TOW #31: Letter

After this month, you will never again pick up or even look at Eats, Shoots & Leaves. That's the good news. If you put effort into this class, your writing will drastically improve. That's also the good news. Most of the writing you do will be non-graded in-class essays. That's odd; it's almost as if this entire paragraph is good news. This class is not nearly as bad as the seniors would lead you to believe. While the work standards are high, the workload isn't heavy, and it's all helping you improve the quality of your writing. A packet here, a blog post there-- if you don't do the work that is expected of you, I have no sympathy.

Schedule meetings with Mr. Yost and Ms. Pronko when you need help. They're so generous with their availability that not utilizing them as a resource is almost insulting. I personally wish I had made more appointments, but I'm the type of person who is scared to let people read my rough drafts. Don't be me. Don't be a wimp. If you need help with a paper or a certain type of essay, ask Mr. Yost if he has time to look over it or help you practice. Consider this the push you need.

You are going to have failures. You will have big failures, and these you will fix. You will have small failures, and these you will blow out of proportion. Do the work, put the time in, take a deep breath, and you will be fine. Failures only make the successes more exciting.

Plus there's always toga day to look forward to.

Oh, and however "good" or "bad" you think you are at English, you're wrong. Really. Don't get discouraged; don't get cocky.