Maddie Chapmon

Dear Malcolm,
The first impression that I had on this UWRT 1103 course was that it was going to
be easy and it wasnt going to involve many assignments. I had that impression because
of the first day of class when we first met. You seemed super laid back and lenient
(which you are) so I assumed that this class wasnt going to have much work to it.
And then I was introduced to the ePortfolio assignment; an assignment in which
we would be working on for the entire semester. Listening to you explain the whole
inquiry process was quite intimidating to me. Even after you showed the class some
examples of other students portfolios I was still a bit frightened of the whole assignment.
But now that the class has reached the finish line, Ive gotten to see how far Ive come as
a writer as well as a thinker and this portfolio is proof that Ive grown in those subjects.
The beginning of my portfolio pretty much represents the beginning of the journey.
It starts off with my dear Malcolm letter which was basically me introducing myself and
talking about what my expectations were for the semester. As you navigate through my
ePortfolio you can see multiple writing compositions that we were assigned over the
semester compiled into a website. These writing assignments range from informal
daybook entries to academic essays, both of which are big contributions to the progress
Ive made throughout this writing course. Not only will you be able to see the writing
assignments that Ive completed since the beginning of the semester, but you will also
read about the feelings that I had while doing each assignment and the struggles that I
faced. Navigating through my ePortfolio basically allows you to walk through my entire
semester in UWRT 1103.
I remember we had a free-write assignment right when we got to class on the very

Maddie Chapmon
first day. When you mentioned that we would have one of these every class as well as
some here and there outside of class I was sarcastically mumbling to myself yay.
Although it took me a little longer than it should have, I finally came to realize that these
daybook entries were extremely important. Since Im now planning to minor in
journalism, these little writing assignments will especially be of help in that subject. They
gave me the opportunity to focus on my own thoughts, to open my mind to new ideas and
just explore. Even though these little assignments werent being graded at the time, they
were one of the informal writing assignments that helped me grow the most by exploring
my own mind. Even though class was at 8a.m. every Monday and Wednesday, pondering
and exploring my thoughts was always a good start to my day. I feel that our free-writes
were one of my strengths in the class. You allowed us to speak our mind and write our
own opinions on certain ideas. Even though I get lazy sometimes, you pushed us to write
something even if we had nothing to say, and I thank you for that.
In high school when I was assigned an essay topic it was always pretty easy to
come up with something to write about (bullshit about) for 1 or 2 pages. Oh but high
school was nothing. The literacy narrative assignment on the other hand, now that was
something. This wasnt just an ordinary essay about some film we watched in class that
day. It was a literacy narrative, a story about my experiences with language. What did
this even mean?! Once I read through the assignment and figured out what my topic was
that I was going to write about, it got me thinking about my entire history that involved
reading and writing. I didnt realize how much history I had with the two subjects, but
believe it or not I did. The title of my paper was Reading and Writing Evolve. The point
that I was trying to make clear of in my paper was that reading and writing were so much

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more enjoyable as a young child. I struggled with this literacy narrative because
throughout my paper I moved away from writing a story and instead I went on a rant
against the whole writing and reading system today, as I am no longer in elementary
school. Throughout my work, there were some areas where I was missing the call of the
assignment. For example, I didnt include enough conflict in my paper until it was later
in my life when I got to high school. After reading over your comments on my literacy
narrative, I learned that I needed to add more structure starting from the beginning. This
assignment was slightly challenging for me because I sometimes struggle trying to
communicate my ideas to my readers. However, receiving feedback and your critiquing
on this assignment gave me the tips that I needed in order to improve my communication
skills as a writer and making my writing much more understandable to my readers.
Taking this course not only helped me grow as a writer, but it also taught me how to
critique other peoples writing, such as my peers. When we were assigned our peer
review groups to review each others topic proposals, I wasnt thrilled about reading over
someone elses writing, much less critiquing work other than my own. It was almost as if
I were insecure about giving advice to my peers because I didnt want to say the wrong
thing or upset them about their writing. I was having trouble writing my own topic
proposal so its safe to say I felt a bit uncomfortable having the smallest amount of
responsibility to look over my classmates papers. Maybe Im being a little dramatic but
the point is that this whole inquiry process that weve been proceeding through over the
course of this semester has helped me to not feel so insecure. Peer reviewing not only
helped the ones being reviewed, but also the reviewers! So thank you Malcolm, for
pushing us to work together by giving advice to each other and critique each other.

Maddie Chapmon
The topic proposal assignment came as a surprise to me; it actually hit me in the
face. I didnt really understand the point in the assignment until weeks after it was turned
in. Why are we spending so much time and effort on the topic proposal? When will we
actually begin writing our essays? I was just ready to get the essay started and I was
worried that I was going to give too much information away about my essay in the topic
proposal. Again it hit me that I wasnt in high school anymore. College papers require a
lot more than the summary of a book that you found on Spark Notes. I didnt understand
how important research was until we were assigned to write a topic proposal. Finally, you
made me realize that the whole point of all this peer reviewing, collaborating online to
form a topic proposal, and what not was to make sure that the topic in which I had chosen
had the potential for intense research and deep exploration. It wasnt pointless, in fact it
was brilliant. This gave me the opportunity to choose a topic of my interest and dig deep
on that topic to see if it was worthy of the big EIP. Originally, my topic was only focusing
on the changes in divorce rates. By composing a topic proposal and receiving advice
from my peers, I came to realize that my original topic was very broad and that I should
focus my research on something more specific. This technique will also be useful in the
future when Im assigned research papers. Ill just remember back to spring semester of
2015 when I was taught how to create a topic proposal in Professor Campbells UWRT
1103 course.
After correcting my mistakes and finishing up my topic proposal, next came the
annotated bibliography assignment. YAY. That was another sarcastic yay by the way. I
didnt even learn how to correctly form citations in my papers until this semester. I was a
bit skeptical about the whole citation process in general because some of my teachers

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dont really care so they just make sure I have some sort of citation, but others look at
each part of the citation to make sure its correctAKA thats what you do. Im glad that
you correct me though because when I start taking higher-level courses as an
upperclassman I probably wont have the second chances that you gave me to fix my
mistakes. For this annotated bibliography assignment I had to think critically and
examine a variety of different sources that didnt always have the same opinion on my
topic. It was a bit difficult to do this because I was sometimes tempted to change my
opinion on the topic. For example, I do believe that divorces arent always a bad thing,
but some of the sources that I came across that seemed to only focus on the negative
effects of divorce almost caused me to have a change of mind. By the end of all of my
research, my opinion did end up staying the same on my topic, but thats the whole point
right, to find out where my position is on the topic? I felt as if I did a decent job
evaluating the information in my source summaries, though I couldve used more
discussion on the actual authors and sources that I found. This assignment was a big
learning process for me. I was pretty much learning how to create an annotated
bibliography as I was creating mine. It helped me figure out which sources information
would be of the most use for my essay and which sources information wouldnt be as
useful for my paper. Honestly, I pretty much hated this assignment while I was going
through the process and even after I finished it I still hated it. But looking back at it now
I can see and understand why you made us do it. It helped me to build research for my
essay. Without creating my annotated bibliography I probably wouldve been using
sources that were not of much help when it came to writing my EIP. This assignment
helped me a lot with my citation skills, but it also made me more aware and open to using

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different sources when conducting my research. Usually I just type a topic into the search
bar of Google and select the first choice that pops up, but after going through the process
of making my annotated bibliography Ive learned that there are so many more options
other than Google and Wikipedia. There are books, articles, newspapers, documentaries,
and all sorts of sources available for research. Although it was pretty time-consuming,
my annotated bibliography taught me to not be lazy when conducting academic research
and I feel as if it has helped me improve my research note-taking skills overall.
After bulldozing through proposals, bibliographies, and all that good stuff, it was
time to put together all of the research and work that I had been doing since the beginning
of timeI mean the beginning of the semester. In other words, it was time for the first
draft of my EIP! This EIP took me a while to finish. The thing about research papers is
that sometimes I struggle putting things in my own words, so I tend to use quotes a little
too much throughout my papers. I also had a hard time with some of my in-text citations.
For example, in my first draft I was citing Judith Wallerstein in the text but I didnt
include who exactly she was or what her credit was; I just put her name. My essay was
educational, but it did need more research in order for me to successfully make my case.
The whole to argue or explore" thing confused me at first. Deciding whether my essay
was argumentative or exploratory was difficult at first because I felt as if I was still
exploring the topic, but at the same time I also felt that I had an opinion on it. As I wrote
my first draft I had trouble finding the right place to state my claim on my topic. I finally
decided that my paper was more of an argument, which meant that my opinion needed to
be addressed towards the beginning. Composing the first draft of my paper gave me the
chance to show that I had successfully researched my topic and to show my argument on

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the topic. This process required a lot of research and a lot of work, but it extended my
knowledge on my topic, (hints the term EXTENDED Inquiry Project).
After getting my first draft back and receiving your comments, I learned that my
EIP is in need of some fixing. Being introduced to the margin outline was a big help in
conducting my final EIP draft. It helped me narrow the focus of my paper and it also
helped me to add more structure. It helped me with the outline of my essay and showed
me the areas that were in need of tweaking. For example, in one of the paragraphs in my
first draft I brought up a new, unrelated idea to the main point of the paragraph; the
margin outline helped me choose a better spot in my paper for that information. Making
my final EIP wasnt as hard as my first draft just because I already had a base to work
with. However, finding more research was important in order to compose my final draft.
Also, I needed to go into more detail in certain parts of my paper to make them more
clear to the reader. Forming this final EIP draft taught me that the more research you do,
the better your RESEARCH paper will turn out.
It all makes since now. All of those drafts, proposals, citations, they all make
since now. Ive finally come to understand this whole ePortfolio process. Think about in
elementary school when the teacher puts all of your drawings and spelling tests in a
folder inside of a file cabinet. This ePortfolio is the same thing, just with a lot more
complexity. Now that the semester is at its end, I get to see all of the work that Ive done
as well as how Ive developed into a more intellectual writer and thinker. Going through
all of my old assignments allow me to see where my strengths and weaknesses exist in
my writing. I struggled throughout this entire process, but going through all of my work
and seeing all of the mistakes that Ive made will help me with future writing

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assignments. This process has pushed me to become more of a critical thinker, strong
question asker, and a stronger writer. After all of the brainstorming, free writing,
outlining, drafting, revising, etc., I have learned many different techniques that are useful
in order to fully understand how I think as an individual. My thinking as well as my
writing are both maturing as you can tell by looking at my ePortfolio.
Malcolm, you actually managed to teach me something. Not just something, a lot
of somethings! You werent just some boring professor lecturing us every class period.
You made class funny and not so dreadful. From the random smoking pot comments to
the random pictures of your head on a flower in your power points, you are a pretty funny
guy. But while being funny you were also able to teach us techniques to use when it
come to reading, writing, and thinking. Overall I enjoyed this semester with you. Im
going to take the knowledge that youve given me and store it in my brain because I
know it will be useful throughout the rest of my college years and even well beyond
college.

Have A Great Summer!

-Madison Chapmon
-(Maddie)
-(wordsofthemonkey)