David Brunk

Malcolm Campbell
UWRT 1103
4/28/2015
Final Reflective Letter
Dear Malcolm,
Initially, I was skeptical about taking this class. My abilities as a writer had been
unassessed up until this point. I had never really done a vast amount of formal writing and I had
done my best to avoid it. I was surprised to find out that I was not that bad at writing.
Compiling my ePortfolio was a long and tedious process, but it helped show me my progress
throughout this semester and how my curiosity was enhanced while also developing my writing
skills.
Coming into this class, I had the attitude that I was just going to get by and earn the
grade I needed in order to get credit for the class, since taking this class is required by general
education. Writing has never been interesting to me. But as the semester went on, this class
grew to be my favorite class that I had because it wasnt just about learning certain material
and spitting it back out for a test. It was about becoming a better person and developing the
ability to think. For example, the blog that we kept throughout the semester presented articles
and videos that challenged me to think about certain topics that I had never explored before. It
also constitutes a sense of community. People that I dont even know can see my blog and can

connect with me to discuss certain issues or ideas that I write about on my blog. My daybook
was similar to the blog writing in that it was a free, informal part of our assignments. The
daybook work that I enjoyed the most was the entry that talks about what interests me. I got to
explore what things were relevant to me and possibly new areas that I might want to pursue in
the future.
The literacy narrative was not necessarily an assignment that I enjoyed. I had never
thought about how I became literate since I learned to read and write at a very young age. But
then as I was writing the paper, I was challenged to redefine my idea of literacy. I concluded
that there is something more to literacy than the ability to read and write. It includes the idea
of being an educated person. The concept of being able to think for yourself and adapt to
situations without being instructed on what to do. The literacy narrative assignment helped me
see that. The environment of a college student involves being independent. It is difficult to live
independently if you are not educated and cannot think for yourself.
When I was choosing my topic, I was happy to be able to write about what I wanted to.
In my life, this was unprecedented. I had never been allowed to write a large, formal essay on
the topic of my choosing. I was expecting the topic proposal to be a simple, quick assignment. I
found out that it would take a little longer than I thought. Our EIP had to be a paper of inquiry.
Something that asked questions that required critical thinking in order to answer those
questions. So as I wrote my topic proposal, I was forced to think deeply about my topic. How
have cell phones impacted a society? It was certainly a loaded question. I had to think about
numerous benefits and negative aspects that cell phones brought to our society. This required
a little more effort than I was expecting. The annotated bibliography was not an assignment

that I enjoyed. I hate slaving over MLA format and worrying more about that than the actual
content of my paper. But it did help me keep my sources organized and gave me a brief
description of what material the source contained.
This work may seem tedious and painstaking at first, but looking back, it was pretty
important to my success in the class. To me, the most important work that I did was the
extended inquiry project. Not only because it was a large portion of my grade, but because it
caused me to amplify my curiosity. The first draft came easily. There was a lot of information on
my topic, which I was expecting, so it was not that difficult to get five pages out of all of that
information. I was fairly surprised that I got an A on it. I never saw myself as a good writer and
usually average Bs and Cs or even lower on most of my papers. My weakness as a writer is I
tend to summarize what I am writing about. This EIP forced me to ask questions of inquiry and
focus on explaining why rather than what in my writing. This is still an issue for me, but the EIP
helped me to see a way that I can overcome this problem. Coming up with the extra three
pages for the final EIP draft was not difficult either since some other areas of inquiry were
suggested by both you, Professor Campbell, and by some of my peers.
My time in this class was not dreadful, as I was expecting it to be. I have never liked
writing. But you, Professor Campbell, made the class bearable. I learned how to write different
assignments and to ask important questions. I learned how important certain things such as
literacy and curiosity are. I liked that the course utilized technology with things such as the
ePortfolio and the blog assignments. This class has made me a better thinker, questioner, and
writer, and I am grateful for that. Moving forward, I will remember to always be curious. I will
remember to ask questions and not take everything as it seems.

Sincerely,
-David Brunk