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Valeria Suarez
Olivia Rines
UWRT 1101 002
13 April 2015
Final Reflection
This final reflection is the last opportunity that I will have to think about my progress in
this class and let other people know about it. I find reflections a little hard, probably because I

Commented [KL1]: Share that with Others

like things to be done as perfect as possible and that is always my goal. However, achieving that
goal is really hard sometimes and that frustrates me a lot. I know that it is impossible to be
absolutely perfect, but I think that the closer we can get to that, the better.
In this URWT 1101 class, there are some things that have represented a challenge for me
as a foreign students. Of course, the language is the first barrier I always face, but I think and feel

Commented [KL2]: Try to use something more formal

like there are a few things
Commented [KL3]: Student

like I have gotten so much better in the use of the English language that I feel comfortable using
it in both my writing and speaking in class. At this point, I feel much better than at the beginning

Commented [KL4]: Thats really awesome

of the class, because my biggest fear has always been struggling with the language. It would be
impossible for me to study at all in the university if I couldnt understand English. I did an
intensive course to learn how to manage it but that is different than actually being in the
university, where everybody will assume that your English is good. Even when I did felt good

Commented [KL5]: I like how you mention assumptions.

It makes it feel more personal

about all this issue of the language at the beginning of the semester, I feel one hundred times

Commented [KL6]: Feel

better now and part of that is thanks to this class.

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Now we are close to the end of the semester, so I want to explain point by point how the
activities in this class have helped and challenged me to be a better writer. I will start with the

Commented [KL7]: Now that we

Commented [KL8]: delete

Daybook Activities because I believe they are very important for this class. At the beginning this
looks like a really simple thing to do in class, a good way to get a better grade because you dont
need to put a huge effort on it, but I have figured out how helpful these small writings can be.

Commented [KL9]: I think this needs to be broken up

into separate sentances.

Maybe when people reads my activities they wont see a big difference between the first and the

Commented [KL10]: It seems to me that

last writing, but I can feel the difference when I am writing them. It is so much easier to write

Commented [KL11]: I know the feeling there.

down my ideas now, because I got used to have a limited time to write about a random topic and

Commented [KL12]: Having

that makes you put together several things at the same time: You have to think about your

Commented [KL13]: Forces is a powerful word.

opinion, how do you want to express it and make it understandable for your audience, and you
have to actually write something in only five minutes, and even if all the ideas you wanted to
express are not there you have to stop. I like writing like this because it helps you develop the
ability of getting ideas together and writing them down rapidly, and I believe that is fundamental
for many times in our life.
Next I want to talk about an activity that I liked much more than I was expecting to. It

Commented [KL14]: Why did you like it more than you

were expecting?

was long and a little frustrating sometimes but the Micro Ethnography has been such a good
experience until now. I decided to do my research with a discourse community that Im really
close to and I really enjoyed having the opportunity of learning a lot of things I didnt know
about them. First I was not really sure of what I was supposed to do, so I only followed the
instructions and got all my requirements done. Once I had everything, organizing the research
into a paper wasnt so hard because I already had a better idea of what I was doing and what my
professor wanted. However, It was a little challenging to write it down because I wanted to add
some creativity and make my paper look like something personal and special but well done and

Commented [KL15]: I had the same experience

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professional, and those things dont usually go together. At the end I was happy with the result,

Commented [KL16]: I agree with that statement. And it

sucks. I hate it.

but reading my comments and feedback I think that it will improve a lot and it will be closer to a
really good job than it is now. What I found interesting was how much I enjoyed being around
the community I selected, interviewing the teachers and being part of their classes, I founded it
special and I think about them as a source of so much knowledge that it was almost unbelievable
for me. It is so cool to learn how much passion people can have for their jobs. Also, I love the
presentations we did on this project, it was a good way to share our different ideas of a discourse

Commented [KL17]: You mention teachers but you

might want to mention more of that it was the actual
foreign department for the reader.

community.
Continuing with my writing activities, it is fair to share my experience about the Genre
Analysis that we were asked to do in this class. I can tell now that this wasnt one of my favorite
activities to do. It was hard to understand at the beginning but then, while I was working on it, I

Commented [KL18]: I dont think it was anyones.

Commented [KL19]: What exactly changed that

felt that I had more control over the assignment and it was more understandable. I did learn
things about the genres from this activity but I needed a lot of guidance when I was working on it
and I was not so happy with the result after writing it down. For this reason, Im trying to do a
good job with the final draft of the Genre Analysis, it was hard to understand but I think that I
have to do the best that I can every time, and this wont be the exception. I dont know exactly
why I didnt enjoyed a lot working on this activity, but maybe is because it feels long. We have
been working on this project since the beginning of the semester and we still havent fully
finished it. I think it could be better if we did one thing at the time, and focus all of our attention
on it. Overall, I think it was a good activity because it allowed me to learn more about genres and
about researching, but I liked more doing the micro ethnography.
Writing activities can be hard sometimes, but I think practicing all the time can really
make us better. This is why I feel a little disappointed on myself about one particular activity in

Commented [KL20]: I agree wholeheartedly. The

structure of everything was way to loose and unexplained. It
has some strong pros but some strong cons as wel.

Commented [KL21]: I enoyed the micro-ethnography

more.

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this class: The forums online. I still dont like all of them, but I totally forgot doing the forums
for about three classes. I was worried about my other classes, and I was doing the micro

Commented [KL22]: I did the exact same thing out of

lack of knowledge on not knowing to do them.

ethnography, I forgot writing down a reminder to do the forums and I lost my grade. This is what
is commonly called learning the lesson in the hard way. This is a mistake I dont think I would
do again, because now I know I need to organize myself better to have everything done.
In general, I feel good about this class. I know I could do better, and I will put all my
effort on having a good portfolio. My experience in class has been good, I think that we have
done a lot of activities that can help us to manage better our writing and to be less afraid of
speaking in front of an audience. I also liked that we had different resources from all over
campus coming to see us and giving us advice, letting us know that we can count on them. I feel
that I have improved as a writer in this class, because its easier for me to write an essay now
than it was at the beginning of the semester. Even if other people cant see a big difference, I do
think I have gone through a changing process in my writing. I hope that I can keep up learning
more in these last weeks in the class, and I will do my best to take advantage of everything that is
offered to me inside and outside of the course.

I think that my favorite part about your paper is the fact that you can obviously tell that
you are foreign from the way you talk but the English is still very much fluent. Since we are
talking about a reflection of an undergrad writing class I think as a foreign student still learning
you would be the best person to gauge the efficiency and helpfulness of this class. You would
have progress to show for it. And you focus and make that very clear in your paper. I think you

Commented [KL23]: Did you use those?

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could talk about your final portfolio a little bit more even though I know it is not probably done
yet, other than that just go back and fix some grammatical and sentence structure issues and you
will have a nice final reflection.