About Me

Dear Past Elliot,

            In these next few months, you will embark on a journey that you will not be expecting. There will be a lot of times where you think you know what to expect, but it will turn out that something will take much more time than you might have thought. One example: the discourse analysis. I will give you one piece of advice, and you probably won’t listen to me just as I didn’t listen. You need to do the work as soon as possible for each part of the essay. Otherwise, you will get drowned by multiple things assigned at once. Things like tests for other subjects as well as trying to finish a project for Formula SAE will take up a lot of time, so you need to manage your time well. I will commend you, however, on keeping up with other classes as your work was assigned. You never had to turn in a late assignment. However, you should have done more side quests for English before the final unit. I am currently stressing on trying to get them done, and I am mad at you for doing that to me. But, that’s not the point. What I would really like to talk to you about is how much you will have developed as a writer.

            You will get much better at staying on topic when writing. For example, in the first main quest boss fight “They Games We Play”, you will write about how Minecraft is a game that pushes the argument that the player needs the online community surrounding the game in order to be successful. In the essay, however, you will tend to get off track. Your professor will tell you to “be careful about thesis shift” which can be solved by using a technique called reverse outlining. You need to this advice and put it into action with your next big assignment, the Discourse Analysis. If you do this, you will be commended for staying on topic and keeping your essay about your initial thesis. For example, your professor might say in his feedback for the analysis, “Good tie back to the full-circle argument here” when commenting on a certain part of the essay. You will be able to tie back each paragraph to the main thesis where before, you kept ranting on about the topic until you were not even on the topic anymore. I would like to be able to congratulate you on developing in this area. One thing I want you to do for the discourse analysis that I was not able to do is cite more specific evidence throughout the essay. I know it’s hard to get specific quotes from videos and such, but in order to get a good score you need to include this kind of thing in your essay. I did not do this very well, which is why I got feedback like “show us a source here? A quote or two here would go a long way” for a certain part of it. If you don’t do this, you will have to deal with it in the revisions of your essay like I am doing. As for the video game, make sure you learn Twine. It is an easy platform for your game, and it makes the most sense to use for the design. Your group may struggle to all meet at the same time, and be prepared for that. It will take work, but you can get through it.

            Overall, I am very excited to see where you will go in this adventure of an English class. I hope you can be successful in the areas I mentioned and keep doing what you know works for you. I am glad I experienced this class, and I want you to be able to say the same. Good luck!