Letter of Commendations and Recommendations

Dear Tenaya Williams, 

Thank you so much for allowing me to do an internship with your organization.  It has been a privilege to work with you.  I have grown as a writer with your help.  I have immensely valued the experiences I have had with your organization, and I thank you for every one of them. 

I also must commend you on the way in which you have made this internship work.  Your laid-back approach to this arrangement was welcome and set me at ease.  I also really appreciate your mentoring.  Your concern for my own learning was incredibly helpful to me.  I appreciate it greatly.  You, personally, were a great example to watch work.  Your diligence and work ethic are worth emulation.  You are able to be very productive in the midst of a hectic work environment and in a demanding field.  Watching you work and participating in your creative effort were great ways to learn what it means to be a professional in this field.  Involving me in your Critique Group was another wonderful part of the experience that allowed me to better understand the writing community and my own skills as a writer.  I have also enjoyed being able to engage with your work directly.  Some of my most gratifying work when I was annotating your text or brainstorming with you.   

I would also offer up some recommendations for your consideration.  The first of my recommendations is that your organization could benefit many more interns like me.  I would advise that you take on more interns.  There are many aspiring writers that your experience could aid.  I would also recommend that future interns be given more tasks of practical importance.  There were points in my internship that I was not certain of my usefulness to you.  An intern wants to feel like they are useful.  More feedback would likely alleviate this feeling.  A more structured schedule of what the interns ought to do each week might make it easier to find more tasks of pressing importance to give them.  More structure, in general, would give future interns a sense of direction and purpose that will improve their experience.  Though this is not always possible, more involvement with the professional aspect of your organization's field would also be helpful in giving a sense of purpose and helping interns become more confident in working with this aspect of the occupation.  I would advise allowing your interns more interaction with your own work.  As I said earlier, this was my favorite work to do during the course of my internship.  This was work of pressing importance, directly and clearly useful to your organization.  I hope these recommendations will be helpful to you as you consider taking on new interns.   

I want to sincerely thank you again for this opportunity.  I hope we can continue working together as I return to my schooling.  If you find your organization in need of further assistance for a while, I would be thrilled to return.   

Sincerely, 

Michael Kennedy