10-17-13

Midterm Letter
Dear Ms. Hofmann, I am pleased to say that I have been participating in class every time I have been there. I participate in small group discussions, class discussions, and online forums. I try my best to give positive, helpful, and constructive criticism when we are editin g peers papers in groups, and I always try to convey or interject my thoughts about a topic in class. So far, I have only missed one class due to being sick. I read in the syllabus that there is not penalty for three absences; however, four absences reduces your letter grade once, five absences reduces your final grade by two, and six absences or more results in an automatic failure for the course. Im not planning on missing anymore days unless an emergency comes up, or I get sick. I love my small group!! I am apart of Scotts Angels along with Kristen Wilhoit, Alexis Manley, and Scott Armistead. We all get along extremely well, and we have become such good friends throughout the semester. When editing each others papers we toss out individual ideas that we have, and then try to agree on a consensus that will appeal everyone. My group members and I are very respectful of whoevers paper we are editing or revising, so we make sure to be positive when giving them feedback. To my group I think I offer fun and creative ideas. My group members take their writing very seriously, so I usually try to lighten their moods, as well as get them to write from personal experiences rather than always sounding like scholars. However, in class discussions I feel like I just blend in. Im shy around big groups of people, so I try not to say a whole lot during class. Cremonas My Pen Writes in Blue and White has stuck out to me the most throughout this semester because it made me consider how a mixture of my parents language led me to develop the language I have today. Until reading this passage, I had never taken into consideration that both my parents had a huge impact on my language and literacy. I also had to think about what type of language I adopted from them individually. Like Cremona compared her pen writing in blue and white, I compared mine to writing in green and yellow. Green symbolizing structure and straightforwardness I got from my dad due to his military background, and yellow symbolizing the softness and comforting language I adopted from my mom. Here, I have chosen to display my inclass writing assignment on our first job and how we vs. other people viewed our job.

10-9-13 First Job My first job was at Albemarle Compounding, a private owned pharmacy. I started there when I was fifteen, and I absolutely loved it. My job was not easy by any means. I had to learn to read doctor notes/prescriptions, interpret insurance rejects, count pills, run the register, and learn how to interact with people diligently. Since I was dealing with people and their medicine, they would often get upset, and occasionally hostile, so I had to learn to speak nice and soft and to always watch what I said. I definitely had to learn patience and tolerance. People tell everything about themselves at a pharmacy, and sometimes its something you dont care about, but to them its important so you have to listen and hear them out. Also, while they are having a tantrum because they cant always get what they want, you have to tolerate it and take everything theyre saying with a grain of salt. Working with the general public taught me the best lessons when it comes to interacting or dealing with people. Others sometimes viewed my work as low-skilled because they dont understand the extent of my work or what actually happens in a pharmacy. Ive been told before Oh, you just stand there and give out medicine, it cant be that hard, which would be true if thats actually all I did.

Ive decided to show you this piece because this top ic was very easy for me to write about, so its a lot more detailed than my other work. This work for me, is one that I am proud of because my grammar and sentence structure has become a lot better than it was at the beginning of the semester. Throughout this course I decided to do all my writing on the computer. Ive never wrote directly into a computer before, but I love it now. I like being able to edit my work but just typing over what I already have and having to mark out or erase everything. To me, writing a computer is very clean, and a lot easier than writing on notebook paper. Over the course of this semester, I have devoted more and more time to responding to questions and forum postings. Ive come along ways from one of my first responses to Wh at my Speech Reveals About Me which was, My speech reveals that I am definitely a southerner from North Carolina. People often ask me where I'm
from, how long I've lived here, and to repeat myself over, and over agian. I had a friend move up north, and she often talks about how Northern people often think Southerners are illiterate and uneducated. I think this opinion comes mainly from the different dialects in the United States. When I was taking spanish in high school, I often spoke in code switching without realizing what I was doing. I often would say "Come to mi casa after school," or say other catchy phrases starting in english and ending in spanish.

I have to say my response is not detailed at all. I was probably up late one night replying to a forum, and I wanted to get it done very quickly and it shows. Now, I would elaborate on the topic more and be more detailed with my response. My intro in to Inquiry into Language, Literacy, and Identity is by far my proudest piece. At first, I wasnt sure what direction I wanted to take my paper in, and I was dreading having to write it, but once I started writing it was like I couldnt stop. This was such a fun paper to write because I got to write about life experiences, my background, and most importantly how I became the person I am today. I wanted my paper to be extremely personal so people could see the real me. I wanted to include phrases I used and some I still use so people could see how my language has evolved over the years, but how some of my language has stayed the same. I really wanted people to get a vivid insight of the southern culture I was raised in. Right now, I still have a lot of advising to do on my paper. The comments that you left me made me realize that I need to be more detailed when explaining certain situations, and not be so general. I believe my paper is going in a great direction; I just need to explain terms like redneck better along with giving more background about my parents. For me, asking questions about my paper is the best kind of feedback I can get. It makes me dig deeper, and think about how I can explain things in a clearer way. As of now, I have not started revising my paper for a fourth time yet. I revised it three times before uploading it too moodle. For my portfolio, however I plan on revising it over and over again. Im going to let other people read it as well so they can give me feedback. My main goals are to address every question or remark you made on my paper, and too revise my paper again and again until it is perfect. I have ideas for my portfolio, but I havent started putting it together online though. Ive already started thinking about what pieces I want to display and what I want the layout to look like. Ive already started stressing about the online aspect of the portfolio, though. Since Ive never done much with computers in the past, Im worried that I wont know how to set up a website or make it creative. For the remaining of the semester I want to crack down and turn in nothing but my best work. I plan on going to the writing center so they can edit my papers and give me better ideas to write about. My absolute main goal is to receive five stars on an assignment before the semester is over!! If I ever receive five stars I will finally be happy with my writing.

Sincerely, Mikayla Kidd