Jayson Sarmiento-Ramon

Enid Brain

English 11000

9 October 2025

Cover Letter

My audience so far has been just you, my teacher, and my peers. I tailored my language and rhetorical choices to appeal to you by making sure what I wrote could elicit strong imagery in your mind. Through my LLN narrative, I made sure to be extremely descriptive so as to make it seem to you that you were really there in the moment, living in my LLN narrative. By describing how I felt and why I felt the way I felt in my LLN, I was able to appeal to your emotions, which was another one of my goals. As for addressing my peers, through peer reviews, I was able to give and receive great constructive feedback, which was actionable and influenced my writing of my LLN. I also chose to write a relatable story that I could tailor to the emotions of my peers, which was another one of my goals.

The most meaningful insight I have gotten so far about language and literacy is that they have rules that can and should be broken. English, especially the one spoken in our country, has so many dialects based on region, ethnicity, and immigrant background. This difference in English is great because it allows different people to express English in a way suited to them, in a natural way. Language itself, not just in English but in other languages as well, can be bent, and beautiful new dialects of the language can arise all over the world. Literacy is unique in the sense that one can be literate even if they do not necessarily write or speak the conventional way for their language. For example, in class, I learned about “Black English” and even before reading, I was open to the concept because, as a Hispanic, I know English for my Hispanic family sounds different from the English spoken at my school, but it is most definitely not a lesser form of English. Learning that other cultures are appreciated regardless of the way they may speak or write English is beautiful and makes me proud to be a part of “Hispanic English.”

Exigence has most impacted my learning and writing in this class because it really leads to the ultimate question of why even write something in the first place. All writing has meaning, even gibberish does! Realizing why writers write what they write helps my understanding of what their writing means. For example, Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club would be hard to understand without knowing who Amy Tan is and her background. Knowing she is the daughter of immigrants helps one understand why her characters in her book spoke the way they did in the first place. Her writing is unique, and knowing her background helps one realize how her unique writing came to be.

“Develop strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing.” This is the course learning outcome that I have integrated into my writing in this phase. Filling out the questionnaires, which informed me more about the author and their background, helped me understand what I was reading better. Drafting helped me get ideas on paper, and collaborating with my peers helped me make sense of my writing for my intended audience. Revising helped me implement feedback from my peers and my writing center tutor, Angeliki, along with some spoken feedback from you as well. Editing my work has been a great part of the learning process because multiple rounds of edits have helped me send across what I was trying to communicate the best way possible. Overall, this phase has helped me better understand who I am as a writer and what I can work on to write more effectively, taking into consideration my own exigencies and my audience.

Progress

When I was a freshman, I had my English class where the sophomores had theirs, just one period later and with a different teacher. I would be waiting outside the classroom for their class to end so I could then enter. As the then sophomores would be leaving their class, they would often remark in a low tone that their English teacher was “such an ass.” Others would come out of her class silent and with weary expressions on their faces.

When the first day of school began, sitting in that same teacher’s class who the sophomores from the year prior so often complained about, I caught myself tapping my foot on the floor and stopped myself. After having gone over the class expectations, she asked if the class had any questions. When nobody said anything, she dismissed the class early. I thought to myself that she could not be that bad. After all, the teacher that others described her to be would never let class end early, right? 

English classes at Regis where students seated hold discussions in a circle amongst each other

A few weeks later, the deadline for the first paper was approaching. I had done extremely well last year in English because I had made it a habit to always start my English papers two weeks ahead of the deadline, allowing me to complete many revisions and ensure the best possible grade. I made sure to apply the same method to my first English paper in my sophomore year. 

Then came the much-anticipated day. The day I would receive my English paper back. I received it. My heart began to beat extremely fast. My palms looked as if I had washed them and forgotten to dry them. On my paper, at the very end, was a big letter U circled in red. This letter grade equates to a 2.8 on a 4.0 scale. The only advice on the paper in red letters was “go to the writing center for your next paper.” 

Regis Grading Scale

I looked over my paper once I got home. I could not help but start to overthink, pulling my hair toward the sky. I found small mistakes and realized that perhaps I could have chosen better-quality evidence, but I still couldn’t understand why my paper was given such a low grade. After repeatedly trying to comfort myself by reassuring myself in a low voice that everything was going to be alright, I screamed into my pillow. I was broken. I could not help but think that this year, English would be the death of me. Then I sat upright at the edge of my bed, looking toward the walls of my room. Fueled by my anger at the grade I received for my first paper, I lay down and went to sleep, muttering in a tired voice, “I will succeed in her class no matter what.”

This time around, the task was to write a “perfect paragraph,” as my teacher called it. Essentially, I was supposed to be as succinct as possible. I only had 250 words to write a topic sentence, which would serve as my thesis for this paper, along with the supporting pieces of evidence and analysis. I could write about anything. There was no prompt to answer. I had freedom. Yet, due to the word restraint, that freedom seemed like a trap.

After gathering the evidence, I went to the writing center. A bunch of upperclassmen were available. I sat down next to one of them and went over my evidence. To put it shortly, the main things he said were that they “were solid choices” and that I had to “make sure only to quote what I am explaining and vice versa.” I thanked him for his time, left the resource center, and did what he told me to do. 

One of the English writing centers that I visited to get advice from peer tutors

The day came once again. I received my English paper. This time around, I got an M. This grade equates to a 3.5 on a 4.0 scale. I took the paper and put it in my bag. Outwardly, I was emotionless. I guess it had to do with part of me still expecting another poor grade and not knowing how to react when I got a decent grade instead. Aside from the big red M at the end of my paper, my teacher wrote the following yet again: “Continue to see the writing center.”

I continued to do what she recommended all year, and I kept getting great advice from the tutors. In my first paper of the second trimester, the fourth paper of the year, I finally reached the H grade I was so used to seeing in my freshman year. Although I finished tenth grade with an M as my final grade, I was proud.

Although my final grade in my sophomore year was lower than my final grade in my freshman year, it is not reflective of my progress as a writer. I became a better writer in my sophomore year through my teacher’s push to utilize all the resources available to me. Ultimately, writing involves more than just the teacher-student relationship: It also involves the peers who give feedback at the writing centers and friends who take time out of their days to give feedback as well. My case is unique: Most high schoolers do not have access to peer tutors, and concepts such as a “writing center” are foreign to them. Such resources should be available to all high schoolers, because it is an integral part of learning how to fight for oneself academically and will ultimately help prepare them for the next step in education, if it is pursued, which is college. Ultimately, our government should more heavily invest in the future of the nation, which is us.