Kierra Poteat

Mrs. Thomas
UWRT 1102-034
23 April 2015
Final Reflection
1.

This class seems to be more about discussion and the opinions of the students
rather than harsh grading of papers, making corrections, and strict editing. If I were the
teacher of this class, I would have my students turn in a daily free writing assignment
about what they learned in class that day. This daily grade would count for attendance
and it would also give me, as the teacher, an idea of who is paying attention and what my
students are learning. Knowing that they will be responsible for a grade everyday would
encourage my students to come to class. I would also incorporate some fun games into
my classes to involve the students and make sure they are engaging in the topic of each
day.
The main thing I would emphasis would be making connections in writings. I
would tell my students that making connections helps me with my writing and it would
probably benefit them as well. I would advise them to be themselves when they write
and include things that interest them. I would start of by asking the students to pick
something that interests them. I would give them a topic and challenge them to relate
their individual interests to the topic of my choice. I would tart of counting this as a daily
writing assignment and try to turn it into a paper. I feel like the key to getting successful
interactions in a writing class like this is incorporating things that students are interested
in. This is why I would choose to emphasize making connections in writing.

2. Dear UNCC student (author of The Dark Side),

Your writing was the most influential to me. I think the topic was the thing that caught
my interest. The honesty that you brought to your paper was probably the most admiring. I
could tell that you felt very strongly about the subject of your paper. Skin color, even within a
race is something that people focus on a lot. In my opinion, people focus on skin color too
much. In an anthropology class, I learned that there is just as much or more prejudice behavior
within a racial group rather than towards a different racial group. Skin color variety within the
African American race is a great example of this. People seem to portray being light skinned s
being better than being dark skinned. I feel like this idea comes from history and how the light
skinned slaves were the house workers and the dark skinned slaves were the field workers. It
doesnt really matter where they worked, the point is that they were all slaves. Putting slavery
into your paper made me realize that our topic had great evidence that backed up your point.
I am a brown skinned girl so I do not have much first-hand experience with this situation.
I am in the middle of the spectrum of color so I dont get many comments about my skin color.
Although, my boyfriend is dark skinned. I love the color of his skin. After I read your paper, I
told him about it and he had a lot to say. He told me that he was teased as a child for having dark
skin. He doesnt like to take pictures and I can tell having dark skin is one of his insecurities.
Your writing gave me a push to talk to him about it and give him some encouragement about it. I
feel like my boyfriend and I became closer after he shared this with me so I am happy that we
got the chance to read your paper in class.

Sincerely,

Kierra Poteat

3.

I am wondering what I can do to get through this class without having the
opportunity for time dedicated to peer feedback. I need to make the idea of a peer writing
group seem beneficial for all parties. I cant allow others to think they are only doing me
a favor. I want them to know they are getting help in return. When advertising this idea,
I would emphasize the help I am willing to offer the people who will join the writing
group. Hopefully, when they see that I am willing to put hard work into their papers, they
will be willing to do the same for me.
This makes me think about the great experience I had with my inquiry group. My
group really bonded over the course of the semester. This gave me the idea to tell the
interested students about the friendships and connections that they will be able to make in
this writing group. College is all about making connections because you never know
when youre going to need someones help. Meeting new people may spark an ongoing
relationship of peer graders that can help each other throughout their collegiate careers.

4.

My major paper, Follow the Leader was a long process that seemed to eventually
fall together without a lot of effort. I like the way this process was set up for this specific
class. I was able to take it slow and start off with jotting down some ideas and things that
interest me. Through these ideas I was able to come up with the inquiry question, Are
leaders born or made? I had many questions in mind at first, but my conference group
helped me out by narrowing them down. When I finally chose my question, I was able to

begin the researching process. I gathered information from books, the Internet, scholarly
articles, and videos.
The class was assigned to write short summaries about the sources that we found
and analyze the important information out of them that we may use later in our inquiry
theses. In the beginning, I did not understand what the purpose of the research summaries
were. Now that I have finished my inquiry, I really appreciate the research summary
assignments. I couldnt believe how much useful information I received from the
sources. I had all the information I needed to write my paper after I wrote the summaries.
I felt like I really learned about the subject I was writing about and I knew the
information well enough that I could teach someone else if I had to. All I had left to do
was organize the information into a sequence that would flow and allow my audience to
be able to read it easily.
Thinking about the things I like to read, I wanted to add something different to my
paper. The concept of Follow the Leader came through when I was writing my proposal
for the thesis. I thought the idea was fitting because almost everyone has played,
witnessed, or is familiar with the game. The game of Follow the Leader is also very
simple. The simplicity of the game allow me to compare it to things that require higher
level thinking, such as situational theories and contrast between born beliefs and made
beliefs. I believe the comparisons were effective and added a touch of fun to the paper. I
am pleased with the final product of Follow the Leader. The paper is structured,
interesting, and well supported with evidence from reliable sources.

5.

I believe this class took me on a journey of what my future writing experiences

will be like. The process was drawn out into sixteen weeks of critical thinking, advising,

and the assembly of the body of work. The main thing that I have learned is that writing
takes time. Before this class, I was in the habit of writing a paper within an hour or two.
I did not even think about doing any prepping, research, planning, or organizing for a
paper prior to this class. I simply began to write. This way was working for me at the
time. It was fast, seemingly easy, and I was producing good writing. I am now leaving
this class with a way to improve my writing.
The process is what I am going to take to this class and apply to my future papers,
especially long papers. I will have a plan. Im sure I will not have the whole semester to
complete it but, I will condense the plan to fit the time limit. I enjoyed how the
assignments throughout the semester were somewhat like checkpoints for me. The
checkpoints included having an inquiry question, researching a certain amount of
sources, summarizing all the sources to make a visual, a rough draft, and the final draft.
This process is a lot more time consuming, but I think its worth it in the end. I may be
able to mimic the type of process that I went through for my writing during this class
with the writing I will do in the future. I am proud of the work in my portfolio and I am
excited to grow as a writer outside of this class.