My Response Letter part I

Dear Class,

It was great to read all of your letters and to begin to get a sense of who you all are. It seems we are quite a diverse group of people, but we all have some things in common too. Let me tell you a little about yourselves: You come from such places as Mexico, China, the Ukraine, Queens, Trinidad, Staten Island, Long Island, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, Washington Heights, Brazil, Israel, “up-state NY,” Nigeria, and of course, Brooklyn. For some of you this is your very first semester taking college courses. And for others of you, it is not. Some of you have come from public schools, some from private. Many of you have siblings. One of you is a twin, another is a triplet. At least a couple of you enjoy music and consider yourselves musicians. Only one of you is left-handed (which I know from observation actually and not from your letters). Some of you like to read and some of you actually love to write. Yet, many of you do not consider yourself “big readers” and for a few of you, writing is the ultimate torture. Some of you are worried about the readings in the course being boring. Some of you are worried you won’t like the writing assignments and a few of you think you just won’t be any good at them (I disagree). A fair number of you get really excited about engaging in class discussions. And some of you are terrified to talk in class, but feel you’ll be more participatory on the blogs. At least a couple of you aren’t so sure you like the idea of a blog at all. Most of you wrote about wanting to do well in this course and succeeding in college. You ALL have words inside of you. You ALL have something to say. I look forward to hearing more from you throughout the term.