At Journeys End: A Final Farewell

Professor Campbell,
Its been quite an adventure. You know, strangely enough, the letters Ive written for this
class have been the hardest assignments for me. I guess when I have something to hone in on I
can do well to organize thoughts but when Im left to my own devices to write whatever I have
floating around my brain, it gets a bit difficult to make it all coherent. But Ill try.
Overall, I have learned more this semester than I ever expected. I took this class
expecting it to be like any other general education course with an apathetic instructor that hands
boring information over to uninterested students so that they can study it and take the very
predictable test and get out with an A, a B at worst. Thats not what this was. This class
consisted of a concerned and interested professor laboring over each one of us as students, doing
his best to teach us how to write well. And I appreciated that. Am I accustomed to being pushed
to work hard and be interested in my work? No, because most university classes are taught by
apathetic professors. But once I got used to it, did I enjoy being pushed out of my comfort zone?
Absolutely. This class taught me a lot, and you cant say that for many general education
courses. So to begin, Id just like to say thank you. Thank you for working hard to change us
boring college students into ones that are curious and learned.
As I look over my work from the semester, I see a definite trend of improvement.
Initially, I did well on assignments. I was proud of my work and worked hard to earn good
grades. Unfortunately, mid-semester I got busy and wasnt as careful when completing my work.
I got a poor grade simply from not carefully checking the assignment sheet. Luckily, I learned
my lesson and put in much more effort on my future assignments.

Overall, Im proud of the work I did this semester. The essays I wrote were good essays
and I put a lot of effort into most everything I did. As I started realizing that it was all about
learning instead of earning a good grade, I did even better because I was simply focused on
getting a broad understanding of my topic, which gave me a lot to work with when it came to
writing.
My favorite assignment in this class was the Literacy Narrative. I enjoyed writing it so
much. Not only was it nostalgic for me, but I just felt like I was doing my work. So often we
receive school assignments that are so narrow that we barely have room to expand and flex our
creative muscles. The topics in this class, especially the literacy narrative, gave me room to be
expressive and try what I wanted to try. When writing this paper, I told a story, but I told it in a
way that felt like it was me talking. It wasnt all fancy structure and point by point, it was
flowing information, just as if I was telling the story to a friend face to face. For some reason,
this helped me so much as a writer. Since high school I had been learning to fit myself inside the
box of what teachers wanted, but this helped me to move out of that and do what I wanted. I
enjoyed it so much.
The Topic Proposal was kind of a mistake for me. I wrote it in such a rush and wasnt
really careful to put in good effort. I even thought I had done well when I turned it in. The Topic
Proposal for me was a lesson. It was a little reminder for me in the middle of the semester that I
cant slack off on any of the work I do. It was a warning for future assignments to be careful and
fulfil all requirements and to do my best work on all of my papers. I used this experience to
improve my Annotated Bibliography. I carefully read the assignment sheet before and after
completing the paper and it made a huge difference. I knew that I did exactly what was required
of me for the assignment and this got me a good evaluation.

Finally, I wrote my Extended Inquiry Project. I was careful with this one, though not as
careful as I had been with the Annotated Bibliography. Still, I made sure to complete all the
required elements. I also spent less time focusing on perfection with this essay and more time
focusing on learning and expanding my own horizons. I believe this is what made my essay good
because I was trying to supplement my education, not just earn a grade.
Looking back over these assignments, I realized something. I realized that I really
appreciated you as a professor. The thing that I appreciated about you as a professor is that you
didnt consider your own opinion sovereign. You gave us suggestions and graded based on
effort, but you never took points away from us because you didnt like something. You taught
us what it looks like when a professor respects his students, and I respect that. I think that your
teaching style is the most effective. You helped us to become who we each are as writers,
without giving us specific criteria to meet. That was the best thing you could do for us as a
professor.
Something I learned about myself I looking back over these assignments was that I
learned to mess up my writing a bit. Throughout high school I spent a lot of time cleaning up my
writing. I learned a lot of grammar, and got really good at it. I practically never use spell check
on Word because Ive become really good at spelling. I also learned how to structure sentences
to make them flow in a way that is pleasing to read. These things were hard to learn, and as I
found out this semester, they were even harder to unlearn.
Im not saying that grammar and syntax are bad; I actually love things that have good
grammar and syntax. My problem was that those things were all I cared about. I didnt care if my
essays suffered in the creativity department as long as they were beautifully structured. But this
semester I was encouraged to move out of whatever my comfort zone was, and structure was my

comfort zone. So I moved ever so slightly away from structure and began to put things in my
writing that I had never used before. I let my hair down a little and started writing whatever came
to mind. If I thought a paragraph needed a scene description, I gave it a scene description. And
that was liberating. I even tried using some fancy literary devices. It was so hard at first, because
I wanted to stick to what I knew, but in the end, I was so happy I did something new. I believe
this was best exemplified in my Literacy Narrative, but also some of it is seen in my daybook
and blog.
Another thing I improved on over the semester was informal writing. Initially, I started
off strong with my blog and daybook, doing all the assignments. Over time, I got busy and
slacked off and let myself get way behind in it all. When I realized I was behind I started
working on refilling the gap and getting caught up. As I was doing this, I realized how invaluable
the free-writing and blog responses actually were. They were helping me keep my writing intune, but they were also challenging me to think and expand my horizons. I thoroughly enjoyed
the blog writing especially, because many of the articles and videos were thought provoking and
extremely interesting.
My favorite video I watched for a blog this semester was a short Ted Talks given by a
teacher who expressed the need for teachers to care about and encourage their students. She was
so passionate and real, and it reminded me that education matters. As a student, education
matters for me, and I need my teachers to rally behind me and push me forward into the scary
waters of discovery. As a future educator, education matters for me in an even greater way. I
have to be an encourager to students that arent so confident in their abilities. I just really liked
that video because it mattered to me, and that was generally my opinion of the free writes I did.

Honestly, Im just glad I took this class. Im glad I had a reminder throughout this
semester that hard work and interest produces good results. I needed that reminder for some of
my other classes that I had lost hope in. Instead of being discouraged, I had a constant reminder
that education isnt about your results, but its about what you learn. Education is about
expanding your horizons and learning. Im not in school so I can get a degree or a job, Im in
school to learn, and I dont want to forget that. I dont want to lose my passion and fire for
learning, because I want to learn every day for the rest of my life. I learned in this class. I learned
about writing and solar energy specifically, but I learned about so much more as well.
You probably have convinced me to write for the rest of my life. I think it is a great
experience to keep a day book and look back over your feelings and reactions from the past.
Writing matters. On so many levels, it matters, and this semester you reminded us of just a few
of the many ways that writing can make a difference in your life.
So thank you. Thanks for working with us when we didnt do the assignments and
frustrated you. Thanks for grading assignments based on each of us individually and giving us
the freedom to write how we want to write. And thanks for pushing us into the scary waters of
discovery and reminding us that learning isnt so bad after all. I enjoyed this class, and Im so
glad youre willing to put in a lot of your time to teach students that education matters.
Caitlin Harrison