Dear Dr.

Campbell,

School does not teach you to learn. You really have to do that all on your own. True learning isnt
rote memorization or exhaustive testing. It is the fostering of that innate wanting for discovery,
for doubting all that surrounds you. College is not really school, though. There are tests and
assignments, but, if you are very lucky, those assignments will help you think about the world
around you. I have been very fortunate in this respect this semester. When I first signed up for
University Writing Program 1103, I thought it would be just another boring, unnecessarily
laborious writing class. As a result, my expectations were quite low walking in the door the first
day. However, I soon realized that UWRT was not at all what I expected it to be. The purpose of
every assignment I ever had to do was to make me question social norms, commonalities, and
even college itself. It really emphasized probably the most undervalued question there is: Why?

Creating the blog for which I would write in once a week was my first exposure to this kind of
educational environment, where questioning is the basis for anything worth learning. I was so
excited to make my own blog, knowing that I got full control over every aspect of it, from the
title to the background. I came up with a title that I felt would convey my purpose in blogging:
Forthwrite. In writing my reactions to the various videos I had to watch and articles I had to read,
I really wanted to write my honest opinions and thoughts. I wanted my posts to be a clean.
Straightforward, and albeit honest evaluation of whatever material I was reviewing. It took me a
few tries to actually learn how to write a comprehensive blog post, rather than an essay on what I
had just viewed or read. Coming from high school, where everything was a five paragraph essay,
this was a very interesting transition for me. Once I got accustomed to the process, though, I

came to look forward to my blog assignment every week. The articles that I read and the videos
that I watched were entirely new for me, so I became quite excited to see what was in store for
me to view that week. After blogging for a few weeks, I also became very adept at forming quick
opinions and analyses of material. This was something that I had always struggled with in high
school, as I tended to hesitate over every detail of my evaluation of a work. In part, this was due
to the perception of a right and wrong interpretation of something that was the common
belief in the public school system. I fretted over every aspect of my evaluation simply out of fear
of being wrong. My blog came to work as therapy in some ways regarding this, as I soon came to
the conclusion that there is no wrong opinion; no wrong interpretation. There are just opinions
and, although those opinions may vary, they are never made wrong in the process. My blog has
opened my eyes to the beauty of having an opinion and not being afraid to come out and share it.
It does absolutely no harm and truly helps you to better understand the various aspects of the
world around you on an entirely new level.

The next assignment that I distinctly remember doing for some time was translating the Student
Learning Outcomes (SLOs). Coming into college, the concept of an SLO was rather foreign, so
it took me a little bit of time to understand what it was. I finally wound up relating it back to the
lesson plans that my teachers made back in public school, where there were specific things that
students were expected to learn by the end of the semester. Back in high school, however, we
were never given the opportunity to interpret them or alter them to better our understanding of
them. So, when we were asked to translate them, I was rather excited. Once I thoroughly read
through the SLOs, I was able to readily simplify them and find the gist of the information that
they presented. I really appreciated being given the opportunity to find out for myself what skills

I was supposed to gain from UWRT. Going through the semester after that, I had a better sense
of the goals in mind for what I should be learning from each assignment.

The daily writing assignments were also a very valuable part of class for me, acting as a writing
warmup that always got my mind turning and my creative juices flowing. The daily prompts
were always relatively relevant to what we were going to be doing in class that day, so they
usually did a wonderful job of setting my mind along the path for that days work. The readings
that we were assigned on a weekly basis were also very interesting. They always provoked deep
thought in me, leading me to evaluate them more closely for deeper meaning. In Joyas
Voladoras, for example, the beauty and subsequent tragedy of the piece stayed with me long
after I had read the last words of the piece. It made me question my mortality and, more
importantly, how I am spending, or rather should be spending, every last breath that I have on
earth. It also led me to understand the primal cruelty of being alive. Being alive indicates that, at
some later time, you will no longer be alive. Death is the overarching assurance in life; one that
we are all must learn to ignore in order to make it through each day. However, it also led me to
the same conclusion that I have always had regarding life: when you are here you are here and
when you are not, you are not. It is as simple or as complicated as you would like to make it. The
days in which you spend, however, are entirely yours, and should ultimately be treated as such.
So, my philosophy is just to live each day being with people that make you happy and doing
what you love. That way, when death comes as randomly as can be expected, you can look back
and say that your life was one of happiness and fulfillment.

Researching and writing was also a large part of the semester, specifically concerning my EIP.
Although research itself originally sounded rather boring of a task to me, it turned out to be
really enjoyable. I also learned so many things about global warming that I never knew before. I
suppose my enjoyment and excitement in discovery of new information was in part a result of
my interest in my topic, which I really tried to convey in my topic proposal. I have always loved
learning about global warming, as it is arguably the most pertinent concern of our time, so I was
extremely excited about my topic from the start of the project. In researching, especially in doing
my annotated bibliography, I also learned how to find reliable sources that gave meaningful
contributions to my project. The peer revision that I received along the way was also extremely
helpful. My group was very critical of my work, as I noted one day in my daybook, which
initially annoyed me. However, it allowed me to strengthen my argument skills by forcing me to
defend each literary decision I made along the way. I also became very comfortable with
listening to what my peers had to say, but also recognizing that I was under no obligation to take
their advice if I felt it unnecessary. The final product of my research, however, was made much
better as a result of participating in peer revision.

By far the most important that I completed this semester was the website that I created on the
effects that global has and is projected to have on human health as my EIP. The topic itself is one
whose importance I felt very strongly about, and really felt the need to educate people about
global warming and what is in store for us if we do nothing to stop it. In order to reach a
potentially larger audience, I chose to do the more untraditional format of a website. Using the
website to present my research also turned out to be a bit of a challenge by itself. I am very
accustomed to writing essays, specifically research papers, so figuring out a way to organize my

information to be easily read was something that I definitely spent a lot of time doing. However,
the relevance and currency of my topic really led me to want to present it in an equally modern
and relevant way. With a long essay, very few people are likely to read it, probably just being the
professor that assigned the project to you. With a website, a lot more people can gather a lot of
information in a short amount of time. After deciding on the format and outlining how the
website would be organized, everything else seemed to fall into place in composing the first draft
of my EIP. I wound up expanding my original topic from just studying how the prevalence of
vector-borne diseases (VBDs) will increase as a result of global warming to how global
warming will increase the instance of respiratory illness, dermatological disease, allergies, and
psychological trauma due to competition for resources and destruction caused by an increase in
natural disasters. Broadening my topic opened up my area of research and I really felt like the
product that I wound up with was much more comprehensive for it. The only remaining
difficulty that I was faced with was citing all of my sources in my works cited page, but I
completed that portion of the project without too much difficulty as well.

In revising my EIP and thus composing my final draft, I really took as many of your ideas for
revision into consideration. I really loved your idea to add a section discussing what has been
done so far to combat global warming, so I added a page on my website dedicated to just that. I
included the treaties and legislation, activism, and technology that has been created so far to
combat global warming as the main ways in which we are currently trying to stop global
warming. I also added a picture on the homepage to make it a bit more interesting, which was a
suggestion from one of my friends. You also mentioned in your feedback of my first draft that I
had some typos, which I corrected in the final draft of my EIP.

Creating the portfolio was sometimes more enjoyable than creating my EIP and other times it
was much harder. The content itself for the portfolio was fairly straightforward, so it honestly felt
like I was making a scrapbook of all of the work I have done over the course of the semester. At
other points in time, I felt very overwhelmed by the volume and detail of the information that
needed to be included in the portfolio. However, I tried my very best to pace myself and add to
my portfolio little by little, which definitely helped ease my anxiety over it. I also constantly
referred to the assignment sheet on Moodle to make sure that I included all of the necessary
elements. When I was completely done, though, I was very with it. I think it is a very accurate
reflection of the amount of work that I have put into this class over the course of the semester. I
really hope you see that, too.
One of the largest challenges that I faced this semester was gaining confidence in stating my
opinions and the importance in doing so. Prior to this semester, I had always withheld my
thoughts and opinions on things discussed in class because I truly didnt see them as all that
important. The only time that I would raise my hand was in order to move the class along so as to
not frustrate the teacher because no one else was contributing anything. Coming into college, I
realize that it is very easy to become intimidated by the large number of people who all have
their opinions. My philosophy was always to let those who felt the most passionate speak, but I
no longer believe that to be true. In UWRT, the smaller class atmosphere let me not feel
intimidated, but empowered. I realized that my opinions in discussions did matter and you did
such a wonderful job of giving everyone the opportunity to speak. Our discussions would go by
so quickly that I soon learned to raise my hand quickly and think of something to say quickly.
This brightened my learning and really made me feel as though I was part of an educational
community that cared about individual thought and inquisition about the world around us.

Another challenge that I faced this semester was remembering to do all of my assignments. In
high school, I was usually given a fairly short amount of time to do things, but because I had the
same classes every day, it was extremely difficult to forget things. In college, my class schedule
differs from day to day and sometimes assignments given on Monday in UWRT would
completely leave my mind come Thursday. After almost missing the deadline to turn an
assignment in online, I developed strategies so that I would never be at risk of forgetting to
complete an assignment again. I used these strategies in all of my other classes as well, so they
became extremely valuable to my doing well this semester in all of my classes.