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Malorie Waldrup

Connie Douglas

UWRT 1104

28 April 2017

Reflective Letter

Throughout this class I have learned many things: things about myself, things about

writing, and things about others. For the bulk of our studies we focused on rhetorical analysis,

critical reflection, and most importantly our line of inquiries. On the first day, I had not the

slightest idea as to what a line of inquiry was or what all the "rhetoric" was that kept popping up

in conversations. I felt as if I were the only one who didnt know what these words meant, but as

I came to know people I learned they didnt know what they meant either. This is where the

journey began, the journey of learning about these concepts and then some.

The assignments we completed in our day-books helped me to understand what the

concept of rhetorical analysis was and how I was to utilize it in the months to follow, which is

why I have included several entries from my day-book as a way of showing how I have

improved as a writer. I chose to include the Proust Questionnaire as I have never been asked a lot

of those questions and looking back at this piece now some of the responses I wrote intrigue me.

Another reason for my including this piece is for the simple fact that it was my very first piece of

writing for this course. The second day-book entry I chose was Letter from Birmingham Jail

because this was one of the first pieces we wrote where it required thought, and as I look back at

this piece I realized that although at the time I thought I had given this assignment plenty of

thought I had only barely touched the surface. The next entry I chose to include was titled
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Guidelines for Evaluating and all Source Materials. The purpose behind choosing this entry is

that this was a major step up from the Letter from Birmingham Jail because this was not just to

introduce my thoughts on something, I had to provide the evidence to back up why I wrote what

I did. Studio 2: Millennials in the Workplace was incorporated for the sheer fact that it

demonstrates the way that I think to the audience who is reading it so they can better understand

what kind of writer and person I am. The last day-book entry I chose to include was the

documentary titled Last Day of Freedom. I chose this to be my last piece because watching the

video there were so many thoughts running through my head so as I watched I began to use

critical thinking and rhetorical analysis to attempt to figure out where things could have gone

differently and how could it have been better. I feel this piece really opened my eyes to how

effective the power of thinking can be if one only implements those thoughts.

Essays in this course were a whole new topic to be mastered as I have never had to write

papers in the same way. I chose to include my rhetorical analysis paper as this was the first paper

we wrote in this class. Throughout my education I have never had to write a paper that required

so much thought and attention to detail up until this assignment. Writing this paper really

enlightened me on how to approach rhetorical analysis not just in this course, but on future

assignments and in future classes. I know understand that in order to write a rhetorical analysis

paper I must fully comprehend the subject(s) I will be writing about. The second essay I have

chosen to include is the round table essay as this was also a new way of writing for me. Prior to

this essay I have not written a piece that had to include so many ideas, voices, opinions, and just

overall information compacted into one essay. I could have droned on and on about the things I

discovered in my research, yet I had to be clear and concise and have only three voices. The part

I most struggled with while writing these two pieces was knowing where to take my thoughts
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after they had been formed. I feel that more guidance of what to do would have tremendously

boosted my grade, but at the same time I feel I have learned more by being allowed to write these

papers and find out the hard way what works for my writing style.

The last group of work I have selected to include on my Best Works page is titled

Other Writings. In this group, I felt the need to include my slam poem as I really enjoyed

learning how to put my research into a poem. Prior to this class I did not know what a slam poem

was as I had never heard them. However, I now know that slam poems are a way of being

creative and being able to express oneself without sounding too harsh to their audience. I really

enjoyed writing the slam poem even though English and I have never really played well together,

especially whenever I try anything creative. I also included in this section the word art we did as

an assignment in March. As much as I didnt believe it would, doing the word art where I had to

come up with approximately forty words that had to pertain to my project really helped me. I

opted to ask members of my family what came to their mind when they first heard womens

rights and that helped me in knowing what direction I should take my line of inquiry.

In dealing with the line of inquiry we had to engage in a lot of research and I feel the blog

posts did a very good job with helping me to keep my research organized. It was much easier to

look back at two pages of blog posts than it would have been to scour through tons of notes from

every article I read. I know I didnt really enjoy writing the blog posts at the times when they

were due, but I can say with all honesty that it was truly an experience I will remember. I now

understand why we were writing the blog posts and having to include pictures. It helps to see

what you were thinking when every little piece was included. The blog posts I feel were the most

helpful were Equal Employment?, Women Who Serve, Rights to Contraceptives,

Abortion: Is it a Womans Right?, and Women in the Workplace. These five blog posts were
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the most helpful because the articles from which they were based held so much useful

information while the others didnt. As I went through my research I noticed that one of my blog

posts Rights to Contraceptives was lacking in context so I went back and added more

information. I became rather glad that I did because it really helped when it came time to do the

multigenre project.

The Multigenre Project was probably one of the best assignments we did throughout the

entire class. I really enjoyed making the poster for Abortion Awareness Day and in the future,

I hope that it can become a real event and not just one that I made up for my project. I want

people to understand the fact that the word abortion does not mean that a woman has decided to

terminate a pregnancy because that is not always the case. There are medical abortions in which

babies still born or the mother has a miscarriage so the statistics saying that X amount of

children are aborted a year may be skewed by these numbers. Another part I really enjoyed was

making the informational brochure on the Plan B pill. I feel that this mini-project could really

open others minds as to what the pill is and how it functions if they were to read it. Creating

something that has the potential to help someone make a huge decision was a wonderful

experience. I wish that I would have gotten the opportunity to do more things like the Multi-

Genre Project throughout my earlier years of education as I feel it would had better prepared me

for this class.

Ultimately, I have learned a lot from being in this class from how to better manage my

time to new concepts. Being in this class has shown me that doing research, no matter how long

it may take does pay off because at the end of the day youre come out more knowledgeable and

well rounded, which means you come out a better person. Although I have engaged in a lot of

research this semester I by no means feel that my work with the topic of womens rights is over.
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I have a new passion for learning about how women are being treated and will continue my

research and absorbing information for the rest of my life. This class has also taught me how to

pick a topic and stick with it, no matter how difficult it may be to find the answers, they are

always there.