reflective letter (rought draft)#2

In my portfolio, I have chosen to put in my Olive Branch Petition Text Analysis, my second essay, and my essay #2 reflection. The reason I chose to use these writings in my portfolio is that they show my growth in the areas I needed, such as my critical thinking, proof reading and summery and analysis skills.
When I look back on my high school writing classes, they were run of the mill, very bleak classes that didn’t help me what so ever. They never challenged the way I write and I usually pulled essays together at the last minute with bogus information.
The reason I like History and Writing 101 is because the classes challenge the way I think and process data. I actually have to think about what I’m reading and writing instead of repeating what a book said then forgetting it after the assignment is over. The material we have covered in the classes will probably stick with me till I die because I have had to think critically on them during the in-class discussions and the writing assignments that I have completed. The fact that our teachers actually read our work instead of looking for a 5 paragraph format has really taught me how to write and what to look for in my writing while editing. Completing this 12 week course has educated me more than a traditional 1 year class. Yeah it was hard and stressful half the time, but it was not unwarranted, everything they have us do had a purpose to help us become better writers and have a more in depth understanding of history. That is why I have chosen these 3 items to go in my portfolio, I believe that they show my best work in the sense that I have matured and grown wiser in my writing skill.
The olive branch petition text analysis shows my honed in depth analysis skill, it is a 5 page document that was addressed to the King of England. I did a lot of work on this piece and I never thought that I could scrutinize every detail of a document and piece together why they said that or asked that question.
The second essay I did was that I had to be Loyalist during the late 1700’s in the state of North Carolina; I had to write a persuasive essay explaining why I was a loyalist and why “the reader” should be too. This paper is by far the best writing I have ever completed (after I had rewritten it), the reason I had to rewrite it was because I forgot to proof read it and it had some words missing, but besides that I put my heart but mostly my mind into reading primary documents and piecing together a well rounded argument for my cause.
Overall, Coming to PSEC and taking Ben and Craig’s class has shown me that I’m not a bad writer; I just didn’t know how to write. I had no idea of how much work and mind power it takes to write a good piece of literature. I used to hate reading quotes and writing things that were assigned to me, but now that I have learned so much I like challenging my mind, analyzing and thinking about why people write this and that. It’s really embarrassing to look back at my past work and then to look at my present work. I can see a major turnaround for me, I can tell of how much I have learned during the past 12 weeks because I could never write about anything this in depth with out serious work and now I can do it with out trouble for most my assignments. I believe that this is my greatest achievement.