Haskins 1

Dear Mr. Campbell,

It has been a good semester, I feel like I’ve learned a lot about my self as a writer and I

have become more confident when I write. Allowing my mind to take my writing places that I

never knew it could. In my final letter to you I would like to talk about; the different activities and

assignments that I did, the most important work I thought I did in class; the strengths and

weaknesses I have discovered about myself as a writer, my progression regarding the SLO’s, and

lastly my development as a writer, thinker, and questioner in class and the challenges I faced

Throughout the semester I have been assigned activities to complete that challenge my

mind and my way of thinking as a creative writer. Some activities helped me to realize what I

should do, while others did not have as much of an impact on me. In this section I will discuss

what helped me grow as a writer, and what didn’t. Everyday before class started, I was given a

prompt to respond to, this prompt could have been a question I had to answer or a reflection about

the reading assignment the night before. What ever it may have been, its purpose was not to

formulate the best response possible, it was to brain dump what you were think onto the paper.

Allowing students to say what they think, they could say how helpful the reading was and how It

challenged their thinking on a subject or the complete opposite. Either way, what ever you put on

paper was what you felt, this would clear your brain and allow you to think clearly and freely

without any hesitation. I found these free writes to be extremely helpful because it was almost like

keeping a diary about my homework or what the class was supposed to be learning, and it allowed

me to tell the truth about what I thought about the assignment, not “oh I think this is a wonderful

piece of work”. No, I could be honest and say it was crap, I hated it, then proceed to explain why

it wasn’t helpful. This allowed me to clear my head and write freely, it let me get all the garbage

out of my head, when I began to write I noticed that my writing was focused and made sense. This
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was the case for the free writes. As for the blog posts, I did not feel like those were helpful, only

because it was hard for me to keep up with them outside of class. They did get me to think about

school and how the education system is set up, but other than responding to the prompt, it wasn’t

helpful for me. Another activity we did was research, I found It helpful that the class went to the

library and had a discussion with a librarian. It showed me that the librarian was a very useful

resource that can be utilized on any project and help in the research process. One night I was having

trouble accessing a source and I texted a librarian. Within minutes he was able to get me the source

I needed. I don’t know how he or she was able to fix the source, but they saved me a lot of time.

Next the peer advising and revisions helped me see others work and compare my own work to

them. It helped me realize that there is more than one way to set up papers that will get my point

across. I also found it beneficial that my classmates were able to help me find the little mistakes I

made like grammatical errors. It helps to have a second set of eyes look over your paper to catch

something you might have missed before. All these activities and assignments throughout the

semester have helped me realize that it is okay to write freely, and just to spit out whatever is on

my mind. I just need to sit down afterwards and sort through the mess to see what is good and what

isn’t and go from there.

The most important work that I have done in this class is my studio and my drafts.

The studios help me to realize what is right and what isn’t when writing a paper. They also walk

me through the process of becoming a good writer by using phrases and examples in my writing.

They teach me how to introduce quotes, or how to revise a paper, proper ways to research a topic,

and just the basic things any writer should know how to do. My goal as a writer was to be able to

feel confident in my writing and not worry about saying something wrong, but to just get the point

across, and I feel that with the studios I have completed, I have met my goal. I learned how to have
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an opinion, and then back it up using supporting evidence and incorporating that evidence

seamlessly into my writing rather than just throwing it. As a student, I wanted to pass the class

with an A, but going through the semester I realized that I did not have to focus on getting the

grade I wanted but rather I had to focus on trying new things with my writing. Experimenting new

ways of writing helped me become a better and more confident writer. The next important work I

did was my drafts. In them I kind of just laid everything out on paper even if it was a bad idea to

begin with, I wrote it down. I learned that it is easier to take words out that don’t make sense than

to add words in without over complicating things. My goal as a writer was to become more creative

with my writing and to use what ever came into my head rather than sifting out all my ideas leaving

me with boring words. I wanted to explain ideas rather than just tell them and get the reader

thinking as I do. I felt like I accomplished that with my drafts. My goal as a student was to get

something down on paper that would make sense to others who read it. I don’t think I did a good

job at this because in most of my drafts I had countless grammatical errors and my peers had to

keep ask what I was trying to say. I guess my brain works so fast that sometimes I can’t get my

thoughts down on paper.

Going into the semester, I knew that I had strengths and weakness that needed to be

addressed. For instance, my confidence in what I write. I tend to write very fast and what I typically

write down doesn’t make sense to the audience. A strength that I had was my ability to talk and

talk for hours with no end. I could keep a conversation going with a rock if I had to. Through the

course of the semester I have worked on my confidence issue and have seen an improvement in

the way I write and the words I use to write. I find myself writing out long ideas that have a focus

to them not just some random words taking up a page, this came through practice and reminding

myself that I need to work on this. My strength still is the same, it hasn’t changed. But I like that
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I can talk and express my ideas widely, it lets my brain have a brain dump and lets me realize that

I have good ideas.

After reviewing the Student Learning Objectives for UWRT I think I have made some

progress and fit the description while not making others. Rhetorical Knowledge is an area that I

think I have progressed in as a reader and as a writer, because if I know the context of what I am

reading then if I write about it later I know how to present it to someone. You would not give a

technical paper to someone who wants to read about a fairy tale, so you match your topic with the

correct writing style and writing format. Same goes with reading. If it’s a fairy tale you’re reading

then you don’t have to ask in depth question or check the source of information, just read the book.

My critical reading skills have not improved, so many things just go over my head when it comes

to fictional reading and I always miss what the author is trying to get me to think. I just get bored

when it comes to critical reading, so I tend to slack off, not remembering the important information

from the text.. The composing process has stayed the same, it’s just in college I have a lot more

freedom to choose what I want to write about, letting me showcase my better writing style. It has

also helped to collaborate with other students in the class to get their opinions on my writing and

see what I can do to get better. After reading the SLO for knowledge of conventions, I have no

clue what it is asking. Is it asking do I know how to write in different formats like APA, and MLA

8? If that is what it is asking then no I do not. I always get the two mixed with each other, especially

this semester I have one class that requires APA and UWRT requires MLA 8. So, half the time

when I’m writing I don’t know if its correct or not, I just go onto Purdue Owl and check. My

critical reflection has improved taking this class because we are always told to think about why we

did something. At first, I never thought of it, but further into the semester I started to get why I

asked certain question and what my brain was thinking. For example, my EIP was about the Earth’s
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magnetic field. After writing the first few sections, my brain was toast and I didn’t think I could

write about anything else. Well, then I started to ask questions and found “could we make our own

magnetic field?”. From there I was off on a tangent that lead to answers and then more questions

that had answers to. So, I’ve learned as a writer whenever you’re stuck, just keep asking questions.

Overall, I feel like I have met the requirements for the SLO’s for this class.

This semester I have made progress in developing my skills as a thinker, questioner, and

as a writer in UWRT 1104. I did this through constant practice of these skills while trying to create,

develop, and editing my essays. I did face a few challenges along the way, for one example

whenever I got stuck writing I would always go back to my original questions that got my paper

going as think of more questions, this way I would have avenue to branch off to expand my paper.

Another challenge I faced writing my papers, I would get annoyed at writing these long papers

that I did not have the effort to review them. But then I found helpful ways of making it less painful

like reading outbound or reading for short periods then taking breaks. Overall, I have improved

my skills of a thinker, questioner, and as a writer in UWRT 1104.

Lastly, I would like to reflect on some assignment I did throughout the year. First my topic

proposal. At first I did not think I was going to have enough material to write about. In my mind,

I thought the magnetic field something that everyone should know about, but as I started

researching I found new information that I never knew and realized how wrong I was. I enjoyed

learning more about the magnetic field, I realized how important it was to life on our planet and

how rare it is for life to form on other planets in the universe. I found that once I started researching

the topic everything started to click, the questions got simpler, and the paper started to get longer

and longer as I explained almost every point. Next my annotated bibliography, it was an interesting

project to have but it was beneficial in the end. One thing I would change though if I had to go
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back was to change some of the sources I had to focus more on my paper. The sources I chose

were too broad and didn’t really help as much as I thought they would. Writing out four sources

and explaining the background of the author and summarizing the article helped me understand

what creditable sources look like. The Final EIP was a struggle to make, I had the first draft to go

off of but by that point I was tired of writing and I didn’t want to go back. Here is where I had to

go back to the drawing boards and find new questions to answer about my topic to counite my

paper. Looking back at my paper, some of the sections later in the paper might feel like they were

thrown in. To avoid this, I should have tried to tie the questions into other paragraphs earlier in the

paper to make them seamless. But, overall that project was fun and rewarding, I feel like I have

really accomplished something that I am proud of and will be talking about for a few more

semesters. Finally, my E-portfolio. This thing is massive! I never knew I did so much work in this

class, and I probably displayed about 75% of it. Currently I am still working on the graphics and

some details, but it has been an enjoyable experience. It reminds me of how hard I worked or didn’t

work on an assignment and encourages me to do better. No wonder I am writing so much in the

letter, I had so much work to do. With this project the one thing that surprised me was how easy it

was to make a website. I have herd that some engineering class have to program their own

websites, now I know this isn’t an engineering class but still, it’s easy.

It has been a great semester, I feel like I have learned a lot about writing in this one semester

than I have in all my years in high school English. True writing is not about reciting information

from a text book or saying what a teacher wants to hear, it about questioning things and wondering,

then expressing those thoughts and feelings in a form that others can read. Thank you, Mr.

Campbell, for a great semester, It’s Lit.