite the "reader" type.
Finally, its done!! My last paper of the quarter is done and i can take a deep breath now. Its been a crazy quarter.
Cover letters are a good way of assessing your improvement over the quarter. Its always rewarding to reflect on your achievements.
i wrote this cover letter 3 in the morning. i am working on my procastinating skills. sometimes i wouldn't wait so long but for some reason i did last night.
Post a Comment