Shaina Alcheck

4/19/16
ENG 181
Project 3
Cover Letter
One of the things that I struggle with when writing essays is jumping from idea to idea. To
address this, I added transitional phrases like Because of the elements listed above and
Another way in which to the beginnings of paragraphs. I believe that by doing this I tied my
ideas together more clearly and helped the essay flow rather than jump. Additionally, the reader
can follow the essay far better.
While we did not have the regular peer review session, in an effort to accomplish my
process goal from Project 2 of having more readers on my work I asked my dad to read my
assignment. He told me that often my work was unclear to those who did not have any context
for the work. This led to one of my main patterns of revision: adding clarifying sentences. For
example, at one point in the essay I was discussing how the music of Hey Jude parallels the
scene. One of the ways in which it does this is through a musical emphasis on the second half of
the song, which in the novel is where Grumps joins in. However, I did not explicitly say that, as I
was originally writing for an audience who had read the novel. By adding the phrase as Grumps
only joins Mona and her mother in the second half of the song to my sentence at the top of pg.
3, I was able to reach a larger audience with this essay.
When I met with Dr. Suhr-Sytsma, we discussed the order in which my essay would go. This
led to a reordering of my paragraphs Now, my essay starts with the information about Sherman
Alexie and Philip Heldrich, and ends with my discussion of the direct quotes from the text. I
believe that this order really allows the reader to understand more context and the reasoning
behind my thesis before I delve into the details of the quotes from the text.

If I had more time and space, I would have loved to delve into the history of the Beatles and
how that impacts the significance of the scene from Wabanaki Blues which I discusses. I
ultimately decided that this analysis could have detracted from my argument if I did not find
research that fit in with my thesis, but as an avid Beatles fan I would have been very interested
to have the insight.
While there are no more essays for this class, a goal that I would like for myself for future
writing assignments is to leave time for a lot of editing. While I only did that for this assignment
because I got the due date mixed up, I think that having the extra time to read and reread this
work has allowed me to make it far better.

Works Cited
"Notes on "Hey Jude"" Alan W. Pollack's. 2000. Web. 31 Mar. 2016.
<http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/hj.shtml>.
Alexie, Sherman. "Grief." Emory University, Atlanta. 4 Apr. 2016. Lecture.
Heldrich, Philip. Survival = Anger x Imagination Sherman Alexie: A Collection of Critical
Essays. Jeff Berglund & Jan Roush. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2010. ProQuest
Ebrary. Web. 23 March 2016.
Zobel, Melissa Tantaquidgeon. Wabanaki Blues. Print.