Dear Reader,

Throughout viewing this portfolio you have seen a semester's worth of hard work. I look

back on this portfolio of my work and I am overall proud of the work I have created this

semester. In this portfolio, I have my Topic Proposal, Annotated Bibliography, Extended Inquiry

Project, the editing of my Extended Inquiry Project, my final Extended Inquiry Project, daily

writings, my blog, one studio and a few extra pieces of work I am proud of that I completed this

semester. These things throughout the course of the class, have helped me grow research on my

Topic, learn my writing habits, as well as see what interests me as a writer. With that being said,

I learned the writing can be a very strong outlet to release your feelings even if it is a research

paper and you pick a topic you are passionate about.

My favorite thing I have created that is in my portfolio is my blog. My blog was a

creative outlet I got to work on once a week or more throughout the semester. This blog allowed

me to talk about topics that were very important to me as a college student. My professor picked

very strong readings/Ted Talks for us that really helped us get in touch with our feelings as well

as our purpose of being here at college. We talked a lot about vulnerability, procrastination,

creativity, as well as a few extra blog post I got to chose the topic of. Talking about these things

in my blog post helped me see a different side of myself because I would write out my feelings

in my blog post and discover different things about myself that I did not know because I stated

them in my blog post. But there were a lot of other different activities and assignments that we

did in class that I truly enjoyed as well. Yes, we did essays but we also did other types of writing.

For example, we created Studios, Daybook entries, and freewriting. Another example is peer

reviewing, reading reflections, group work, editing etc. These are all things that really allowed us
to get in touch with our classmates and make our work stronger because we all would get the

chance to help make each others work the best it could be because we would all catch different

mistakes for one another. All of these things helped me become a stronger learner because it had

us working in different ways,which allowed us to grow in different ways. Everything we did in

class was a little bit different so therefore it gave us a chance to grow at a different pace. They

helped my development as a person as well because I got to work with different types of people

but also challenge myself to really get in touch with each assignment because some of these

things I have never done before. The reason for this is because in my IB HL Lang and Lit class

most of the time it was taking a section from a book and using a development chart and then

analyzing the reading with certain criteria. The things this semester really gave me a sense of

freedom in my writing because I got to pick everything. My topic, my sources, my daily writing

topics, what I talked about in my studio etc.

A lot of work in this class helped develop me as a writer. But I have to say the most

important work to me was my Topic Proposal and EIP. These two things allowed me to chose a

topic that mattered to me and create in depth research as well as get feedback about where to go

next with my research. I picked a topic that truly affects my future. I talked a lot about

government regulations with small businesses because small businesses are truly special to me as

well as entrepreneurship. These pieces should be my most important work because they

thoroughly relate to a topic that will help set up/affect what happens in my future. Businesses

being impacted by government regulations affects my jobs in the future since I am a

Management Information Systems Major. The entire way I would go about my job would be

different because of the way it is held by the government. It connected to my goals as a writer
because being a strong writer, you are suppose to write about things that truly matter to you as a

person. Setting a goal as a writer, for me that has always been number one. Therefore it has

helped me see what truly matters in an world of small businesses and entrepreneurship. These

pieces of work have connected to my goals as a writer because I got to analyze something that

truly matters for my life/future and therefore grew my knowledge on it to help me “get in touch”

with what is going on in the world of small businesses. Therefore, it helped me grow because I

chose to write about something that had a personal connection to my life. It has helped me grow

as a person because it has truly educated me and grew my knowledge throughout working on this

topic this semester.

Throughout this semester, I have learned a lot of my strengths and weaknesses at a writer.

I have allowed myself to truly be present in my writings and pick up easier on my mistakes

because I have had an amazing professor that has helped us pick out our mistakes to fix as well

as give very strong feedback on our work. A strength that I have had from the beginning of the

class, is that I know how to truly understand how I am feeling through writing. Writing is

constantly being in touch with how you feel about something and being able to connect it to what

you are writing. This is my number one strength in my opinion because ever since high school I

have used writing as a stress relief and a way to release how I feel. Another strength I have is

curiosity. Curiosity in my opinion is important to have when writing because it allows you to dig

deeper into a topic to truly understand everything it has to offer. I used these strengths in things

like my Studios, Topic Proposal, Annotated Bibliography, EIP and revising. Curiosity is always

a good strength I felt I had because when revising these pieces of work, it helped me go the extra

mile to complete my research. A weakness that I struggle with, is writing like I talk. I sometimes
put in way too many filler words but I do not notice it because it sounds normal to me. That has

always been a weakness of mine and I have tried to get better with it but it just takes more

practice. That is why I found the peer review so helpful is because my classmates helped me pick

up on it. Another weakness I have is knowing how to start paragraphs off. I can create a main

topic for a paragraph but knowing how to start it out is something I struggle with majorly in my

writing. Throughout the year, I have had strong guidance on how to create a strong introduction

to a paragraph but I know it is still a strong weakness of mine. Especially in my Extended

Inquiry Project. This was something I struggled with majorly in my EIP because of all the

context that had to be included, I was scared I was losing the main topic of my writing. It is

something I am going to continue to work on because the more I practice the stronger I will be at

it as well as feel more confident in myself while doing it.

Throughout this class the Student Learning Objectives are something I have constantly

reminded myself of, that way I could do as well in this class as possible. There are 5 main SLO’s

that we have discussed and used during this class. Those 5 being Rhetorical Knowledge, Critical

Reading, Composing Process, Knowledge of Conventions, and Critical Reflection. When you

reflect back on the assignments we have done, each of these have came into play when doing

them. I know the one place I really grew this year was Critical Reflection. Reflection throughout

my first year of college is something I do on a daily basis. When it comes to school work, my

life, experiences etc I have learned to constantly reflect. So therefore, the area I feel as though I

have grown the most is in my Critical Reflecting.

Throughout the semester, I was challenged all semester because I was constantly growing

as a writer because of what I was taught and what I read. I feel as though I had lots of progress in
this class but mostly I grew from the progress of my EIP and topic. The EIP was kind of the final

step of our topic so therefore throughout the semester I was constantly finding new research tips,

databases, etc. I was learning how to take my time on finding deep, truthful research. Where as

in high school we googled everything. Throughout the progress of things though, it allowed me

to become a deeper questioner. I am a person that likes to learn and show progress but having

one question for something and researching that and letting it grow exponentially from there.

Challenges I faced through this assignments was trying not to repeat myself, which yes I still

massively struggle with. Repeating myself makes me feel like I am relating everything back to

the main topic. I learned from dealing with these challenges that stating it once is plenty because

even if you do not feel as though it is remembered, it is.

Finally, this course overall had some major assignments for us as students that were big

parts of our grade. We had The Studios,Topic Proposal, Annotated Bibliography, first EIP Draft,

Final EIP Draft and ePortfolio. Even though some of these things were very tiring, every single

one of them benefitted me in a different way throughout the year. I loved the Topic Proposal

because that was a good starting point for us going into our EIP first draft. One thing I do wish is

that the Studios had a correlation to each other because that would help us stay in tact to when

we are completing and it would make us feel less scatterbrained possibly. I would not make any

changes though to my composing/reflection process because I am very proud of the way I

worked this semester. I am not one who procrastinates so I was always a head of my work and

had it done properly to where when I submitted I was proud of it. A lot of hard work was put into

this semester with many different assignments but the assignment that surprised me the most was

the Annotated bibliography. I never knew that you could break down a source into such detail,
and yet gain so much knowledge from it. I felt as though I actually retained a lot of the

information I was learning. The most challenging assignment for me were a few of the Studios. I

know this may sound weird because they are one of the simpler things of the class but some of

them were hard to understand to where it would take me a few days of working on it to really get

what the purpose was. This helped me grow though because it allowed me to pick apart

assignments to see what the end goal was.

Overall, I learned more about myself in this course as a writer, questionnaire, reflector,

and thinker then I ever thought possible. This course allowed me to find myself as a writer and

what I enjoyed. All of the processes I learned in this class, I will carry with me the rest of my life

because I learned new people skills, writing skills, analyzing skills, as well as many other things.

SLO’s are things you want to be better at by the end of the semester and overall I feel more

confident in every area because of the things I have learned in this course and about myself. My

work from this course is something I am proud of because I have spent hours on it and it has

taught me an abundance of things. Thank you for reading my reflection and UWRIT 1104 will

forever be a class I am thankful I got to take.