Final Reflective Letter A.

Smith 1

Final Reflective Letter

Ashleigh G. Smith

Professor Malcolm Campbell – UWRT 1104

The University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Dear Professor Campbell,

Initially, I was not thrilled about this class. Don’t get me wrong, I love writing, but being

told what to write doesn’t exactly thrill me. I think I just hate being told what to do in general.

However, this class didn’t turn out to be as bad as I thought it was going to be. I enjoyed being in

class, I never once had the desire to skip! I loved getting to learn about education, life, and

writing from various different prospectives!

Freewriting was often funny, thought inducing, and eye-opening. I would get a bit side

tracked on the creative prompts and start writing about the most ridiculous things. It really did

become a free write, because I would write down whatever came to the forefront of my mind

first. Although, I won’t lie, I was annoyed having to write them every class day. However,

hindsight is always 20/20, and I can now understand why we did them every class. My daybook

became so beneficial when it came time to write my EIP and completing my ePortfolio.

The studios. Oh, the studios. The biggest pain in my butt, but only because I literally

forgot about every single one of them until the day before they were due. I didn’t particularly

enjoy doing any of them except for studio five because they were boring (Sorry!). Studio five

was the writer’s move studio. I found it mentally stimulating and kind of fun to complete! Studio

five was also sort of challenging to me because I had always been taught to use internal citations

as opposed to using writer’s moves. Also, studio five became super helpful in the completion of

my EIP. The studios, as a whole, surprised me, because I had never been given the task of

completing work even remotely similar to any of the studios. It was interesting and they all

proved to be, in some way, beneficial throughout the duration of the semester.

I was so glad that I had my daybook when it came time to write all of my blog posts. My

daybook writings made it so much easier to complete my blog posts when I got behind and
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couldn’t remember what the assignment was. In fact, my daybook is coming in handy right now!

I am able to look back on my past thoughts and feelings and go back to that headspace.

Additionally, I enjoyed keeping my blog, for the most part. I feel like my blog helped me

develop as a learner and a thinker, allowing me to see arguments from both sides and

prospectives. I also liked writing my own blog posts, about whatever I was feeling at the time,

and that became a super cathartic thing for me to, and I think I will continue to write for myself

too.

Peer critiquing was so beneficial to me, because I got to see if my paper made sense to

my peers. If I didn’t dumb myself down enough so that they could understand, then I knew I

needed to clarify my writing so that anyone could understand. I also enjoyed getting my peers’

feedback so I can adjust my writing to appease a larger group of people.

Reading, researching, revising, and editing sucked. All of it sucked. I hated it. I’m not

one to sugar coat, so I’m not going to here, either. I did not enjoy doing any of it, maybe because

it’s tedious or maybe because I’m just lazy or maybe because I’m a perfectionist and can’t sleep

until I am happy with my work. That is all I really have to say about that, honestly. It sucked.

I did not mind group work so much; I usually hate it. Lacy, Morgan, and I all got along

very well, in my opinion. I think we are all very open, honest people and that made it easy for us

to criticize each other’s writing without feeling like we were going to hurt one another’s feelings.

I really appreciated the feedback from the girls, and I am going to miss working with them.

To me, the most important work we did in class was our daybook work. I think our

daybook work proved to be really helpful in many assignments, including our EIP and

ePortfolio. I think my daybook helped me develop as both a writer and student because our
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freewrites and blog assignments really helped me see both sides of an argument. Which I think is

beneficially in both everyday life and in my writing.

Oh, I suck at implementing writer’s moves. I’m horrible at it. I don’t think I got too much

better at writing them in, but I definitely tried and that in itself is improvement in my book. My

strength, I think I’m very good at putting my thoughts and feelings on paper. Writing has always

been my escape and I think I really highlighted on that in this class.

I think I grew as an overall person in this class. I can see that my writing, overall, just got

so much better. It’s not as uptight and proper and flows much better now than it did before. As a

thinker and a reader, I think I have the ability to see both sides of a point or argument, which is

really beneficial when it comes to thinking clearly and understanding a piece of writing.

I definitely think I have become more skeptical of a lot of things because of this class.

This class has made me question rather a piece of writing was factual as opposed to opinionated.

I think I have become a better writer, like I mentioned before. And I think I think much more

clearly now and able to play Devil’s advocate a bit more; I can now argue both points of an essay

instead of only agreeing to one side.

My topic proposal was easy. Easy breezy. I already knew what I wanted to write about

before we were even officially assigned our EIP. I am passionate about the game of hockey and

the rate of concussions and firmly believe that fighting should be removed from the game of

hockey altogether in order to better protect players from concussions and subsequent CTE.

However, I went in with a preconceived notion on how easy it would be to A) eliminate fighting

in hockey, but also B) formulate my thoughts and research into an entire essay.

The annotated bibliography, while not at all fun to do at the last minute, (or at all) proved

to be a great resource for my EIP. I hate doing research for papers more than anything and
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completing the annotated bibliography somehow made doing research more miserable than it

was before. Yes, it was an easy assignment to complete, but God, it was miserable. Miserable.

However, it proved to be very helpful when it came time to cite my sources in my EIP.

My first EIP draft was an absolute nightmare. While, I think my paper was well written,

it was nothing short of a short, disorganized mess. It was bad. I enjoyed writing it, but looking

back, yikes. I did not find it too challenging. Finding information was rather hard and gave me

difficulties but didn’t make me want to cry or anything. If I could change something, I would

definitely start sooner and proof read way more than I did before I turned it in.

Of all of our assignments this semester the final EIP draft made me want to cry, scream,

and rip my hair out all at the same time. I loved my topic, but my perfectionism definitely kicked

in while I was writing and made me have some internal debates. I was stressed and tired at the

end, but I am so happy with the way it turned out. I’m sure in a few weeks I can read it and hate

it, but right now I’m happy, and I’ll take that.

Building my ePortfolio was so fun! I love coding and building websites and blogs, so I

had an absolute blast putting my ePortfolio together. I for sure got frustrated at points, but I

pulled my feelings together long enough to build something that I loved! However, next time I

have to build an ePortfolio, I will start much sooner than I did!

Overall, I enjoyed this class thoroughly, wouldn’t take it again if I didn’t have to, but I

enjoyed it. I also enjoyed having you as a professor and I want to thank you for pushing me to

work harder while also being kind! Thank you for lending me your vast knowledge for a

semester! And thank you for creating a warm, funny, and enjoyable environment every Tuesday

and Thursday!