8 May 2015

Dr. Leslie Bruce

Department of English, Comparative Literature, and Linguistics
California State University, Fullerton
P.O. Box 34080
Fullerton, CA 92834-9480
Dear Dr. Bruce,
Im writing this letter to you to display my knowledge of successfully
understanding and mastering the student learner outcomes that were presented for this
class, also known as the SLOs. In my portfolio I also included my original and revised
profile essay and a peer review. I chose to use these specific documents because they
allow me to display my biggest accomplishments within this course and most
importantly the specific student learning outcomes I have improved on throughout the
semester .
The first document I would like to display is my revised profile essay. In this essay
it helped me master several student learning outcomes, such as organization and focus,
academic language, ethical research, and collaboration. I demonstrated the SLO
organization and focus by displaying a well structured essay. This document includes
topic and transitional sentences and also paragraphs that are focused on one main idea
to communicate my thoughts clearly and effectively. You can also specifically see my
understanding of organization and focus on pages four and five of my revised profile
essay. On these pages I created new paragraphs with informational topic sentences to
have my audience be able to focus more directly on the information given. I also
displayed the SLO academic language and design on page three of my essay. On this
page I needed to reword my sentences so that my thoughts would be communicated to
the reader effectively. I learned to do this by designing my sentence structure in a
specific way, so I am able to influence and express my sensitivity on the topic in a more
impacting way.
I was also able to master the SLO ethical citation, again on page three. I had
forgotten to analyze a very important quote that could of given the audience the correct
impact of pathos I was trying to convey. I have gone back to my essay and added in my
analysis of the quote, I would much rather kill my body every day at the gym attempting
to reach an 800 pound squat than to go through that again for a physique (Rivera). I
have learned to always incorporate my analysis or personal opinion when appropriate to

the text. I have also learned that the message after the quote can be just as or even
more impacting to the audience than the quote itself.
In the beginning of this class I was unsure how to correctly cite other peoples
statements in a formal document. I can now say I am very comfortable ethically citing
quotes and paraphrasing. I show this completion of knowledge throughout my entire
profile essay. Lastly the SLO collaboration was also accomplished through this essay,
due to the fact this assignment was a group effort consisting of four people including
myself coming together to write one essay.
The next documents I would like to discuss are my peer reviews. Through my
peer review to my classmate Jessica Marquez I demonstrated the student learning
outcome rhetorical focus by writing an informal evaluation of her essay. I displayed my
understanding of writing formally through my profile essay, informing the readers of
Bedford/St. Martin Books about body building dehydration.
Finally the last document Im going to talk about is this cover letter. I feel I have
successful demonstrated my accomplishments of the student learning outcome for
English 301. This course has given me the knowledge and confidence to assure you I
am able to write a well formatted, successful, college level paper. I hope this is
recognizable through my profile.
Sincerely,
Allison Sherman