Kacie Wagner

Professor Turgeon

UWRT 1104-028

5 December 2017

Dear Professor Turgeon,

As this semester comes to a close, I would like to thank you for pushing me harder than I

thought I could go. Throughout high school, I would stress over, say a four-page paper due in a

month. I thought to myself, how on earth am I going to present my topic accurately and receive

a good grade back in such a short amount of time? I will tell you I have never been so stressed

for a class. I began complaining harder than I worked, but towards the end I realize that moving

forward often requires attitude adjustment. A month ago, if you had asked me what remixing

writing, rhetorical analysis, or just about anything we have covered means, I would have picked

up my phone and googled away. Thanks to you, I see writing in a new, more logical and

structured light, and I have a much larger respect for writing as a whole.

Rhetorical knowledge is easily my favorite thing I have learned this semester. The ability

to use things like genre, ethos, logos, pathos, and choosing a medium to affect an audience is

truly a science I have gained and will surely continue to use throughout my experience as a

student and in my future career. Even in smaller situations, like convincing my parents to side

with me as I did in Studio Week 4: The Rhetorical Situation, knowing how to persuade my

readers with methods such as pathos and logos is extremely useful. Not only do I have the

opportunity to go to Hawaii, but they threw in ten thousand dollars in spending money. When

will I ever get the opportunity to do this again? (Studio Week 4, 1). I used logos by giving the
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amount of money, and ethos by saying I, or any other college student, probably would not

receive another chance like this again, convincing them of my character because I would not take

a seemingly irresponsible risk if I did not believe it was a beneficial one.

Being a student will always require critical reading, whether its to study, reading

questions on an exam, etc. This course especially has required me to read critically with various

assignments in which I have read a document and analyzed it well enough to report on it. The

assignment I enjoyed using this skill most was Studio Week 9: Analyzing Articles. The topic

was one I somewhat teetered on, but reading critically helps me to look more in depth for the

validity in arguments such as these by recognizing credible sources (present in the given article).

Going through the critical process leads me to making logical conclusions, Therefore, I believe

that women should get bonus points, but only after their evaluations have been analyzed and

proven to be unfairly biased, (Studio Week 9, 1), and eliminates the teetering I previously

struggled with when debating such an issue. Another example of this kind of reading occurred in

the Composing Paper assignment in which I analyzed Hello From the Other Side by Julie A.

Cook. This required a lot of repeated critical reading, because I at first did not understand the

article. Cook captured me with her personal experiences with writing, another example of pathos.

The composing process is one I have struggled for a long time to learn, and I feel that

even though I may still struggle, I have mastered it. The Personal Narrative Analysis and

Reflection is the biggest example of this particular skill picked up in the course. I can still

remember sitting in my Laurel dorm wracking my brain over what would sound stupid and what

I should say so I would not embarrass myself submitting a paper to my first college professor. I

do not currently have a rough draft of this assignment, because I cut my mistakes and sewed

them back together with the input of my roommates, but I am proud of my finished product.
Another instance where the composing process was very important was the Group Gameplay

Reflection. This was a longer process because my partners and I had to physically meet with my

partners, get through a few technical difficulties, and reflect on what the assignment caused me

to experience. In the paper I said, You may walk into a situation with a closed-minded plan, and

two steps in, you may realize you have to learn to adjust your sails or come up with a completely

different plan in order to be successful in that environment, (Group Gameplay Reflection, 1),

which very accurately describes my experience with the composing process. This entire class has

composing processes which makes it hard to just pick a few documents, but these two

specifically showed me that sometimes your plan to write does not always go as planned, and

you have to be resilient and flexible to continue with your journey to a crisp final document.

The Mini-Ethnography project required thorough knowledge of conventions, because I

struggled back and forth with why the structure exists the way it does. Tedious things like

annotated bibliography and an abstract are important to this kind of paper because you really

have to know why and how your sources are supporting your paper. Having such a demanding

style of paper has certainly also taught me to work ahead and be consistent with the time I allow

myself to put effort into the structure and proper completion of my papers.

My website and this course is most rich in critical reflection, and I believe that it has

become my most solid skill. I have always enjoyed writing, and reflecting on documents and

myself has helped me most in this course. My favorite instance of critical reflection, and my

most enjoyable studio, was the Myers-Briggs (Studio Week 6). College is all about finding

yourself, and this test helped me confirm who I think I am and who I hope to keep growing to be.

Im never satisfied with my progress and Im always wanting to change something or

improve some aspect of my work or myself. Sometimes this is a positive thing, because Im
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always looking to make a situation better, but sometimes it can be negative because it can feel

like no matter how hard I work, theres always something that needs to be fixed, (Studio Week

6, 1). This quote from my reflection did just that made me reflect. Sometimes I may not finish

the work the way I want it finished, but in this course especially, I take in my mistakes and

shortcomings to learn from it the next time, because I want to not only show myself I am

capable, but I want to show you as well. The assignment that was important to my career as a

student and post-college, and used a great deal of reflection was mini-ethnology and the Studio

Week 11: The Interview. I began my college experience thinking I wanted to go into business

because my parents wanted me to, but I learned by searching the major for myself that I have

different aspirations. No, it may not make as much money as maybe a job in the marketing field

could possibly make, but pursuing a career in something that I would be more skilled at is more

important to me. I feel that teaching would be more rewarding for me personally, because I

would be able to teach the future generation the foundations of education, as well as the

foundations of life, (Studio Week 11, 1). I believe that a career in education is a selfless one,

which goes along with my results from the Myers-Briggs test. Choosing a career path most

definitely requires one to reflect on who they are and what they want for themselves, and no

other assignment from any other class could have given me the task to show me what I really

want, and I could not be more thankful for that.

In conclusion, I have really tried to prove myself worthy of passing this class. You have

seen me do well, and you have seen me come up short, but I am very proud of what every

assignment has shown me, whether it be something about my work ethic or a specific skill

involved in the course. Thank you for your instruction, patience, and sometimes lack of patience

to push us toward what you believe we can be. As a future educator, I have respect for what you
do and the hardships involved. I hope you are proud of all of us as we move forward, and know

that you are engrained in our brains as the professor who best prepared us for what is to come.
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Works Cited

Wagner, Kacie. Group Gameplay. Gameplay Group Reflection. 18 September 2017, pp. 1

Wagner, Kacie. Studio Week 4: The Rhetorical Situation. 17 September 2017, pp. 1

Wagner, Kacie. Studio Week 6: Myers Briggs Test. 10 October 2017, pp. 1

Wagner, Kacie. Studio Week 9: Analyzing Articles. 22 October 2017, pp.1

Wagner, Kacie. Studio Week 11: Interviews. 6 November 2017, pp. 1