Furguson 1

Haley Furguson
Professor Olivia Rines
UWRT 1101-02
9 April 2015
Final Reflection
During my semester of taking the course University Writing 1101, I have noticed much
improvement in my writing and research skills. This course had much to offer for improving
skills for future college classes that are writing and research based. Before my experience in this
class I would not expect to have a better outlook on research at all, but it has greatly expanded
my understanding of the process of research. With the process of research came the process of

Comment [C1]: This sentence seems a little

unclear, maybe consider rewording it.

writing, drafting and revising the different pieces in this course. This course stressed how
important it was to not only have a strong final written piece, but to have much improvement
throughout the writing process. I believe that my writing pieces have vastly improved because of

Comment [C2]: Maybe you could elaborate on

why this is so important

the amount of feedback that was offered from peers and the professor.
This course required many different types of writing and research ranging from writing
personal experiences to learning about different communities. Every day in class there is writings
called daybook entries. These generally include personal opinion, either about our experience in
class or answering a what if question. These daybook entries allowed me to expand my
personal opinion through writing with a less structured and formal format. When writing the
daybooks, it allows me to write without limits and warm up my writing skills. Daybook entries
are also a way to begin class with a discussion starter.
Class discussion is a big part of feedback for understanding concepts we covered in class.
Since participation is part of my final grade in the class, I made sure to try to put in my opinion

Comment [C3]: Is this past or present tense?

Make sure your verbs agree with each other.

Furguson 2

at least once a class period. I think class discussion has been the biggest struggle for me in this
course. I am not quick to respond to peers and I generally like to keep my thoughts to myself. I

Comment [C4]: That was my biggest struggle

too!

think I have lost a significant amount of participation points this semester because of the fact that
I am quiet in the classroom setting, but I do enjoy listening to what my peers have to say and
learn material through their perceptions. Listening to my classmates opinions and ideas helped
me a lot especially when it came to brainstorming for a paper. We had many essays to read over
the course of the semester and had to base our papers off of the concepts of we read about, so
many things were hard for me to immediately understand. During class discussion many of my
classmates had known more about the concepts we had read about and shared their opinions and
greatly helped my understanding. When I shared my opinion and findings for my research and

Comment [C5]: This sentence seems a little bit

jumbled, may want to reword as well.

readings, the feedback I had got from my peers helped improve my ideas greatly. I think that as
simple as the class discussions were, they were a big part of learning new concepts and
contributed a lot to the early stages of the writing process.
Since feedback and class discussions were a large apart of the writing process, discussion
forums online was also helpful in utilizing feedback from peers. I think that the discussion forum

Comment [C6]: Were?

helped me develop more skills in responding to peers in a written setting. The forums were also a
way to keep up with my writing skills and write persistently throughout the semester. Even
though writing before every class became tedious, I became aware that it has slightly improved
my writing. Because of writing constantly, I have noticed the simple mistakes I make in my
writing in general, even conversational writing. Noticing mistakes that I usually wouldnt is a
skill that I have gained from this course.
With research being another skill that I have gained, both the genre analysis and micro
ethnography required for this course have been pieces of writing necessary of utilizing this skill.

Comment [C7]: Since you just talked about

gaining a skill maybe you could switch it up to
obtaining or acquired so it isnt so repetitive

Furguson 3

I think that since the genre analysis was the first big piece written for this class and required
more library and hard paper resources, it was the weaker of the two main projects I have written
for this class. My ghost grade for this paper was a C, which in my eyes was not acceptable. I
have much improvement to do before I submit the piece to my portfolio. The process of

Comment [C8]: The phrase written for this

class was used twice in this sentence, you may
want to switch it up a little!

collecting, organizing and writing out data I had found was very tedious. Since I had wrote about
the genre of commercials, I did not know the many elements that were involved in a general
commercial. Because I had wrote about different types of commercials, I had to include multiple

Comment [C9]: Written?

corpuses; finding research to support these corpuses was the toughest part about constructing this
paper. Another big struggle throughout this semester was supporting all of my claims with found

Comment [C10]: This is what I struggled with in

my Genre Analysis as well!

facts. I think that through the process of peer workshops and having a ghost grade from the
professor allowed me to view my mistakes and understand what I needed to improve upon for
my future pieces. The genre analysis was probably my least favorite piece just because I did not
enjoy collecting the research and also because it was a piece where I had made the most
mistakes. It also required more formality in writing, limiting the ability of including my style of
writing. Regardless of how I had felt about the genre analysis, it was the most productive piece
throughout the semester because of the fact that it pointed out the faults I make in writing,
mainly through my research techniques. I would say that this piece is my greatest success in this
course mainly because of the vast improvement I have made from the first draft to the final draft.
The piece of writing I enjoyed most throughout the semester was the micro ethnography.
This paper allowed me to research a community with a firsthand experience. I chose a
community of football players, which is close to me at heart because I am close friends with
football players at UNC Charlotte. I really enjoyed seeing more of the inside look of the
discourse community that outsiders of a community would not have the privilege of

Comment [C11]: I like how your included that

the Genre Analysis was your least favorite, and yet
also your greatest success!

Furguson 4

experiencing. With the research of this paper being more observational and hands on, I had

Comment [C12]: I liked this part too!

enjoyed the process of research much more. I think that I had learned more about what a
discourse community was throughout the process of producing this piece, rather than learning
more about writing and the writing process. Even though there was much to the writing process

Comment [C13]: I like that you included this

observation!

for this piece, I learned more about the concepts this paper required me to be aware of. I think

Comment [C14]: I feel like this sentence could

be more clear, consider rewording it

that this course allowed me to learn past just different forms and elements of writing, but also
terms like discourse communities. Terms like discourse communities will help me with future
classes and gain more perspective of terms that I was not aware of before this class.

Comment [C15]: How is this?

Along with writing the micro ethnography was presenting my findings. The presentation
was a good way for me to practice my presentation skills, which I do not get to practice often. I
think this was another great opportunity for feedback in the classroom. I enjoyed hearing what
my classmates had to share and seeing their take on what a discourse community qualifies as.
This semester overall has been very productive, there are some things that were tedious
and tough, but also some things that were more enjoyable and helpful. I really enjoyed having
the many different forms of writing offered through this course and having the opportunity to
strengthen my writing through the different forms. I have made much improvement during this
course and I would like to show that through my portfolio. Since I have struggled with writing
and research, I am happy to display improvements with these main issues from beginning of the
Comment [C16]: I like that you included what It
is you are proud to show off In your portfolio!

semester to the end.

Peer Review by Caitlin Harrison
Haley, overall I think you did a really great job on this draft. I enjoyed learning about
your experience that youve had in this class, mostly because I feel like our experiences have
been very similar. You did a really good job at incorporating all of the assignments and

Furguson 5

descriptions of each. You may want to consider including a bit more information on what a genre
analysis is in that portion of the paper just so outsiders can understand what it is that you are
talking about. I did notice that you didnt include your portfolio content, but if youre like me
you have no idea what you are going to include in your portfolio at this point, so I definitely
understand that! I think as long as you go back and add this in that you will have a very good
final draft. There were a few instances that you may want to consider rewording but like I said,
overall I think you did a really good job at addressing the main points and incorporating specific
examples from your experience. To be completely honest, I struggled coming up with 3
comments for each page! I really think you did a great job and I couldnt find many instances
where you needed much improving.