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Dear Professor Campbell,

I had a great time in your class this semester. This semester taught me
quite a bit about myself and my writing that I wish I had realized earlier. Ill
start out saying that Ive never much enjoyed my previous English or
composition classes. Dont get me wrong, Im not inherently bad at writing and
I dont have a problem with grammar or spelling either; but Ive never enjoyed
the idea of being told how to write, what to write, and how long I had to finish. I
know that these parameters are a necessary evil in the college (and adult)
world, but theyve always stifled my creativity. The same parameters have
caused a self-fulfilling prophecy in the form of writers block that has stunted
my academic growth in the past. Ive also had a problem with not knowing how,
when, or where to start in my writing and this has caused problems by me
procrastinating or slacking off on my assignments. Needless to say, I was very
nervous at the prospect of failing this composition class due to my
shortcomings.
Before walking into class on the first day, I had been somewhat primed
to meeting you. You sent us all a letter describing yourself and your life. After
reading it, I cracked up and it put me at ease. In our first class, you told us
what would be expected of us in this class and what coursework we could
anticipate. You said that our daily free-writes wouldnt be in vain and that you
would be completing them as well. I remember the first one we did prompted
writing is I was irritated that day and vented in my daybook about how I
wish Id taken this class before transferring to UNCC. I was frustrated at how

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much more complicated this class would be at a university than at a
community college, but I also had things I was positive about. I wrote Teach is
funny so far. I wonder how much I will have to edit my stream of
consciousness. I hope not much because he doesnt seem to. This sums up
something valuable I learned this semester: The value of a fresh perspective or
new education about something you assumed you understood. Though I didnt
realize it at that moment, Id been carrying a chip on my shoulder about writing
for a while. This semester started to wear down my anxiety with writing, but
not all at once.
My struggle with choosing a topic and then sitting down and starting the
writing process was very pertinent in becoming aware of why Id always felt less
than confident at academic writing. I first encountered this when writing my
literacy narrative, our second major composition of the semester. Writing this
paper was probably the toughest for me out of everything we did all semester.
The first problem I encountered was coming up with a topic. Our prompt was
to write about our experience with reading and writing i.e. literacy. It was also
important that the experience we chose to write about included some form of
conflict. I had to reach far back to remember when literacy had been a problem
for me. Ive spoken earlier of my procrastination and writers block, but I didnt
think I could turn those examples of literacy struggle into a sufficient paper.
Reading and writing had always come very naturally to me so I had to dig deep
to remember another time where my literacy had been in jeopardy. Even after I
settled on my topic, writing about it wasnt much easier or fun. It was

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strenuous. It was if my collection of memories were hardened taffy that needed
to be stretched and manipulated. Admittedly, I spent less time on this paper
than the other two. This was probably a significant factor in my difficulty with
the narrative and ultimately, my grade on it. I procrastinated heavily on sitting
down to write the rough draft because I was distracted and afraid that Id hate
what I wrote. I finally bit the bullet and finished it, but I liken the experience to
getting teeth pulled. I doubt Ill ever enjoy writing another literacy narrative. I
doubt Ill write another literacy narrative, unless forced by academia. For this
reason, the literacy narrative was probably the most important paper I wrote all
semester. It forced me complete something I didnt want to and to grow during
the process. As students (and humans) we are constantly encouraged to adapt
to changing circumstances and demands, lest we fail at them. By finishing this
paper I learned that even if I hate doing something, effort is very necessary for
progress. Progress is necessary for me to obtain my goals, such as my PhD.
It was a much more pleasurable experience to write my genre analysis
paper. This was the first large assignment our class was given and while I very
much enjoyed it. I didnt feel particularly challenged. I was struck early on with
my idea to analyze The Adventures of Captain Underpants. Its role in the
Childrens Graphic Novel genre catered to my love for cartoons/comics and my
passion for the field of study Im going into (developmental psychology). I
worked very diligently on this paper. I remember the day I brought to class 810 books that Id checked out from the public library; they were my
background research on childrens graphic novels and relevant to the genre.

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On that occasion many of my fellow classmates were still in the process of
choosing what specific work to analyze. I was passionate about the topic I was
writing and it made this paper much less of a task to me. I was incredibly
surprised at the ease in which I completed and revised my genre analysis. I
cant actually recall another time when Ive had as much fun writing a paper.
Speaking of assignments I appreciate, the weekly blog posts we did kept
me on my toes. I wont say that I struggled or felt extremely challenged by
them, but I did they kept my sharp on weeks that we didnt have any heavy
coursework. I maintain that some of the smaller more frequent assignments
helped me quite drastically this semester. Many of the themes were similar, but
every author/speaker had a different take on literacy and which part they had
carved out for themselves. One video was a spoken word written by a guy
chastising the institution of higher learning. While I didnt agree with his
message at all, it made me think about how we present ourselves; not only
through text but orally and visually as well. It was actually my classmates that
made me aware of how dynamic and influential presentation can be. When we
watched this video in class, most of my peers voiced approval. Not trying to
insult the man, but I felt that Suli Breaks used very poor reasoning skills and
faulty logic in his video. Though, because he wrote/spoke it elegantly, people
willingly absorbed what he said. The blogs posts were a good way for me to air
my grievances with what we read or watched. They allowed me to be as honest
and open as I wanted without having to defend my statements to others. They
also promoted organic growth in my thought process. All of the blog

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assignments were left open-ended, Post a reaction to This granted me an
unrestrained creative freedom. Id never considered the positive consequences
of having a blog. I will most likely continue to post on the same one because I
like the catharsis it affords me.
Not everything this semester came as naturally to me as my genre
analysis or my daybook and blog entries. It was a long and arduous process to
complete my mini-ethnography. Id like to think that Im a pretty organized
person, but this assignment shook my faith in that. I only struggled minutely
in my ability to stay objective when viewing a group I was part of. I had a fun
time getting to pick apart the commonalities and motives of my friends and the
counter-culture they (we) belong to. Once I had all of my data collected was
when the trouble started for me. I had so many observations and insights
about the Charlotte punk scene that I didnt know where to start. I probably
sat down to begin writing that paper five different times, only to be frustrated
by my lack of decisiveness in how I was going to organize every detail. Im an
avid list maker so I finally decided to sit down and list out rudimentary
descriptions. This made it much easier for me to see every detail that was going
into the paper and how I could shift certain aspects into complementary
paragraphs. If I hadnt taken this step, my mini-ethnography would have been
much more messy and difficult to read. Once I got the paper in somewhat
organized paragraphs, I had to spend countless days reworking sentences into
different paragraphs and shifting the paragraphs into a sequence that flowed
nicely. Transitions from one paragraph to another were a bit tricky for me in

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this paper (and in all of my work). If theres one thing I could change about my
writing, it would be the ability to progress smoothly from one paragraph to the
next. My writing has never been particularly fluid and its something I plan to
keep working on after this class is finished.
Even though I detest my lacking in the fluidity of my writing, I feel that I
make up for it in a few ways. Im grateful for the rich vocabulary I acquired
through reading. It allows me to illustrate the events of my life in better detail
but with less words. I also appreciate the fact that I can write an abundance of
prose, perhaps too much. Im thankful of this because it gives me more
material to work with during revision. It also allows me to meet academic page
requirements with ease instead of the common practice of drawing out that last
page.
During the middle of the semester we were prompted to write an optional
Midterm reflective letter. I decided to do the assignment because I figured it
would help me write this final reflection easier. I also thought that a bit of
introspection might be good for me and my work. I wrote a short, 4-page
reflection and covered everything that I could think of. I tried to be as honest as
possible about my experience thus far and about myself. It ended up with me
realizing some negative attributes about myself that I wanted to change;
namely, my attitude towards classmates that I thought I couldnt relate with.
After moving past the guilt that I felt a certain way that I wasnt proud of, I
started to open up more. The mid-term reflection helped me enormously in

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getting over some of the ageism I previously felt. After that, I tried to be
constructive rather than judgmental. This refers more to my behavior than my
actual reflective letter, but it was the process of writing that letter that brought
about these changes in me. That letter forced me to look back on what I had
done so far. I was very glad that I chose to write the optional paper because I
took a very important lesson from it.
All in all, I thought I had a pretty productive semester in this class. It
made me contemplate my exposure to literacy more than any previous writing
class. I tried to tackle every obstacle I encountered head on. Whether I succeed
or not isnt what Ill take from this class; for the first time, Ive given my all in a
class that Id previously manifested antipathy toward.