The Final

Dear Sarah,

Congratulations, you have completed your winter 2010 quarter at Foothill College. You are almost ready to transfer to a university and have achieved a lot. Taking a look back at your English 1B course with Professor Lewis this quarter you learned skills that will ultimately help you in your upper division courses.

The first topic we discussed in this course was defining the California Dream. This was an interesting topic because in the readings you got a real life interpretation in which proved that the California Dream is not all what it seems. Individuals are all capable of creating their own dream, and have the capacity as human beings to succeed. Even professional music artists who live the dream agree with that statement, as well as give another view point saying that the dream is nothing and not all people can succeed. The California dream is not what it is pictured to be unless you either have real talent or real money.

The second topic we looked into was the history of California. A lot of animosity has been generated towards minorities in the United States and California. Within this topic we learned about fallacies which are misconceptions resulting from incorrect reasoning and argumentation. This fit in well with this topic because it showed that everything that is said in history is not always true and individuals should be given the opportunity to defend themselves and tell their side of the “story”.

The last and most interesting topic to me was that of multiculturalism. This was the one that I related to the most because it gave me a sense of relation. Our society is extremely diverse and we are all given equal opportunity. The only question is, what will you do with that opportunity and how will you fulfill your own dreams and aspirations?

When I look back at what I learned through out the quarter I can say that I left with more knowledge then I entered with. The topics that Professor Lewis chose for his course kept me interested. For the first time I actually found some enjoyment from the readings, because it was easier to relate to the readings due to the generalized topic of “multiculturalism” and our society as a whole. The one thing that I learned about “reading” before I actually started the readings was to go into them with an open mind. There were some topics that hit more of a nerve with me then others did. After the readings, I would ponder about the deeper meaning of what the author was saying and try to understand their point of view because many of these situations I had not personally gone through myself, so you had to somehow relate to them to understand the meaning behind them.

My writing process on the other hand was a different story this quarter. I had many instances where I would actually attempt my hardest and make outlines and have other proofread my paper. But there were other instances when school and life hit me hard at the same time and I ended up “winging it.” But overall, I think my writing improved. There are some things that I should work on such as combining sentences when appropriate, creating a stronger thesis and proving it, and creating stronger sentences. Other then that, my analyses of readings and interpretations of readings did improve to some degree.

All in all, I would have to say this was a good quarter. Hopefully I did well. Anyways, have a good well-deserved break, and be ready to rock in all your classes in the spring!

Always,
Sarah