Nora Younger 1 Final Reflective Letter Dear Malcolm, I would like to start this letter off by saying thank

you for all that you have done for me this semester. Because we are in a smaller lecture class, I feel as if I have gotten to know you the best out of all of my professors. I can honestly say that you are by far the best professor I have had all semester and you helped me grow as an intellectual thinker and as a person. Before I came to college I thought I had it all figured out. I thought that I knew everything about living on my own, balancing school and work, maintaining a social life, and most importantly staying sane. I was wrong. I had it all wrong. I had come to college thinking it was going to be a breeze compared to the people who surrounded me. Life happened. At one point in time this semester I felt as if everything was going wrong. I was overwhelmed from the homework and studying that I had to do for the seven classes that I was in. I felt as if I had lost myself. Looking back at this semester, I realize that I did indeed lose myself. But I learned something as well. I learned that I needed to lose myself in order to find myself. I am getting to know myself more and more every single day and I am learning what I am capable of. Through honors English 1103, I believe that I lost myself in real life and found myself in my work. Because we had to write a good amount for this class, I found myself spitting out papers left and right like it was no big deal. This is something that I had never imaged possible due to the fact that in high school it took me days to write a simple two-page paper. Because I was so busy, all I did was write papers and read textbooks. In all of my other classes I was reading about stuff that did not pertain to my life or my future career, so I rarely took anything out of the readings.

NORA YOUNGER It was not until we started completing readings in English that I started exploring

who I am as an intellectual and person. Through the daybook entries, the class was basically assigned to explore our strengths and weaknesses when it came to writing or inquiry in order to see how we could fix those weaknesses. In the beginning of the semester, the prompts were general, slowly building up and become more personal and detailed. I feel as if the daybook entries had to earn our trust. We had to be comfortable with writing about certain intellectual weaknesses, even if it was just in our daybook. As I look back on my daybook, I saw how I started to take a closer look into everything as the semester went on. I no longer judged topics or ideas by the surface, and I noticed that I began to ask a lot of questions. Before this class I never wanted to ask questions in journal entries. Want to know why? It is because I did not want to have to take more of my time to look stuff up. English made me want to know more. English made me want to ask the questions that I was once too lazy to ask in fear of more work. I stepped out of my lazy bubble and began questioning and viewing the world in a different manner because everything is not what it seems. That is one lesson that I have learned in college. The blog posts had to be my favorite part of this class. I loved doing blog posts for the simple fact that they were usually always on something that was relatable to my life. I would watch a video or read an interesting essay and the only assignment for it was to react. There is no wrong way to react. Therefore, there was no way to complete this assignment wrong. At one point in time this semester, I found myself looking forward to the next blog assignment because I wanted to see what else I could think about in another point of view. This entire semester I have been in search of concepts and ideas that would make me step out of my shoes, and look at the concept from another perspective.

Nora Younger 3 One blog post that really stood out to me would have to be The End of Solitude. Because I have had a difficult time adjusting to college life because I have to share a room with another person, I really did relate to this essay. In high school I told myself that living with someone else would be awesome. I told myself that living with someone would be an amazing experience and that it would teach my patience. I was right about one thing, it did teach me patience. However, sharing a room with someone is not an amazing experience. Living with someone else in the same room has been the hardest thing I have ever experienced. After a long day of classes and a never-ending night of studying, all I want to do is go back to my room and sit in silence. I need time to sit there and reflect on my day. I need to stare at a wall and pay attention to nothing to relax. Instead, I would come back to a room that was divided in half and to a roommate that was always complaining. After a while it got old. I needed my time to be alone and to think about myself, the last thing I wanted to do was hear about someone elses problems. It was not until that point that I realized that I was not the extreme extrovert that I once believed I was. I did not always want to be around other people all the time. I needed my time to be with myself, and if that meant going to breakfast, lunch, and dinner alone then I did it. The End of Solitude made me realize that what I was going through was normal. Group work within the class and peer editing also opened my eyes to another point of view. Before I took this class, I only shared my written work with my teachers because I was self conscious of my work. I did not think I wrote at an acceptable level for a person my age and I did not want others to know that. I was not until I had to share my extended inquiry project with my classmate, Luke Harris, and had to step out of my intellectual comfort zone. I had to share a piece of writing with him that I had poured

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hours of work into, hoping to not make myself look like an idiot and to get some useful feedback. To my surprise, Luke told me that I had a great paper. The comments that he left on my draft were really helpful and I used his point of view to build a stronger paper. I honestly believe that my most important work in this class would have to be the readings and blog assignments. Even though these assignments were short term and did not require a large amount of work, they meant the most to me. These assignments made me think in ways that I never have before. These assignments introduced me to a part of myself that I did not know existed. I feel as if even though I lost myself this semester, I found myself through my work. I did a lot of internal exploring and I learned that I am far from a finished product. Now that I know that I am far from who I will be in a year, I cannot wait to grow as a person and as a student. I cannot wait to learn about different aspects of life that I have not yet come into contact with. I look forward to what the world has in store for me. Even though I learned a lot this semester, I have had to overcome several obstacles to come to those conclusions. In regards to my writing, I had to come to accept my writing for what it was and to not hesitate when I was writing. In the beginning of the semester, I remember not wanting to write certain things in a paper because I was afraid my voice would show through my work in a harsh manner. I was afraid that my reader, my professor, would not like how forward I was through my writing. I had this fear because teachers in high school did not want to hear my voice in my writing, all they wanted to read was facts. In college the writing game all changed and I struggled to adapt to it. It took me a while to adjust, and it was not until my second fast draft that I realized

Nora Younger 5 that my professor actually wanted to know how I felt about my topic and the facts that I was presenting. One of my strengths that I held onto throughout this semester was my ability to see from multiple points of view. I believe that it is important to try to see from multiple perspectives, whether it is regarding a social issue or your work, because if you are unable to then you limit how far you can grow intellectually. I believe that the work I produced in this class was excellent but my grades did not exactly reflect my opinion in the beginning of the semester. When I was writing my literacy narrative I thought that I would receive a high grade because of the amount of time and effort that I put into it. It was not until I received my grade and comments back that I realized that grades in college were not only about the amount of time you put into an assignment. Malcolm wanted to see my ability to present information in a new way, multiple new ways. My ability to see from new and different prospectives allowed me produce work that helped me grow. In regards to the inquiry process, I readily accepted the fact that I have become an intellectual that questions a lot of the material I am presented. Not because I do not trust the source, but because I want to know more. As I was searching for a topic for my extended inquiry project, so many topics raced through my head because I wanted to know more about a lot of things. I chose to write my topic proposal on indoor tanning and research this particular topic because society still tries to claim that it is safe when there is a lot of reliable science stating that it is not. I wanted to be able to form my own opinion. The extended inquiry project was a little aggravating because we were required to create our paper in steps. I am the type of person who likes to do all of their research in one

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night and write the paper the next. With this project I had to space out all of the work. Now that I look back at the drafts that I have produced, I realized that this method is the best way to write. Spacing work out and writing multiple drafts allows the writer to take small steps, learn from mistakes, edit them, and reflect on what they have written. Reflection is very important in regards to writing. Without reflection, writing does not have much meaning. In regards to the research presentation, I would like to state that this was my second least favorite assignment. I say this because I feel as if it contained a lot of repeated information that was already in my paper. I understand that we had to research more and find several different types of sources, but I did not end up using that particular material in my final paper. I liked the idea of finding different perspectives, but I feel as if it was time wasted. I could have spent the three hours that I spent on that presentation on editing an adding to my final paper. I believe that I produced quality work, but I honestly wished that that assignment had never existed. When reflecting on the literacy narrative, I would like to state that this was the worst and hardest paper that I have ever written. I feel as if I was spitting out nonsense the entire essay and I was making something out of nothing. I particularly do not like assignments like this. I like to write essays that allow me to reflect on my life to potentially grow. I do not believe that this assignment allowed me to do either. Overall, this class has helped me find myself this semester. Without the blog assignments, I do not think I would have found myself as fast as I did. I also learned a lot about writing and how I should insert my voice into everything I write because my voice does matter. I now am able to write a solid essay without being afraid to share it with

Nora Younger 7 others. I have realized that my opinion is just as valid as the next person and my voice deserves to be heard. Lastly, I would like to apologize for the length of this final reflection. Because I have learned a lot about myself through my work in this class, I have multiple emotions and connections to the work that I have produced. Without a professor like you, I do not believe I would have continued to do the same amount of work for any other professor. I appreciate your dedication to your work, which in turn inspired me to not give up on my assignments even when they seemed endless. I believe that UNC Charlotte needs more professors who actually care about their students. When I was going through a rough time at home, which included my cat going missing, you made sure that I had enough time to complete a writing assignment. I feel as if no other professor would have cared about what I was facing at home and would have demanded the assignment to be turned in when it was due. I admire how much you care for your students and push them to grow intellectually. Before coming to college, I viewed professors and teachers in a different light. I would like to thank you for showing me another perspective. Let me know if you have any questions. It was a pleasure to be your student this semester.

Sincerely, Nora Younger