Dear Professor Douglas, I had a lot of fun in your University Writing 1101 class, and there was never a dull moment. I hope you enjoyed my portfolio, as well as this reflection letter. This class has helped me realize my strengths and weaknesses as a writer, and what I really need to improve on by UWRT 1102. As far as my portfolio goes, the first section is my written literacy tab. The major project for this section was the ‘This I Believe’ paper. The context of this project was to write about a topic that I truly believed in and wished to share because it told a story about me. The audience of my paper was you, and the classmates in my writing group that also got to read my paper. The purpose was to show that everybody has different beliefs, and most of the time your beliefs say a lot about you as a person. My belief was that life happens whether you like it or not, so instead of sitting there being anxious about the future you have to just handle what life throws at you with grace. Through the revisions I missed a lot of the formal writing do’s and don’ts, and I missed a lot of small grammatical errors. Something that I discovered is that it is a lot easier said than done, and I still find myself to this day very stressed and thinking about my future. This project reflects on the rhetorical knowledge SLO because as a writer I had to use my own writing process and thinking about my intended audience, purpose and context. The second section of my portfolio is the Visual/Oral Literacy tab, and the main project of that was the Ethnography. The purpose of this project was to use field data and research and incorporate it into my writing. The Ethnography started with my own observations and then included primary and secondary research. I originally was going to do how library study habits affect student’s grades, but then I decided to switch my topic to how Greek life affects grades. I think this used almost all of the SLOs because it was a very rounded project and you needed a lot of different abilities to write it. Something I discovered from this project is that incorporating data and research are not my area of expertise (haha). The last two sections of my portfolio are the Digital Literacy tab and the Pop Culture Literacy tab. There was not really a major project of the Digital Literacy section but the major project for the Pop Culture tab is the Zine project. The purpose of this project was to create a magazine on any topic you wanted, and you had to include articles and ads. I chose to work with a partner, and we did a food/health/lifestyle magazine. I found this project to be the most fun, and I thought the Pop Culture section in general was the most interesting. It was funny to see how literature and media has changed over the years and it was fun to be able to create my own magazine on my favorite topic- food. I found the Ethnography to be extremely difficult, obviously, as I got a 47. I think the reason I found this project to be so difficult was because I just did not fully understand the project. My observation was very weak which was unfortunate because the observation was sort of the foundation for the entire Ethnography. I wish I would have not only tried a little more, but had a better grasp of the project from the beginning, and I wish I would have been able to show my writing in a better light. As far as my own participation and effort in UWRT 1101 goes, I would say that I did alright regarding my circumstances. This first semester of college has been incredibly tough for me, and I was faced with a challenge that I did not expect to deal with at the beginning of the year. In the outline for this reflection letter it says that much of this class rests on the assumption that you are self-motivated to participate, but for me, I wasn’t particularly motivated to even wake up. This semester I began a battle with depression, and it included most of my breaks being spent with antidepressants, doctors, and psychiatrists. I’m not trying to use depression as an excuse, but for me, I’m proud of my effort in this class considering most days I didn’t even have motivation to get out of bed. I never missed a class, and I was almost always prepared and organized with what needed to be done. Honestly, I’m aware that my effort in papers could have been much better, and I am not at all pleased with how I portrayed my writing abilities. I could have also paid more attention to the ‘do’s and don’ts of formal writing’ because throughout the semester I made many small grammar and basic writing errors that could have easily been prevented. I think over the semester my writing sort of stayed at a standstill. Like I said, the quality of my writing this semester was not even close to where I wanted it to be, which made it incredibly difficult to grow upon. All I can ask as you grade my portfolio is to remember that research writing is not something that I am that familiar with, and I hope you understand that with my circumstances I am just doing my best. Realistically I think I deserve a B (even if it’s a low one), because although I did very poorly on my Ethnography, I think that I showed a pretty decent effort in the class. I was always there, prepared, and in group discussions I always participated in sharing my thoughts. My writing group also asked me a lot throughout the course for help and I always aided them to the best of my ability. Thank for you being a good professor for my first college English class, and I appreciate you always being understanding.