Cover Letter

To who comes to my world of writing,

Once it occurs to me the interesting story of a rabbit and a tortoise’s racing game. The tortoise walks far more slowly than the rabbit, so when they participate in a match, the rabbit is over proud of itself and falls in sleep halfway. The tortoise wins the game at last due to its persistence.

I have ever learned this lesson when I was a little girl, but from time to time I just put it in my textbook and forget to apply it to my daily life.

Today, I really see the magnificence of this old story.

As I stepped into the class for the first time four months ago, I started my wonderful journey on the river of continuous splendid literary reading-input and extended writing-output. The inviting international stories take me to a fantastic world. I have fun in finishing my reading logs, talking to the characters in the stories and expressing my feelings in whatever way I like. The ten-minute free writing every week opens a window for me to wing my heart and my brain. Moreover, it influences me more than the ten minutes. Time-writing is quite demanding, for each time I merely finish it before the deadline. Anyway I enjoy the process, in particular the accomplishment when I hand it in.

As I was required to work for various tasks in class, I feel my progress step by step. How to write the plot summary, what to do with the evidence, how to quote or to paraphrase, how to organize my essay, and how to cooperate with others, all these skills have been developed during this semester’s study. It is amazing. I couldn’t imagine I would finally present you with the final draft and the whole portfolio.

Writing in English used to be a hard task for me. It will be more understandable if I compare it with writing in Chinese. Started at an early age, I noted down with a short pencil everything I saw, I heard or I thought, with no grammar or language structure rules puzzling me. I wrote just because I like to. However, at the very beginning when I was taught to use the English language, I was asked to pay more attention to the strict principles in using the language. It seemed to abstract me from the things I wrote to the way I wrote. Gradually, it became hard for me to express accurately and smoothly. Imagination was blocked.

This is one of the weak points of the education I have received, but thanks to Advanced Writing Class and also my teacher Mr. Corio. In this class, I realized what the most important thing in writing is my feelings and thoughts. My wings of imagination flutter again. I just sit down and write freely what occurs to me, and then review it to correct the error. I find great fun in writing and I feel rewarding when reread all the articles I wrote during the whole semester. Mr. Corio inspires me with my potential motivity of writing, cultivate and solidify my writing ability with various helpful methods. Due to his strict teaching principle and his respectable patience, my progress is visible. More important, it is no longer a work that I have to finish. Writing is fun, rather than misery.

There are three essay draft, the final timed-writing and a reading log in my portfolio as follows. They are just some excerpts of all my works in the past four months. All the chosen ones concern Chinua Achebe’s Dead Men’s Path. I like the story and I supposed to present my portfolio as an album. The reading log reflects my original thoughts on it. The three essay drafts are my interpretation of the fiction. Draft One is far less than mature for the language, the organization and the clue of the article is a little terrible. Some paragraphs have little relation with my statement. In Draft Two, I found more persuasive evidences from the reading resources and developed my interpretation. However, there remained some problems, such as first-person pronunciation and too many detailed quotations. I improved it in Draft Three under guidance of Mr. Corio and help of Sophia and Jascha. I am deeply grateful for all your concern and suggestion.

Now, whether all the works here are satisfactory, I am very pleased that I can have the opportunity to invite you into my world. Thank you for taking time to read my papers. I hope you will enjoy and I am also looking forward to further discussion with you.

Yours sincerely,

Claire

25.5.07 03:22