Using the grading criteria we established at the beginning of the semester, please write a letter helping me determine your course grade.  In many ways, this is my favorite assignment because it fulfills two important purposes. 

First, it exposes me to your behind-the-scenes work in English 101.  By the time I read your letter, I will know how you have performed in your assignments; I will know what your papers look like.  I might have heard from you frequently during class discussions, and I might have observed your work in Endorsement Groups.  Now I need to know the invisible stuff: what you learned, how you grew, what you attempted.  Here's your chance to tell me about the risks you took in your writing and responding this semester--even if the results were less than successful.  Here's your chance to share with me the ways your thinking, reading, and writing have changed.  Here's your chance to show me the stuff teachers don't always get to see.

Second, it provides you with an unusual writing opportunity.  For this letter, you have a concrete purpose and a specific, familiar audience.  We have worked together all semester, and in that time you have learned about my goals for this course and my wishes for you.  You have heard how much I value variety; risk-taking; writing self-awareness; ample and specific development; audience awareness; clear, logical thinking; and support of other writers.  I urge you to use this knowledge to craft your letter.  Please note, however, that this letter is not an exercise in flattery or groveling; in fact, brown-nosing will more likely insult rather than impress me. 

In short, please tell me--in a fully developed, specific, and rhetorically sound letter--what I need to know in order to assign your grade appropriately.  You will be best served if you treat this assignment as you would an important paper and not as an afterthought: provide copious and detailed support, employ vocabulary and skills acquired this semester, establish connections between course content and the world outside our classroom, and organize the letter's content to your best rhetorical advantage.  Address the writing discoveries you made and the new tactics you employed, a task with which your Endorsement Group Routing Sheets can help.  Discuss the ways in which your class performance helped you meet goals you set for yourself at the beginning of the semester, a task with which your Negotiation Prep letter can help.  Comment on your Endorsement Group experiences, and remind me of the ways in which your participation contributed to the course's quality.

I cannot imagine accomplishing even half of the above goals in under one full page; my own letter would probably require three pages.  As long as you avoid flowery, fatty prose, you may take as much room as you need to establish and prove your claims.  Remember, please, that your letter helps me determine your participation grade and provides me with the opportunity to boost your course grade. 

It's that important. 

Updated: 01.29.12