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Erin Tsai
UWRT-1101
Campbell
02 Dec 2014

Dear Reader,
This semester, I feel I have accomplished a lot. When I look back at my work, I feel that I
have tried to complete every assignment to the best of my ability. I believe this course has made
me both a better writer and a better reader. Every assignment that I have completed has shown
the fact that I have become better (even if its just slightly). This course has allowed me to
communicate to my readers more smoothly, making my papers easier to read. One of the main
things I have learned this semester is that reading and writing helps to brainstorm and create
ideas.
The daybook was journal that allowed me to enhance my writing capabilities. The
daybook throw out any thoughts that I had the minute I made them. This really allowed me to go
back and sort through my thoughts and come up with a more isolated concise topic or idea.
Freewrites helped me with all my essays and the brainstorming that came along with it. The main
essay that freewriting helped with was the Literacy Narrative. If Professor Campbell never made
us go through these exercises (which I thought were tedious at the time), I would have never
been able to come up with the topic of my love-hate relationship with reading.
At first, I believed that the Literacy Narrative would be one of my worst essays because
my life is generally not that exciting. But surprisingly, I found it to be easier to write than all the
other essays. The easiest part of this essay was getting the general idea across, but adding detail
was the hardest. In the process of writing this essay, coming up with specific scenarios was very

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hard because I had to try to remember every detail and I had to be very descriptive. After starting
this process, I found it to be easier and easier as I trudged on. If I were to make changes or
revisions to this essay, I would have added more scenarios to make the overall plot more
dramatized. I believe this was my most important work in this class because I did not think I was
capable of creating a coherent, descriptive story. Somehow, I believe I accomplished this and I
have learned how to write a narrative.
The Mini-Ethnography paper was my second favorite essay to write. This essay was the
easiest one for me to write. A lot of the information about volleyball coaches, I had known by
previous knowledge. It did not take me long to piece together the interpretations and the
observations because I have been around volleyball coaches all my life. It is practically second
nature to me. The most difficult thing about this essay was putting it all together to make the
transition seamless.
The hardest essay for me to write was the Genre Analysis essay. This was the hardest for
me because I was not sure which topic to write on and it was hard for me find a direction. It took
me a while to write the paper because I did not have a lot of material to base my topic off of.
After doing a lot of research, I was finally able to find the direction in which I was taking for my
paper. In writing this paper, I discovered that peer editing is not as bad as I believed it to be.
Normally, I do not like other people reading my papers because I generally do not think of
myself as a good writer and I would hate for someone to judge me based off of the way I write.
But as the process of peer editing went on, I found it quite helpful for both my peers and I. It was
helpful because we were able to give and receive constructive criticism on our essays. The
criticism helped notice things that I would not have otherwise noticed and I was given a good
second and third opinion before turning it in for a grade.

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I still have a lot of learning to do before I can confidently say that I am a good writer, but
for now I can say that I am not a bad writer. At the beginning of the year, I was afraid this course
would be one of my hardest because I have always had trouble with writing, but it is easily one
of my better classes because of the improvements I have made. I always have had a problem with
tenses and grammar. I believe I have improved during this year. I still have many improvements
to make, but I believe through trial and error, I will be able to progress as a writer and reader.
This semester has been hard for me as a writer, but it has been very enjoyable and I am glad I
was able to take this class. Thank you Professor Campbell for always trying to help us with our
abilities as a writer and reader. I am upset that I was not able to take UWRT 1102 with you, but
hopefully I will be able to take another one of your classes one year. Thank you for always
grading our papers in a timely fashion and always responding to emails when we have questions.
I hope my readers and Professor Campbell have a great rest of the year!
Sincerely,
Erin Tsai