Natori Cousin

Professor Suzanne Thomas

UWRT 1102
30 March 2015
Final Reflection
1. If I were to teach the class the ideas that I would emphasize would be learning to put
your own opinions, thoughts and ideas into a paper. Prior to this class the papers that I
wrote were not really based off of the opinions or what I say, but rather based on
what they say. This class was about taking ideas of others and forming your own. I
did not really know that was what UWRT 1102 was going to be based upon but later
in the year I learned that after writing my inquiry proposal and thesis papers. This
class is also about peer review and learning how to properly give good feedback as
well as receiving good feedback. To peer review you have to open your eyes and
sometimes put yourself in someone elses shoes when trying to review their paper.
2. Dear Markus Zusak,
Your novel The Book Thief influenced me a lot for this UWRT 1102 class. The
specific part where a character in the book was unaware of racism and his dad had
to basically teach him how to be racist sparked an idea for the basis of my inquiry
question and thesis paper. I realized that people arent really born racist and that
its something thats taught and is also has a negative effect on society. Although I
liked that part of the book, I disliked the fact that it was so lengthy. With long
books, I start to become uninterested in them the longer that they are. All in all I
really liked the book though it opened my eyes about the holocaust and the fact

that some people in Germany that were not Jewish were against Hitler as well, but
had to go with the majority of the people. I genuinely enjoyed the book and what
it stood for.
Sincerely,
A UWRT 1102 Student
3. To persuade people to join a peer review group I would tell them the benefits it has
such as a better paper. With peer review the input of others helps to open up your
thinking and sometimes get a perspective that you had never thought of before.
Getting help from others can overall make your paper better because your paper can
become well-rounded. While doing others peer review you the behaviors that you can
exemplify would be to actually help the person like you would want them to help you.
If you are not serious about peer review there is no purpose of doing it. I have been in
classes before when we were forced to get in peer review groups and the people that
were in my group did not help me at all and it was a waste of time. I have also been in
classes when we were in peer review groups and it helped out my paper a lot and I
ended up improving my writing skills and getting a better grade of because of it.
4. When writing my thesis paper I went about drafting it by just free writing at first then
putting things in order so the paper flowed better. I also wrote my thesis paper by
using things from the research summaries and using those ideas. The feedback that I
received on the paper was to incorporate more of my voice and opinion on my topic. I
initially just used the ideas from the research summaries, which was the opinions of
other authors. I chose to incorporate more of my ideas and it ended up making the
final paper a lot better than the first drafts.
5. I learned that it is actually okay to state your own opinions in papers in this class. In
my other writing classes that I have taken in the past, I mostly used other authors
ideas and opinions while writing my paper. I think that using your own voice while

writing a paper helps when trying to relate to the audience that you are writing to and
they will be more interested in the paper that they are reading.