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Job Description

Substitute Teacher for Biddeford School District

Reflection on Workshop

Peer review via Zoom was a little challenging because it wasn’t always the easiest to hear and connect with my group members, but I think I received some good feedback. I was worried that my cover letter would sound too much like a résumé in paragraph form, but my group thought it was a good combination of both. My group had mostly positive feedback for me, like the overall structure being coherent and how using connections at UNE gives me credibility. I think the biggest thing I need to work on while I’m revising is condensing and breaking up long sentences. The overall tone seems quite formal to me, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. However, I’m not an overly formal person and I don’t want to misrepresent myself. I think adjusting the rhythm a bit might enhance my cover letter as a whole. 

On the topic of peer review, I’ve found it helps most as a writer to hear critical feedback with suggestions for improvement. That way, even if I don’t end up using those exact suggestions, I still know what needs work and I have some ideas of how to fix the issue. I think in general, being able to look at another person’s writing is helpful to figure out what you can work on. By peer-reviewing others’ work, you can sometimes apply the group’s advice to your own work. One thing I wish we could have done differently is shared our cover letters before class so we’d have more time to think about each letter and come up with some suggestions. Especially for me, I have trouble thoroughly digesting what I’m reading when there is a lot going on in the background, so I don’t know if I was able to give very good feedback to my group. 

Reflection on Process

Writing a cover letter was challenging for me because I’ve never liked talking myself up. Also, I found that I had trouble trying to find the right words, which isn’t uncommon for me since I tend to edit as I write, but I felt more pressure to pick the best words to accurately represent myself. I wouldn’t say this feeling is necessarily a bad thing, as this is the first time I’ve written professionally about myself, but rather it demonstrates to me that I’m at least aware of the characteristics of professional writing. For example, the entire time I was writing and revising, I was constantly thinking about the eight Cs and whether they applied to my cover letter. I thought about clarity and concision significantly more because those are the areas I need to work on the most, while the areas of correctness (grammar) and concrete detail are ingrained as writing habits, so they weren’t as prevalent in my mind.  

Even if the writing itself could use more work, I’m very proud of how my cover letter looks. In fact, when I printed out my first draft, I was so excited to show it off to all of my family members solely because I made my very first, albeit simple letterhead. I was pretty interested to learn that there is some choice when it comes to styling a cover letter, even if it is just the font. I’m someone who always uses Times New Roman, but I thought I’d try something new for this project, and surprisingly I really like Garamond. To me, it seems more polished than Times New Roman, which I think can go a long way on a cover letter, which is ultimately meant to serve as your first impression to a future employer.