Dear Mr.

Campbell, Throughout my life I have dedicated my time and power to expanding my knowledge about the meaning of the universe. But during this semester in your Honors 1103 English class I have dedicated my time and power to expanding my knowledge about one topic that involved extensive research and reflection. This one topic was the surveillance efforts of the National Security Agency on the people of the United States. I would go for hours at a time searching for one bit of information to enhance my knowledge and confirm a fact I read somewhere in an article or to add onto to my essay. It required cross checking with multiple sources and scouring through databases, even if it was just for one simple statistic. The blog posts and journal entries also played a role in the process of expanding my knowledge. They all contributed, but in different ways. The making of the e-portfolio as a whole was something that shaped my search for knowledge. The way I worded everything may have made it sound miserable and tedious, but I enjoyed every bit of it. This process of finding information through multiple sources and trying to make my essay as brilliant as possible was just one of the ways I was able to expand my knowledge. But the blogs and journal entries helped expand my creativity. They forced me to look at things in different ways that I would have not thought about before. For example, one of my favorite entries was the one where you showed us a picture of a duck about to dive into a pool of water as the other ducks were looking on to what was happening. There were no words or movement but just a single picture. It can be interpreted in many ways and none of them could be wrong. Even as I was looking at it, at first I thought it was a duck jumping in first to be a leader. But then I looked at it in a different way and I realized the duck may have been pushed and it was

trying to land properly in the water. Whatever the situation, I realized there is more than one way to look at a situation. I was able to apply this to my real life, especially in times of making an important decision. I have to be able to look at a situation in multiple ways so that I can make the best possible choice, no matter the scenario. This also made me more accepting of other peoples views, and helped me become less single minded. This was especially applicable when we had in class discussions about certain topics and I was able to put myself in someone elses shoes before arguing against them. Another way I saw myself change was through the entire process of making an eportfolio. I became very detail oriented in the process of doing all the work and saw that I had to handle multiple tasks at once. The entire e-portfolio was actually the most important task I had to do for any of my classes this semester. It shows my progression from the beginning of the semester to the end as you go through the website. Starting with the letter I wrote to you as my first assignment to the very end when we will turn in the completed website. You can see that I have matured as both a writer and a person through the documentation of my writings. I was able to see the change happening in my writing as I progressed through every assignment and each one became better. The informal writings showed my progressions as a student in college because you could see my views changing through these forms of expression. The most important writings within the entire portfolio that helped to build up to the final paper are the literacy narrative, the topic proposal, and the research presentation. The final paper is the finished product of all my steps I have taken to reach the end of my English journey. The literacy narrative was one of first few assignments that you gave us and it helped me take express one of my life experiences I have been meaning to express for a while. This was my

lack of literacy for my mother tongue Tamil. All my family members are able to speak it exceptionally well, except for me. I can understand it but not read, write, or talk. It is a very unfortunate situation, but I never had any interest in foreign languages. As far as I am concerned English is the best language. I found the literacy narrative relatively easy to write, because I was just expressing some of my thoughts on the subject that I held in for almost a lifetime. Overall the literacy narrative was a very interesting way to start off the semester and helped me slowly step into the next step of completing my time in Honors English. The next step in this journey through Honors English is the inquiry process and the topic proposal. When you first told us about the EIP and told us to do it on something we are passionate about my mind first wandered to golf. I have been golfing for about 5 years now and it is one of my favorite sports to both watch and play. So the moment I went back to my dorm in decided to look at arguable topics in the world of golf and found a few that would be suitable. My inquiry process initially was not very thought-out and just wandered to the first thing I was able to search on the internet. But even after doing my topic proposal I was still set doing a golf topic because I was thinking it would always be of interest. Then on the day I was about to turn ti in I saw other peoples topics and had to get past my single-mindedness and look in other fields besides golf. When I saw other topics I realized I had to pick up a topic that had more angles to cover and be able to go ridiculously in-depth. This made me realize that I should have handled the inquiry process more carefully and I should have done more research. But the good thing was I did well on my topic proposal, even though it was not the topic I had to continue with. In the end my topic was the surveillance programs of the NSA. This I realized was a more detailed topic and required much more research than the debate over whether or not golf is a sport.

After gathering tons of information about the topic, and writing a fast draft, the next part of the assignment was to make a research presentation. This involved making a well thought out powerpoint or prezi that was able to present all your information in an orderly, but understandable fashion. I picked the powerpoint because of my bad, past experiences with prezi. After completing the research presentation I realized that this was definitely the most difficult of all the parts of the EIP. I felt as if I had to condense all my information on the NSA surveillance programs to just some pictures and keywords. That seemed nearly impossible for the amount of information I had on my topic. If I squeezed all of the information in to a slide show I felt as if I would not be able to get the information across in the same way. But I did eventually figure out a way to fit everything into a condensed form (even if it required a lot of questions). The final product was much better than I anticipated and I am truly proud of the research presentation. All of these small steps helped me get closer to the finished product, the final Extended Inquiry Project. All of the previous writings were building up for the final project which would by far be the most difficult. I felt as though it was the most difficult because there were multiple parts to work on at one time. It was definitely more time-consuming than expected, however I stood up to the challenge. At first the work did not seem to be up to the best quality since I had the mindset of just completing everything as fast as possible. But the more I worked on it I felt the need to make it better and the final product had to be nearly perfect. During the process of making it I actually learned to use my time management skills and not procrastinate as I had did so on many other occasions. It also made me question why I procrastinated in general to start with. I had done plenty of research and found a multitude of sources, but I still continued to procrastinate. Then, at one point, I realized that I would have to work on it, and it would be

better if I do it sooner rather than later. This was very unusual of me but I guess this is one of the ways I changed over the course of the semester from just one aspect of the class. I truly believe that my journey through Honors English 1103 was a unique one. I was able to change as both a student and a writer in more ways than one by working on things like my EIP and my e-portfolio. Due to their complexity and difficulty, I had to change my ways of writing and learning to be able to be successful in doing these projects. My writing had to be more professional and research oriented instead of reflective. Since we did do both types of writing in and out of class I had to learn to effectively switch between those two styles. I transformed as a writer overall, because I saw changes in my writing in all my classes and not just English. Before my writing always consisted of a lot of fluff and not much actual meat. My writing was based on extra information that really did not get my point across but was just enough to squeak by with a passing grade. But now I have learned to actually incorporate good writing that effectively presents my point. I was usually able to start my essays well with a solid intro, but after that it got kind of iffy. Now my entire essays are solid enough to present and persuade or inform. In my seminar classes, my reflective essays had a different vibe when comparing the ones I wrote at the beginning of the semester to the ones towards the end. The writing seems much deeper, but also makes more sense. I was also able to reflect from different perspectives and angles than I was previously able to. As a student I think that my way of thinking has changed completely thanks to your class. I used to be a relatively closed minded thinker, but since taking your Honors English class my mind seems to have been let off its leash. I am more open to different ideas and I am able to come at one idea from ten different views. In general I feel as if I have become a combination of both a thinker and a questioner. Before I would always ask a lot of questions hoping someone

else would find the answer for me. But now if I ask a question I try to find the answer myself before I actually turn to another source for the answer. For example, sometimes I will ask a question really fast, and I will answer it myself and it sort of sounds like I am talking to myself. But I am actually just thinking through what I asked and then answer the questions. The entire inquiry project played a huge part in developing me like this. Initially I would, have just found the research on my topic and then tried to paraphrase the information so it sounds good. But when I asked the question I now try to put in my own commentary on the topic and weigh in what I think. Then I also went out to try and find consistent and factual evidence to support my paper; this is something would not have done before. I feel like overall, being both the questioner and the thinker is beneficial to me as both a human being and a college student. Mr. Campbell, I really did enjoy your class this year and believe that it was essential to my development as a writer and as a first year college student. Taking this class first semester has taught me many lessons that I will be to carry on for the remaining seven semesters of college. I think that I have improved as a writer thanks to your many lessons and advice. You said at the beginning of the semester that we would work hard and have fun, and I know for a fact we succeeded in doing that.

Sincerely,

Saikumar Dass