Dear classmates,

As English is not my first language, I found it hard for myself to enjoy writing. I have always just tried my best to do good in class but never got any satisfaction out of any of my writing. I am still not satisfied with my knowledge level of English however, I am always thriving to learn more.

I was born and raised in Bangladesh. My family and I moved here to the states with little knowledge of English. In my country, we were taught English however it was not as advance as it is here. I was able to understand people, but I did not dare to speak the language. Teaching us how to create our sentences was not as emphasized as it should be. It was more like us learning how to fix a sentence, writing a paragraph that was fully memorized which made me embarrassed when I started school here in the US. Even though I understood a simple conversation, I was not able to put together a sentence reply to the person or to keep the conversation going. I was admitted in 8th grade in an international school, where I was put in a class with all the Bengali students. In a sense, it was a favor, but it was also a disadvantage. I barely ever participated in class, I rarely shared my writing with the class or ask help from my teachers since they were Bengali as well. The embarrassment went on the whole school year.

High school was where I was pushed to start talking to people in English, going to my teachers for help with my writing. Since there was a very little number of Bengalis in my school, I had to come out of my comfort zone to speak in the broken English that I knew. I was very lucky to have a teacher who was always able to understand when I needed help without me expressing it. As soon as I passed my ESL exam, I was put into an AP English class with students who were much advanced in this language. My confidence level went back down the minute I stepped into that class. My writing was not up to the AP level, but I managed to do good in the class by the teacher noticing my improvement.

As a freshman in college, I have been stressing about almost everything. However, as far as classes I was mostly nervous about English composition. I knew it wouldn’t be easier, but I wanted to stop being embarrassed and learn and strengthen my writing skills. At the beginning of the course, we were exposed to new elements of writing that I haven’t learned about. Rhetorical analysis is one of the first topics we discussed, and it was not easy to incorporate it with the style of writing I was used to. However, with the help of different assignments, I was starting to understand it a little better. 

Our first essay was source-based. It was something similar to the essays I have done before which made me excited about it. Finding a topic was harder than I expected. There were so many topics I wanted to write about, but I tried my best to do enough research to write about the discrimination that occurs against religion. My theory of writing for this class started with why I want to write about a topic. Just like many other issues, it is also talked about but the majority of the population still does not care. The topic I picked was very personal to me because I have been bullied because of my choice of faith. I knew I can write about this topic with purpose because I knew what it feels like to be one who faces discrimination in their daily life. Going into the essay I was fairly confident because I was aware of the issue and how it affects people’s life. However, it did get challenging as I was progressing. The rhetoricalsituation was something I struggled with because I was so used to summarizing articles. Finding the right and strong articles took some time and effort and I don’t think I managed to get enough articles for the essay. I had a major issue with my peer-review because I accidentally posted my peer’s daft that I downloaded to review. It was such a disadvantage because I was not able to resubmit my draft and I wrote the final draft without any feedback. This is when I made sure to properly name my documents and pay closer attention when I submit them. The first essay was a good start for me to get into different types of writing. I was able to use the knowledge I have and use a few different elements we learned to write this essay. 

I wanted to be challenged by a different type of writing than what I have done in the past. The second was exactly that. It did have some similarities with the first essay and some very different aspects. Following the structure of the model, the essay was something new and it took a while to understand how to start the essay. I picked another topic that I had knowledge about but there were many more obstacles in this essay. I managed to find enough articles to support the issue. The feedback from my peers and professor was such a help. I started my draft by breaking down different parts. It helped me to keep track of my writing because I tend to summarize a lot. So, it helped me to focus on the rhetorical situations.

The final assignment was different from the natural way of writing. Also, by the end of the second essay, I understood the importance of knowing who my audience is. So, when we were asked to use different genres to write to our audience about the issue we chose for the second essay, I was extremely excited. It was such a different concept that gave us the ability to use our creative side with writing. I created a video and poster to spread awareness about the issue I chose. Before I started the writing part, I made sure who my audience is because it makes a massive difference in writing.

This course has taught me to write with a purpose. I have always known that writers have to show the audience rather than just talking about it and I have experienced that through all the strategies we learned. I will not say I know everything, but I must say I learned so many elements that are starting to make me confident about my writing.