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Silvia Morel
Ella Fran Voltz
UWRT
April 29, 2016
Final Reflection
It is now time to turn to the last page of the chapter in my story that was this course and
looking back, reflect on what I learned and experienced along the way. When I first signed up for
this class, I did not know what to expect. There is always countless of horror stories tied to
college writing classes and I didnt know if this would turn out to be my own. Despite this, I
have always considered myself a writer or at least someone who really enjoys writing so I wasnt
averse to the challenge of a writing course.
I can now say that this class has been by far the most enjoyable and fulfilling course Ive
taken so far in my college career. There is something about directly transferring what we learn
into pieces of deeper thoughts and reflection that I fell in love with right from the very first in
class writing we did. From that moment on, I knew it would be a crazy journey and I wasnt
disappointed. Reading back most of the things I wrote during the semester while compiling my
portfolio I was filled with the overpowering sense of pride that only hard work and
accomplishment can bring.
Most of this course was wired to help us grow in the way we think and then share those
thoughts, so its only natural for us to do one final reflection to assess who weve become and
what weve still yet to learn. During this course I further proved to myself that my own writing

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tends to be mostly introspective and very much about what I can take away from things and
apply them or how I feel about them.
For the last part of the course we worked in an Inquiry project. I think the main goal of
this project was to allow us more freedom in researching a topic we could present. We were
allowed to choose whatever topic we wanted and then conduct research about it and present it in
any way. For my project I talked to a lot of people directly affected by my theme and read a lot
of articles concerning my topic which made it feel more like an inquiry opposed to a research
paper where its mainly based on sources upon sources that in my opinion make it so much harder
to work on.
Doing my EIP proposal was fairly easy. As soon as I knew we had to do a paper my heart
was set on the topic of language that had been weighing down on me for a while. I felt a need to
find more information and share it so that I could do away with my ignorance and thus help
enlighten others. I started brainstorming with my bilingual friends and talking to people who are
raising bilingual children and learning about their experiences. This made answering the
Proposal questions a breeze.
I encountered an unexpected wall during my research though. The terminology and the
general information about my topic was too high and it felt like everything I found just wasnt
what I was looking for: a simple way to explain a very common topic. The more research I did
the more I had to come up with different ways to formulate my questions to get satisfactory
answers. I soon grew discouraged and it really hurt my writing process a lot. I had no motivation
to write since with the lack of information I had I couldnt communicate what I wanted to say,
and most of it had to come from reliable sources not from me.

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I was freed from this slump by a Ted Talk video that basically said everything I wanted to
say in my paper. After watching that video and several others my fire for the topic returned and I
was able to finally write my paper and bring together the ideas I wanted to communicate. The
EIP helped me identify better my writing process, which is basically thinking about every
possible detail of what I will write before I actually write it. I spend a few days stewing over my
topic and playing with it in my mind, and I first write most of it mentally before I sit down and
type it.
Looking over my work as I was assembling the portfolio and reading through the
comments made to my journals, I realized I tend to be kind of vague in my statements. I also
have a tendency of overstating a point, simply by rewording it and saying it again a few lines
down. Ive struggled with the latter a lot since I can remember its a habit I dont seem to know
how to break to the point where I paraphrase myself without even noticing. Being vague is
something new. I thought I was fairly assertive and direct in my writing but it seems like Ive
started to skirt around things and maybe even avoid thinking deeper about what I am saying.
My least favorite things to do were the blogs. Mainly because despite being reminded
about them on Wednesdays, on Thursdays I still forgot to do them or forgot to answer to other
people. Also some of the themes I just didnt feel like writing much about which reflected on my
grade. In class writings were my favorites, reflecting of what we learnt in class was really
enjoyable for me. I could have an opinion of what we were discussing and seeing and was
allowed to write them time right then and there without any pressure. It was always relaxing to
write them at the end of class.
The piece I am most proud of is my journal #4 which was a free topic. I wrote my heart
out in a moment where I was really depressed and even while writing it I managed to make

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myself feel a lot better. I wrote about my painful experiences and gave myself and others advise
on how to be happy and start living for ourselves and not what others may think, do or say. I
think apart from how much I enjoyed writing it, it was also one of the best written ones I
submitted in my opinion. It was thoughtful, it started with the problem and ended with a solution
and it appealed to the audience throughout its entirety.
I already mentioned this in one of the texts commentaries but two things I learnt from
most during this semester were the bias and propaganda and the pathos logos and ethos classes.
During this classes we watched videos, read articles and had discussions that really helped me
understand them better. These two themes are the ones I think Ill most remember from this class
as I made a decision to be more aware of them in my daily life. Pathos logos and ethos in my
writing and bias and propaganda in the world that surrounds me.
That last question is really hard to answer because if Im being honest, I want an A. I
worked really hard on this portfolio and it took a lot of time and effort and an A would make me
really happy. But being realistic I know some things couldve been done better, I am aware some
of the technical things arent well done and overall in the end I didnt measure up. So I am
aiming for a B. Hopefully a high B. All of the elements are here, my reflections were thoughtful,
it is organized and above all, they reflect me. To conclude, I had a lot of fun in this class and I
will remember it fondly going forward. For now, I shall keep travelling down the road less
traveled.