Emily Norris

Ms. Morton
UWRT 1102
01 December 2016
Final Reflection
On the first day of this class, I had very little expectations. The
only thing I knew was that I was stuck in this class because I didnt
score well enough on my high school Advanced Placement test and I
was very bitter about that. While I have always liked to write, a writing
class was the last thing I wanted to spend my time on as the stress of
nursing school is such a huge part of my life. My goals for this class
were to obtain an A and to expand my writing abilities. At first I only
attended class to get the attendance points but after the first few
classes, Tuesday and Thursday mornings became my favorite part of
the week. I was surprised at how much I liked the book Fight Club
(which also happened to be the first novel Ive read since who knows
when), and I enjoyed our daily discussions about life and controversial
topics. Ive learned so much about my writing and how to improve it.
Not only have I (hopefully) achieved my goal of making an A in
this course, but I have also set new goals for myself. For the first time
ever I am learning how to truly immerse myself in the content of my
current and future courses. I loved our writing assignments about the
book Fight Club and every opportunity we got to include our personal

opinions in our writing. I also believe that I put forth a lot of effort into
our group projects (which is something that I usually loathe). I will
certainly carry these things with me in the future as I continue to grow
and learn how to better myself academically.
I have included many items in my portfolio for many different
reasons. On my homepage I have included a PDF of my introductory
letter that we wrote on the first day of class. This letter is placed here
because it truly is an introduction to myself and also shares my goals
for the semester. It is always so sweet looking back on documents like
these because I can evidently note the growth that I have experienced
since I first started the year off.
My artifacts page includes many documents that I have created
throughout the semester that illustrates everything we talked about in
class from Fight Club to smaller articles to the planning of this
portfolio. One of the pieces on my Artifacts page is my annotated
bibliography. I am very proud of this piece as it is the first annotated
bibliography I have ever created. I actually enjoyed creating this piece
because researching and finding sources is really enjoyable to me.
Having this piece was really helpful to have because all of my sources
are organized and summarized in a way for me to quickly reference
throughout the remainder of the semester. This also makes it fairly
simple for my audience to find my sources and look at them if they
choose to do so. Another piece on my artifacts page is my extended

prose piece. This was definitely the hardest of all of the assignments
this semester because I had to compile all of the information I gathered
about my topic and choose what to do with it. It was also the longest
paper I think I have ever had to write but this led me to be very proud
of it once I was finished.
I also included my book review for Fight Club. I included
this because I think it is very beneficial to my audience who might
want to read Fight Club after viewing my portfolio. This was probably
my favorite assignment of the semester because it gave me a chance
to be more creative in my writing and I think it is really fun getting to
recommend a book that you really liked to other people. Besides this I
included my two SLO assignments. These assignments were really
interesting to me because we got to pick any text we wanted that we
had written in the past and analyze our writing process. It was really
interesting to get to do this with both a discussion from another class
and also from a text message that I sent my ex boyfriend. I think
reflection is so important and the best way to improve is to examine
old pieces of writings and how they were written. I also included
homework responses one-four in my portfolio. I really enjoyed these
homework assignments because they were able to be short and sweet
while I was able to fully express my opinions. The first homework
response was about the two articles The Coddling of the American
Mind and The Power of Persisting: the Introduction. These articles

really gave me an idea of this class and reminded me to keep a open

mind as we move forward to different assignments and discussions. It
was also really cool that we got to read an article by Chuck Palahniuk
before we started reading his novel Fight Club. The other three
homework responses were all written after reading segments of the
novel. It is really interesting to look back and remember all of my
reactions to what I was reading. It is also so cool to look back at
Homework #4 where I first mentioned the Christian themes I saw in
the book and wondered to myself where Chuck Palahniuk himself was a
Christian. These homework responses also include my feedback from
Ms. Morton which I think is very valuable. I have never had a professor
that provided such detailed feedback for every assignment and I am so
grateful for that because it was so helpful in knowing the areas that I
could improve. This will be interesting for my audience to get to view
as well. Following these responses is where my report from the
University Writing Center is located. I will admit that at first I was very
hesitant about the writing center and did not think it would be much
help. I decided to go to the writing center for my annotated
bibliography and I am so glad I did. Suzi helped me immensely by
showing me how to alter my citations to make them correct with the
new MLA update. She also gave me great comments about how I was
explaining my sources. It will be good for my audience to see that I
used this resource and maybe it will even inspire other students to go

there to get help with their assignments. I am so glad that this was a
task we had to complete this semester and I can definitely see myself
making more appointments in the future.
Another page on my portfolio is the Team Work page. This page
is where I included most of the team assignments that we worked on
together during the second half of this semester. I have included both
team genre projects, as those were the biggest team assignments we
had. Our first genre project involved the making of a t-shirt and our
second was a script for a super bowl commercial. Both of these
projects included themes of the stereotypes of femininity and
masculinity. I thought overall our group worked really well together and
I am really glad to have had this experience. I normally dread group
work because I am an independent person and I like only having to rely
on myself for my grade. This class, however, really helped me to see
the benefits of group work as every one of my group members brought
something different to the table and were for the most part really
trustworthy and reliable.
The revising process is always a hard one for me. I too often
write a text and then never look at it again. That made this class very
interesting for me as it was centered revising ones own work. We also
did a lot of peer review in this class, which is something that I am
honestly not comfortable with. While I did find some of the feedback I

got helpful, my writing is very personal to me and I dont typically let

anyone read my writing besides my professors.
There were quite a few pieces of writing that I didnt want to
revise. I think there is something valuable about leaving some things
the same. For example, I liked my book review a lot and I felt that it got
my point across in a way that I did not need to add or take away
anything.
This portfolio was such an interesting assignment because there
were so little guidelines. I have never had a project that gave us quite
this much freedom. At first I was very annoyed at this because I am not
a creative person and I definitely do not have a good eye to make
things artsy looking. As I started making my portfolio, however, I
actually found a lot of joy in not having to really look at a rubric every
ten seconds. It was nice to go through my writings and pick what I
wanted to include. I also enjoyed getting to play with Weebly and all
that it had to offer. I really loved Weebly because most of it was really
easy to figure out without having to use a tutorial. I chose a layout
that appears like a gallery because I like how easy it is to see all of my
works at once rather than having them all in their own links. I chose a
dark red and white theme throughout to emulate the cover of Fight
Club. My About Me tab includes a picture of me and a very brief
description of who I am and a few hobbies that I have. I definitely
wanted this page to be brief because I want my audience to really

focus on my works and not me (maybe I am like Chuck Palahniuk in

this way). I also included a small map of my location at UNC Charlotte
because I thought that was a nice touch. Beside the map I have a
comments/questions box where people can actually send me
messages. I always appreciate when authors or creators give their
audience a chance to respond and give feedback if they so choose.
Overall I really enjoyed this class and the fact that I got to spend
most of it on a topic that I chose on my own. I had a great experience
investing time into researching the effects religion on people as it
really related to the ministry that I am currently in. I am a Young Life
leader where I spend multiple hours a week loving high school kids and
showing them what it is like to live life to the full with Jesus. I believe
that giving high school girls a foundation of religion in their lives will
set them up to be more successful in college. I also believe that they
benefit greatly from having someone like me who is only a few years
older than them and truly understands all of the things that they may
be going through. In the future I may decide to continue volunteering
with Young Life or possibly even joining the paid staff. This research
can also help me in my future as a nurse. I am planning to work
missionally in other countries where I may be coming in contact with
people of all different religions. This class has really given me a vision
of what to expect as I move into my career and the rest of my
academic future.