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Jacob Highland
Professor Thomas
UWRT 1102 017
3 November 2015
Final Reflection
Choose a song or musical composition that communicates your experience with writing and
UWRT 1102. Consider including a video of the song. Explain your choice.
If I had to choose one to describe my experience writing and taking the course UWRT
1102 I would definitely have to choose the song Mercenaries by my favorite band, Angels and
Airwaves. Angels and Airwaves is an alternative band and are also considered to be space rock.
Former blink-182 singer and guitarist Tom DeLonge is now the front man of Angels and
Airwaves. I chose this song because I feel that it accurately depicts my experience. The lyrics
You didn't need to count me out, when the final push is a little weight on your neck sometimes
you didn't need to count me out, when youre feeling low here's a little hand from above 'cause
your on my mind speak to me the most. I did not let the course count me out. Many times I
wanted to give up because I felt that I was not good enough at writing. I think these lyrics
describe the struggle I was feeling. I never thought I was capable of writing a lengthy thesis
paper. I persevered and gave my best effort and somehow accomplished just about everything
that was placed in front of me.
If you were to teach this class, what would you emphasize?

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If I was to teach this course I would definitely emphasize the thesis paper and its
importance. I cannot even explain how much I learned. This assignment was the first time I
ever needed to check out a book from the library. Had I not had the assignment I definitely
would not have checked out a book and learned the things that I did. After I finished writing my
thesis I can genuinely say that I am passionate about my question. It was overall just a great
experience. At times I was frustrated and writing the annotated bibliographies definitely was not
my favorite thing in the world, but looking back it was well worth the time and effort that I put
in. Not only did I learn a lot of information about my topic, but it also gave me a lot of
confidence in my writing abilities. It took an entire semester to gather the necessary sources, but
it all went together perfectly. In my other classes I may not have to write a thesis paper, but this
assignment gave me the confidence to tackle anything that I am confronted with.
Explain how your understanding of rhetorical knowledge has changed over the course of
the semester.
At the beginning of the semester I really did not know what rhetorical knowledge was. It
is still a little bit of a challenging subject to grasp, but I have improved immensely. It is
important to target a specific audience in your writing. If you write a paper on a religion such as
Christianity then you probably want to target Christians so that they understand what you are
talking about. One example of how I shifted an assignment to fit a particular genre was my
inquiry proposal question. At first I was writing as if it was a research paper, but with the help of
my peers I was able to change that. My question was Why do good people do bad things? I
was shocked at how different a paper could sound just simply by its style. Another example
would be our daybook entries. We had such a wide array of topics and I was able to learn

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different techniques and approaches. A third example would be the They Say/I Say book that we
used so much. It definitely gives me more rhetorical knowledge because I can now effectively
have an argument in my paper and still have a clear point.
Explain how your critical reading has improved during the semester.
My critical reading has definitely improved throughout the semester. I considered being
pretty decent before the class, but now I feel much more confident. It taught me to read between
the lines and to think outside the box. Writing my annotated bibliographies I had to do a lot of
critical reading. One article I read titled The Journal of Value Inquiry, was very difficult to read.
I was faced with terms that I was not really familiar with, but still was able to learn a lot. By
piecing together all the details and looking at it from a different perspective I was able to
comprehend most of the article. Another example was the paper The Dark Side which we read
in class. At first I was shocked at the language and examples that the author used. If you look
past some of the vulgarity you can see what a great paper it really is. It proved a point and
definitely made me read between the lines. A third example would definitely have to be The
Book Thief. It was not an easy read and the author used a different style than what I was used to.
If you really sit down and analyze what the author is saying it was a great book. Thinking
critically and analytically is definitely an important tool I can use as a business major.
Discuss your composing process.
This was probably the biggest thing I learned taking this course. I never really wrote
rough drafts until this semester. Getting feedback from your peers is beyond helpful. It opens up
new doors and brings in different opinions for your paper. One classmate told me to look up the

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Stanford Prison experiment for my Inquiry Proposal assignment. I ended up not including it in
any of my papers, but it led me to learn about the psychologist Phillip Zimbardo. I used two
Zimbardo quotes in my thesis and it definitely strengthened my paper. I was also given advice
on how to structure my thesis. One class mate pointed me in the direction and made my paper so
much easier to write. Another example includes the daybook writings we were assigned. We
were always forced to share with our peers which I hated at first. I now love it because of the
new ideas that others can spark.
Provide at least three examples of your knowledge of conventions.
The They Say/I Say book was definitely a big part of the course. It changed my entire
approach to the thesis paper. I was so used to writing a certain way, but this book was able to
change that and give me new life. Another example would be when we went over correct
sentence structure in class. I remember Professor Thomas pulled up an online quiz for us to
practice proper punctuation and grammar. That really refreshed me and helped me a lot even
though I still have a lot of work to do on it. And my last example was that I finally learned how
to properly cite in MLA(I think). I never knew that you were supposed to alphabetically sort
your citations. I think that adds a lot of maturity and credibility to my papers. At least now it
looks like I somewhat know what I am doing.
Critical Reflection: a) Discuss an example of choices made during a composition. b)
Explain what you think is most important in providing commentary on others work and
receiving commentary on your own. Provide at least three examples of your nuanced use of
commentary in your writing projects.

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There are so many choices when composing a paper. They are basically limitless. For example,
in my thesis paper I chose to write about The Walking Dead. I made this choice because I felt
that a pop culture reference such as that would be easy to relate to. If a majority of people can
relate to it then they are more likely to agree with my paper and see where it is coming from.
Giving and Receiving commentary is huge in writing. Someone may have a different opinion
than me and bring up points that I never thought of. You never want your paper to sound
ignorant so it is vital that you keep all sides in account. In this class I gave a lot of commentary
and feedback. One example goes back to the daybook entries and how we shared. I always
voiced my opinion or others voiced their opinions and it sparked debates. It is always nice to
debate things with people who are open minded. Another example is giving feedback on all of
my peers papers throughout the semester. I tried to read and think critically and give my best
input. It feels good to give that input because you are potentially shaping the way some ones
paper could turn out! My last example is the small group conference. I hate sharing my
thoughts aloud to a large class. The small group conferences were a perfect setting in which I
could interact with my peers and get the commentary I needed. That was definitely an asset that
I utilized to the best of my ability.