Reagan Brown

Meaghan Rand
UWRT 1102
April 28, 2015
Final Reflection
Automatically when I think of a writing class some of the first images that come to mind
are pictures of people falling asleep at a desk or brainstorming ideas for a paper. When I took the
concept of writing and applied it to the experience that I had in UWRT 1102, the images that
came to mind looked a little different.

I felt like these two images went hand-in-hand. Group work and group brainstorming activities
played a major role in this this semester. Before this class I can sincerely say that I never saw
how working in groups could benefit me and my personal grade; I just thought getting placed in
groups and working together was merely busy work. As the semester comes to a close, my view
of splitting into smaller groups was slightly different. The inquiry paper that we wrote is a
perfect example of how I benefitted from working in groups. I couldnt decide how I should
narrow such a subjective topic dealing with dj vu into one question, and being able to
brainstorm and receive feedback from my group helped guide the entire direction of my paper.
We split into groups like this for each of our major topics; this had a tremendous positive impact
on the final results of my paper. The second image ties into group work as well. Throughout the
semester, I would often brainstorm a wide variety of ideas because the topics were so broad. This

class was all about piecing these ideas together often with the help and feedback and my peers
in order to create a final product for each project we completed throughout the semester.
If I were to teach this class, I would emphasize that there is more to writing than perfect
grammar, punctuation, and big words. I would emphasize that it is more about content and how
well you can get your ideas across to your audience. Personally, a lot of the time I was too
focused on correcting my grammar and making it look like I used big words throughout my
paper instead of how well my paper flowed and how creative the overall content of my writing
was. If I were teaching this class I would also emphasize the phrase slow and steady wins the
race. Oftentimes I would try to rush through a paper and submit it as soon as I could. Looking
back, I realized if I had just taken my time, I could have improved my areas significantly in
certain areas. Its not always about finishing as quickly as possible; sometimes writing will be
tedious and time-consuming, but if you take it step-by-step (and dont procrastinate), you will
have a successful outcome.
My favorite piece of writing that I read in UWRT 1102 was Eighners On Dumpster
Diving. I was assigned this reading junior year of high school in AP English this first time I
read it, I did little more than just skim through this short writing; I didnt get very much out of it.
When I read it again for the second time in this class, I took time to read the entire piece as
opposed to just skimming through it. I wish I had taken the time to read it in high school;
Eighners experience living in poverty was humbling to say the least. Ive never gotten the
opportunity to talk to, or even read about the story of someone who had to sort through
dumpsters in order to survive. If I could ask Eighner one thing, I would ask how he remained so
positive in his situation; most people would trade almost anything in order to avoid living in
poverty and having to dig through trash to find their next meal. I enjoyed how much insight he
gave into a life that I am so unfamiliar with; not only did he give insight, but he put a positive

spin on it. It was encouraging to read through a story in which someone who had so little made
the most out of the little that he did have. It made me realize that I have so much that I myself
take for granted.
In all honesty, as a whole I feel like my writing plateaued throughout the semester in each
of my major project. By the time I got to UWRT 1102, I came into the class with the mindset that
I had already learned everything I needed to know about writing. I think this mindset was more
harmful than helpful to the quality of my writing. I learned by the end of the semester that you
dont necessarily always learn more in a writing class, but you will improve your writing skills if
you continuously practice incorporating different skills and techniques in your writing. If I were
to change anything coming into the class, it would have been my mindset. Skill-wise, like
mentioned before, I would change the fact that I focused so much on correcting my grammar and
punctuation instead of the content and the core meaning of the message I wanted to get across to
my reader.
Although I could have improved in this area, I do think I had a lot of successes in this
class throughout the semester. What I did well was before each major writing assignment, I
would make an outline and jot down ideas that I could work with. This helped a lot when I
started to write my paper I would have a list of different topics I could write about and I had a
general idea of the shape I wanted my papers to take. I also did a good job with not
procrastinating on my papers. I learned this the hard way first semester in UWRT 1101 when I
would be up all night trying to write and revise a paper in a matter of a few hours.
A specific piece of writing in which I had to use a variety of different rhetorical devises
was in my dance history class last semester. For this class, we were assigned a paper in which we
had to watch a video of a dance from a certain time period and had to describe the dance and
write about what story the dance told through the choreography. In my paper I used the rhetorical
device of imagery to describe the dance. I felt like the use of imagery was the most successful

way of describing what the dance was like and mapped out in my readers mind what it looked
like. Because the choreography of the dance I watched was very repetitive, another rhetorical
device I chose to incorporate in my paper was the repetition of my word usage. I felt like this
made a powerful impact in my writing. Lastly, in this paper I included the rhetorical device of
logos in order to describe facts about the history of the dance. I chose to use logos because I felt
like it added more depth to my paper; instead of just describing the dance over and over again in
four pages, I was able to create a scene of background information for my audience. Overall, I
feel like this was one of the strongest pieces of writing that I turned in because of my successful
use of different rhetorical choices.
The story of UWRT 1102 can be summed up in a variety of different steps. To point out
the obvious, like any other writing class, this class was centered around writing. Throughout the
semester we completed multiple major assignment paired along with smaller assignments.
Almost every class period we would respond to a question posed by our professor in our
daybooks; these freewrites were mainly to continually practice different writing skills. The first
major assignment that we had in this class was a conflict narrative. For this paper we were
assigned to choose a past experience that posed a conflict in our life and how we handled this
conflict. This conflict assignment took on many different forms. We were assigned to write and
submit four different writings that pertained to our conflict and then we had to edit them all and
put them together. Meanwhile, we were also assigned different blog post assignments in which
we had to respond to a topic given by our professor every now and then throughout the semester.
This was similar to our freewrite assignments, but it encouraged us to think on a deeper level
they were also outside of class assignments as opposed to the freewrites, which were all written
in class. The second major assignment that we wrote in UWRT 1102 was our inquiry project. For
this, we had to choose a question that did not have an obvious yes or no answer and research and

find the answer or solution to it. We then had to turn this question into a paper and then again
into a different genre that provided solutions or answers to our question. Little assignments we
did alongside this was watching the Truman Show movie and responding to it on top of our blogs
and freewrites. Writing is a skill that is taught and retaught from kindergarden throughout your
college career. By the time I got to UWRT 1102, instead of focusing on how to learn to write, we
learned how to think creatively and transform your thoughts into words on paper.
In the future, my hope is to go to graduate school at UNC Chapel Hill for physical
therapy school. Although once I get into my actual career my work may not be centered around
writing, working my way there will require a lot of it. Whether its writing different essays trying
to convince a future employer to hire me, or its writing a resume for a graduate school
application, I will use a lot of writing skills in the near and far future. Eventually I may seek a
PhD in physical therapy later down the road and research new methods of rehabilitation for
patients. A PhD degree is centered around research, which will require a large amount of writing
on my behalf. In terms of what my writing could do for the world, I feel research methods I may
come up with could change how physical therapists assign rehabilitation programs for their
patients. Short-term, the writing I will continue to do will follow more along the lines of the
many college essays and assignments that I will have to complete within the next three years of
my college career.
I think each person has a little bit of writer in them. Writing has been engrained in our
education since we were little. All throughout grade school weve learned how to write paper
after paper. A writer is defined as someone who has written a particular text. I would without a
doubt consider myself, along with nearly everyone else who has been through numerous writing
classes or written any particular text, a writer. I may not always be the best writing depending on
which assignment or topic that I am given, but a writer is not defined by how well you write; a

writer is defined by whether or not you DO write. I think with the amount of work and effort I
have put into my writing throughout grade school and even throughout college it would be unfair
to not call myself a writer.
A lot of times I struggle with how to word a paper or how to structure or outline a certain
section or paragraph, but that doesnt mean I am not making an attempt to write. This in itself
defines me as a writer. I also strongly believe that writing isnt all about formulating essays and
submitting them for a grade. Writing is also about creativity and it can come in the form of many
different genres. In our inquiry project we had to turn our paper into different genres this was
still considered writing. While a writer is defined as someone who has written a form of text,
writing is defined as a form of text written itself; this takes many forms. All in all, I consider
most people writers, including myself, at all different types of skill levels.