Bethany Canning

This essay is especially important to me.  I took English 125 in my first semester at U of M so this was one of the first pieces of writing that I produced in college.  My English professor encouraged me to submit it to a freshman writing competition and although it was not chosen, it gave me the confidence to start thinking of myself as a good writer.  It is also an analytical essay, a style of writing I am partial to.  The prompt required us to do an analysis based on the works we had read that semester.  The analysis and thought process that went into this essay followed a similar pattern to that of an essay I wrote in my AP English class my in senior year of high school.  I loved really thinking about the themes and motifs in a text that interested me and finding deeper meaning and relevance in current events or in my own life.  This essay marks a milestone in my writing journey because I learned how to engage with a text and develop an argument that reflects my opinions and who I am.  This one was of the first essays in which I really thought about developing my writing voice.