Dear Portfolio Evaluation Committee:

I would like to start by thanking you for taking the time to evaluate my portfolio. My
name is Fiky Auwandha. I wrote this cover letter to welcome you here and to give you a little bit
of information of what you will find in this portfolio. In this portfolio, you will find two of my
best essay assignments and the exercises that leads to the creation of those essays. These two
essays and exercises truly represents the academic development that I achieved in this English
113A class.
This class has truly helped me become a better writer. In class, I was assigned a total of
three progression essays. On those progression essays, I received scores of 83, 93, and 94
chronologically. To me those scores are nothing but numbers. What I value more are the lessons
that I actually learn in class that would help me in the future. When writing an essay, I have
always had difficulties starting the essay. I usually have ideas in my head, but I am not always
able to word it out, so to speak. That is until I was assigned to read the essay titled Shitty First
Draft by Anne Lamott in this English 113A class. In essence, the essay tells the readers that in
writing a first draft, writer should not be discouraged from putting their ideas onto paper just
because they are afraid to make any grammar or punctuation errors. It tells the readers that
writers should not care too much about any errors in their first draft because most of the time
readers will not read the writers first draft. After reading this essay, it is easier for me to start on
an essay. The lesson that this essay gave me is definitely something that I will use for future
reference. Beside difficulties in starting an essay, finding a credible evidence is also a difficulty I
had in the process of writing an essay. The critical aspect of an essay is finding evidence and use
it to support my arguments. In the past, I have always been hesitant in using random articles on
the internet. I was afraid that I would not sound credible to the readers of my essay. In this class,
I learned how to find peer-reviewed academic journal using the resources available in the library
database. After learning how to do this, I always use this method to find credible sources for my
essays.This information is also something that I will use in the future.
In this portfolio, I have attached my second and third progression essays. I picked these
two out of the three because they are the ones with higher scores. I received a score of 93 in the
second essay. In the second progression essay, I was assigned to analyze and choose a topic from
the book Brave New World and make a connection to real life problems. After reading the book,
I am able to recognize that consumerism is a real life problem that the book also conveys. In this
essay, I argue that we have to reduce our desire to buy unnecessary products if we do not want to
end up living in an unfairly controlled world such as the one that the book describes. One
specific difficulty that I encountered in writing this essay is finding a specific quote in the book.
The way I find quotes when I was looking for them is by finding a PDF file of the book and use
the computer searching tools to find specific key phrases. After attending an in-class lecture I
now know what I have to do to avoid this difficulty. I understand that I should have picked a
topic prior to the reading and write down any sentences that are related to that topic while I was

reading the book. In this portfolio, I am required to attach a picture of the hard copy of the essay
that has the professors comments on it. Unfortunately, I am not able to do so because I was
absent on the day that the professor gave back my essay and I still have not received them as of
this moment.
In the third progression essay, I received a score of 94. In this essay, I was assigned to
propose a solution to an on-going problem that our society is facing. For this essay, I chose the
topic of politics because the election was happening around the time in which I was assigned this
essay. I feel that this choice of topic is more than appropriate. In this essay, I argue that Super
Political Action Committees should be dismissed because they pose a threat to our election
process. One difficulty that I encountered in writing this essay is including a counter argument
paragraph into the essay. At first, I listed several counter argument in the paragraph and just say
that the my arguments outweigh the counter argument. After going to a student-teacher
conference, I understand that the method I used weakens my arguments. I now know that when
writing a counter argument paragraph, I have to mention one counter argument and refute it right
away. To me, the conference was a critical process in writing this essay. My professor helped me
find a way to strengthen my thesis and give me a story that I can use as a base of my research.
I would like to close this cover letter by thanking you once again for taking the time to
evaluate my portfolio. I hope that this cover letter, the exercises, and the essays I have attached
in this portfolio give you an idea of what my experience in English 113A is like. I also hope that
these are enough evidence to convince you that I should pass this class. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Fiky Auwandha