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Dear Ms. Hoffman,

Throughout the semester, you have given us many assignments, which work
us and change our thoughts about research papers and work us into using inquiry
instead. This has been a little difficult to me since throughout high school, we were
taught how to manage research papers and only research papers. This class has
helped me have an open mind to different topics that I was required to respond to
and made me think differently. This class was also difficult to me because my papers
were graded a bit more harshly than my last semesters English teacher who mostly
just threw 90,s and 100s out like it was nothing. This class has challenged me and
changed the way I think about writing papers and responding to assignments. These
next assignments are the pieces I have chosen to show my thoughts and responses
to the assignments you have given me over the past semester.
In class this semester you asked us to do a lot of peer feedback through the
forum page on moodle. One of the feed back assignments, which I enjoyed
responding to, was composing three different beginnings to your inquiry paper.
Each student was asked to come up with three different beginnings to their inquiry
paper and the class was paired up with a partner and was asked to read them,
choose which one was their favorite, and why. This is an example of the response we
gave to Sara whose paper was on fitness clothes: We think that all three of your
intro paragraphs are well written and could be used, but we like your second intro
paragraph the most. It catches peoples attention, is funny, and includes everything
that the first intro you wrote but adds more information to it. We recognized what
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the topic of your paper was immediately. Another assignment on the forum page
was when the class posted a link to their websites for their midterm/final project.
The students were asked to go check out the pages and comment on how organized
and attractive the websites were. Heres an example of feedback I gave to Kevin on
his weebly page: Kevin, I like the way your website is set up. Its a good neutral
theme and I like the random quotes that you have posted on your pages. I also like
that you have pictures of yourself to make your website yours. My last example of
forum responses I chose to include was when we were paired up with one other
person in our group and was assigned two peoples inquiry drafts and respond to it
giving helpful feedback. I chose to show the feedback Yasuary and I provided to
Hannas paper:
Your introduction paragraph is pretty good. Your inquiry question seems
pretty good too but we think that it can be written another way because it sounds a
bit long. Also, you said how is the NFL responsible... so there you are assuming that
the NFL is solemnly responsible. You want to phrase it so that it is not a
straightforward question with answers, but these are only suggestions. Remember
the MLA format for the paper. There seems to be plenty of grammatical problems.
This probably goes with MLA format too but the heading should only be seen on the
first page. Your paper was about the NFL and brain injuries but you seem to talk
about the NFL more. We think that you should include more information on the
types of brain injuries and that way there will be more emphasis on why the rules of
football have become stricter. It will also be interesting to know about some brain
injuries and which are more common in football. In your paper you mentioned
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Duerson shot himself that is very interesting; however you should elaborate on that.
It would be interesting to know his motives for shooting himself. What special rules
have been put in place in football? You said they were stricter but did not clearly
define how. Also, has anyone died of any unattended brain injuries in the NFL? What
is a concussion and how does it affect the brain? Overall pretty good draft just add to
some things that you already have.
As well as giving feedback to peers, I also received helpful feedback from my peers
through the forum page on moodle. Again, I will use our assignment on the forum
page when the class posted a link to their websites for their midterm/final project.
The students were asked to go check out the pages and comment on how organized
and attractive the websites were. Here is a response I received from Jordan:
I love the layout and background. a few tips: you may want to change the font or
color of the words in the tabs. They kind of blend in with the background and is hard
to see... also make sure scans are oriented correctly. Overall great site. I took his
tips and re-orientated some of my midterm pieces to look more organized. Another
piece of peer response I received was another response to my link which came from
Sam in which he said Very good looking and quite well set up, but you might want
to add something to your homepage, like an introduction to the webpage, or a
picture. Using his feedback, I added an introductory page on my home website and
also included a profile picture of myself to make it personal.
There has been many times where you asked us to respond in class to examples of
writings and quotes. My first example is when we were asked to respond to Tims
way of writing his inquiry papers and if we relate to him or if we do things
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differently than him while writing a inquiry/research paper. Here is my response:
Yes, the way Tim gathers information over time is the way I have seemed to do
things lately and in the past for my research/inquiry papers. So far in the past it has
worked out fine for me. It would probably be better if I looked for information on
my topic more frequently instead of only doing it when I am assigned homework. I
usually gather most of the bulk of my information right before I am about to write
my paper instead of gathering lots of articles and such over time. It is not
necessarily the smartest option but it has worked for me in the past. Another in
class activity I responded to was when you asked us to rephrase the Say Back to a
source from Deborah Tannen: I Heard What You Didnt Say. This was my
rephrasing of it Talking is what makes relationships grow and form into something
positive or negative. Talking to family members is a good go to and source to have
but it has its negatives. A family member is going to look out for you and comfort
you but if you are doing something unpleasing to them then they will scold you for it
and discomfort you. The last in class response is when you asked us to read the
quote Portion of men whose attractiveness is judged by U.S. women to be worse
than average: 4/5 and then fast write for five minutes on if we agree with this
statistic or not and if it surprised us. This was my response: This quote isnt
necessarily surprising to me. Attractiveness doesnt necessarily rely on just looks.
Some men can be very good looking but their personality totally ruins their
attractiveness. There is also my opinion that physically, very attractive or just
average looking guys are very rare. Maybe not 4/5 are below average but I would
say 3/5. The opinion isnt totally way off but it is a little over the top.
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I was honestly surprised that the men gave a more generous average. Dealing
with the past guys I have talked to, it would seem that their rating for women would
be worse. The guys I know judge women too harshly. I feel like guys compare day-
to-day women that they meet and know, to the super models on the Victoria Secret
fashion show.
When it comes to my out of class assignments, I think I put much more effort into
those compared to our in class responses. I didnt try as hard as I should have on a
few outside of class assignments like drafts because I knew I still had time to revise
them. When it came to writing the final papers I put in a lot of effort in editing things
and making them flow better. When I think about my out of class writings the only
things that come to mind are drafts from my inquiry paper, our first bibliography
draft, and our second bibliography submission. One of the out of class assignments
that I wish I had put more effort into was our first inquiry paper draft. I didnt
include everything I wanted to in it and It still needed a lot of work to flow better. To
give you an example of what I thought was wrong with my draft, here is my note to
the reader Note to Reader: There were a few main things I worked on to improve
my paper. The main thing was adding more statistics and facts on the current
standing of school safety in America. I also added more of my opinionated thoughts
after the facts I included. In my first draft, I wrote more of my paper and a
conclusion and deleted it because I didnt like it at all, so I added more to the paper
and wrote a new conclusion, which still needs a lot of work. I think my draft is going
okay but I still need to edit a few things and add in another area to talk about. One
question for my reader is what else should I bring into my paper to talk about that
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relates to my subject? Another outside of class writing example is my bibliography
draft. I also didnt like the effort I put into this draft because I rushed through It and
didnt explain why I wanted to use the sources I used very well at all. Here is a part
of my draft that I actually thought I did well with explaining why I chose to use the
source In this source, the National Institute of Justice conducts a study to see who
feels safe in schools, and what technology works best to cut down on school violence
and crime rates. They took their sample from the National School Security Officers
association because they wanted the best results. They used different security
officers from different states all over the country. They also did a study on which
technologies worked best to prevent crime rate. In the end they found that security
cameras cut down on school violence and crime rate higher than any other of the
technologies used.
I think this article will be very helpful to my research paper because it gives
ideas of how schools can actually be improved by giving statistical facts and data
from a past research study. I will be able to use the opinions of the security officers
and the data of what technology proved to work best in order to make schools safer.
I think this article is my most creditable sources.
I think that this is a very creditable source. I got it from the UNCC
library archives during a key word search. It provided all the information I needed
in order to correctly cite it. The publisher and website is also the same with one of
my other sources that I am using. My last out of class writing that I chose to include
is the final bibliography draft. I liked my final bibliography because I explained why
I used some of the sources that I did better and I took out a source I didnt use and
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added a new source that I found that fit my paper better. Here is the source I added
to the bibliography Zhao, Emmeline. "Guns In Schools: Firearms Already Allowed
In 18 States With Few Restrictions." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com,
15 Jan. 2013. Web. . <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/15/guns-in-
schools-firearms-_n_2482168.html#slide=1987862>.
This article is mainly about which states have passed the law to allow
teachers to carry guns in schools and which have not. It also gives the opinions of a
couple of state representatives on the subject this article is important because I used
some of its statistics in my paper. I also used quotes of the opinions in this article. I
see it as being a creditable source. It provides the authors name and date it was
published. It is also a Huffington Post article which is a known creditable source.
Ballenger helped me out a bit when it came to getting research, topics, and
writing ideas. The main example from the text I remember using was the Pyramid of
Library Sources. Starting with the broad sources, which were General Encyclopedias
to Academic Journals, which were most specific in specialized knowledge. I know I
didnt want to use books as my resources but I definitely wanted to use articles and
websites. On the pyramid one of the most specialized knowledgeable sources were
government documents, which I decided to use for most of the information on my
paper. Another example of when I used Ballengers advice is when he talks about
looking for often-cited authors. While writing my paper I decided not to use one of
the sources I had found but I needed to include a different one in its place. I decided
to use a source from Huffington Post because I know that it is an often cited, well-
credited source. The last example of Ballingers text I remember taking advice from
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was under Developing Focused Knowledge in which he talks about the information
you are finding possibly changing your inquiry question. I changed my inquiry
question a couple of times because of the research information I was gathering. I
had to expand my question in order to include all of the information I wanted to
share from my sources.
When it came to designing my portfolio, it was pretty easy for me since I
made one last semester for my English class. I decided to make the name of my
website simple and used my UNCC email name. I kept the website simple but well
organized and gave it a cool welcoming theme. With the feedback from my peers in
my class, I added an introductory paragraph and added a picture of myself to toe
home page. The only challenge I had was changing the font color of my page titles so
that they wouldnt blend in with the background. It was a huge problem but I could
never figure out how to change them to a better color.
My three questions I had in my midterm paper were:
1. How do you analyze an extremely hard book that you dont
understand? I still havent found a good answer to this but I would say
using context clues as best as you can.
2. How has media affected English? I have yet to find out an exact
answer to this but I know we use a lot more technology in the
classroom to help us learn.
3. Has technology made the process of learning easier or harder? I
would guess that it has made learning easier since there are easier
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ways to research quickly like using the Internet to do a quick search
from wherever you are.

My two new questions include
1. Why are English classes in high school teaching students only how to do a
research paper and nothing else? I had never heard of an inquiry paper until
I came to college.
2. How can English be more interesting and exciting for students in college?

Overall, this semester in English I have learned a lot of new ways to type an
inquiry paper and how to gather good sources for both inquiry and research papers.
This course challenged me to break away from the way I learned to write in high
school and actually include my opinions in my papers. I enjoyed the semester in
your class and you are a great English teacher!









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