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Alexina Laliberte
UWRT 1102
Prof. Voltz
4/15/15
Course Reflection

Overall, I believe that I had a successful time in this UWRT course. I believe that the
things that we did in class were beneficial to me not only in the classroom, but outside of the
classroom as well. I know that the things that I learned will certainly be beneficial far out of this
course and college as well. I felt that the way you structured your class was really beneficial to
my writing. I felt that all of the writing workshops for assignments were helpful in improving my
papers. I also felt that the way you continued to connect classwork to real life issues was
something special. Professors usually don't take the time to connect and think out assignments
and I felt that you put a lot of time into this course for us. I also am very thankful that you were
extremely easy to approach with issues regarding anything. It definitely makes me feel happy
with my choice of taking your class.
Reflective writing, in my opinion, is an important type of writing. Reflective writing most
definitely differs from other types of writing in one simple way; it is used to talk about and
evaluate a past event. Reflective writing is especially important in a writing course for a few
reasons. One being that you are able to look back and reflect on what you have done in order to
benefit your future writing. Another being for the professors benefit, as I am doing here in
writing this course reflection. Using the course reflection assignment not only helps us as

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students to look back and see what we have done and talk about it, but it also helps the professor
determine what worked and didn't so they can continue to improve the course.
To me, what is meant by inquiry is an open-ended investigation. I believe that this course
included an inquiry project instead of a research paper due to the simple fact that a research
paper is boring Telling a student to do a research paper limits them to one thing, a black and
white paper with no room for personal expression and creativity. Where an inquiry project can be
anything. Any format; paper, powerpoint, Weebly, poster, etc. Giving the inquiry project label
allows for more options and allows the student to show what they researched in the format that is
best and will in turn help them receive the best grade.
I started my process of composing my Extended Inquiry Project with brainstorming. I
wrote down a list with three categories: 1. things I like, 2. things I care about, 3. things that are
actually interesting. After I wrote down about five things for each section, I went back and
looked at if there was anything that fell into a a category more than twice. My topic, Issues in the
U.S. Education System, happened to fall in all three so I knew that that was the topic. I
researched on issues in the education system and decided that there were just way too many so I
chose ten that interested me. I then went ahead and did a flow chart. I wrote the ten issues and
then some facts about each. I decided that I would use an essay to discuss my findings. After I
turned in my project proposal, I began to write the first draft of my essay. Once I started writing I
came to the conclusion that writing about ten issues is just too much because I could write pages
and pages on just one of the issues. So, I scrapped my paper and went back to the drawing board.
I realized that I should not only shrink the amount of issues I talk about, but that I should present
my information in a different way. While at my writing conference, I was given the idea of using

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Weebly to present my ideas. I decided to use five topics and on each page explain them and
propose ways to fix the issues.
I clearly changed a lot about the way I was going to present my information and the
amount of information that I do research and present. I had to change these things for the sole
fact that I just do not have enough time to discuss ten issues in depth like I would have liked to
do. The process itself was frustrating as I was dead set on something and halfway through I had
to scrap it. It was really exciting as an elementary education major who is passionate about this
stuff to learn more and more about it. The satisfying part was definitely seeing all of my hard
work come together into something that I like.
In looking over all of my work, I dont really notice any patterns. But, I would say that
my writing and grades progressively got better as the semester went on. The best thing that I
started to do is write first drafts and not care about what they sounded like. I struggled with this a
lot. I had to get over the fear of people not liking my things and stop writing what people want to
hear and learn to write what I wanted. I had to practice just writing anything and everything
down and not be embarrassed or ashamed by it. The most useful thing out of all of the things that
I learned about writing in this class would be that you need to write without fear. I learned that
writing without fearing being wrong or bad is the best thing you can do. You need to write your
first draft fearlessly and recklessly and just get it all down. You then go back and continue to
revise it until it becomes something that you can be proud of and call a final copy. This definitely
helped me in improving my writing process, thus helping me become a better writer.
I would love to say I deserve an A in this course, but that would be selfish of me. I do
believe though that I deserve a B. I do not think I deserve an A because there were some

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assignments that I did not put my whole heart into. I also believe that my attendance in class is
an important piece. Although my anxiety prevented me from attending class, I still believe that I
shouldn't have let it get that bad. I think that the full effort that I did put into the assignments and
the timeliness of those assignments does deserve me an A though. I believe that the passion I put
into the papers I wrote and the excitement I had to learn about some things was A worthy. But,
being realistic, if I were to average it out, I would give myself a solid B.