Dear Professor Intawiwat,

The first topic of written literacy featured what in my opinion was the most difficult of

the assignments. The This I Believe essay was a personal prose piece where we briefly

outlined our cause for belief in a particular idea. This idea was not supposed to be accusatory or

depressing and something we believe in because of our personal experiences. As a rather

philosophical individual I make a point not to have any strong beliefs that are not action

dependent, and thereby inherently accusatory toward someone or something, and also avoid

allowing my personal experiences to cloud by objectivity and so choosing a topic was rather

difficult and ended up happening the day before the assignment was due for peer review. My

goal in this essay was to present the message that the ostracization of nerds is an immutable

phenomenon without accusing anyone or anything in particular of perpetuating or causing this

phenomenon or spelling out the maladies it invokes. I attempted this through two objectives;

making the case that the situation is what I believe it to be and also using humor to alleviate any

potential negative tones I might otherwise accidentally convey. Throughout editing I revised

grammatical errors, clarified confusing passages, and at various stages in the writing process

rearranged and selected events from my past as I developed my message.

The ethnography assignment was the formal research paper that we had to write this

semester. The essay was written with a more general academic audience in mind and so I wrote it

with that goal in mind. I found difficulty with choosing a topic and overall message as I

struggled to imagine the essay as informative rather than persuasive. I also possess strong

opposition to making sweeping generalizations about a particular group of people. I revised my

goals to inform the reader about things that were significant to rather than about the gamer

subculture. This made writing the essay much easier and allowed my greater flexibility in genre
conventions to exercise linguistic structures and implement intellectual property to support my

thesis.

For the digital literacy narrative, I wrote a short story, through power point, which was

designed to inform you, my professor, of my history in developing digital literacy. I chose a more

humorous and satirical approach because the information on the topic is rather minimal and

uninteresting. I attempted to use audio, images, animations, and text in PowerPoint to create a

coherent presentation. In the beginning I wrote out a simple timeline for my development in a

step by step process of expanding my familiarity with digital technology. After reading it I

decided that my loathing of electronics could be used to create something more entertaining and

so I revised the script to fit its current format. Further edits were made to choose images that fit

the tone of the page better or created more linguistic efficiency. During this assignment I learned

how to use audio in a PowerPoint. This assignment helped me to develop my abilities to use

multi-modal writing methods and to write for situations other than conventional essays.

The zine project was rather simple. While the audience was mostly you as I have reason

to believe anyone else will necessarily look at it, I did write with the intention of it being able to

be used as an example for myself or yourself if necessary. I choose medieval history as a theme

because it is one I am familiar with and could easily write about. Using madmagz.com with

minimal ambition allowed me to throw together a simple collage of writing that met the rubric

requirements. Most of the text only required minimal grammatical revisions aside from the

letters to the editor. The first letter contained a list of examples that I expanded in order to fill out

the page. The second letter bounced around a variety of topics such as St. Patrick, King Arthur,

and chivalry before landing on violence. I did not want to repeat the same letter on a different

topic and so I choose to write a much more personal sounding selection for the second letter. I
choose to write the reply when I felt that the letter was the appropriate length to get the message

across. I had to completely change tones at this point to write the reply. This writing assignment

required writing that shifted voice, tone, formality, design, medium, and layout intentionally to

accommodate varying the situations and contexts each page demanded. I enjoyed meeting a

sixteen page writing requirement with only about seven pages of unconnected text and lots of

pictures.

The questions for study and discussion about chapter six, The Case for Short Words by

Richard Lederer on page 158 of our textbook accompanied a homework assignment where we

had to write a five hundred word composition with only one syllable words. I found this

assignment particularly interesting as my natural inclination, and continued preference, is to

write long flowing sentences full of a wide array of complex terms to specifically convey the

exact nature of my thoughts. This style has been developed in part to overcompensate for a lack

of content in a world of teachers who grade by page length rather than quality. My lengthy

rhetoric however also has formed out of an appreciation for enlightenment era texts and the ways

in which such wordplay mitigates misunderstandings due to oversimplification. Writing a whole

passage of monosyllabic words was quite difficult as it defied this habit perfectly. The task was

enjoyable and a required a skill would be well for me to master. From this assignment and tasks

similar to it I have learned to think about word efficiency when critically reflecting on and

planning out my writing.

Throughout the semester I have attempted to engage in academic class discussions with

an emphasis on contributions that others would not normally give to both myself the opportunity

to advance the discussions and allow others a chance to do the same. In and out of the classroom

setting I helped my fellow classmates in developing ideas and writing toward their final work. I
have helped others with their zine project, the dictionary assignment, our slam poems, the This I

Believe essay, and, for multiple students, their ethnography. Aid was mostly with technical

difficulties, writers block, and developing ones thesis and supporting ideas. These tasks

provided opportunities to think critically about topics and points I had not previously, nor had

any intention of, writing about. Participation in this way helped me to develop my composing

process by encouraging me to be flexible by working with the writing strategies of others,

writing socially and collaboratively, and to work with others on each step of the writing process

in order to achieve better writing.

I believe that I deserve an A in the class as I have a nearly perfect grade on most every

assignment and have demonstrated understanding and capability with the student learning

outcomes.

Thank you for all that you do,

Benjamin Betts