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Contents 1 "My Self in Words." 2 Heart Rate Rising 3 My first reflection letter 4 "Eating Away" 5 My FINAL Reflection Letter

[edit] "My Self in Words."

Out of all of the formats, I chose "My Self in Words." I chose this because I believe that words evoke strong feeling and emotion. One simple quote can have so much meaning as to explain or help the reader depict my personality.

[edit] Heart Rate Rising

Do you like challenging yourself? Do you think that playing bungee jump and skydiving are challenging your bravery? Do you believe that challenging just means a competition or a game? Do you challenge with your life as your deposit? Talia Nelson, an affable, shy, and honest girl, loves to challenge herself all the time. For her, bungee jumping or skydiving is not challenging enough of her bravery; instead she thinks independence which will be more complicated, and she wants to challenge herself to independence from home. She uses her future as her deposit, to show the world that she will be independence, and she will be succeeding.

The thing makes her more different than others is Talia loves to challenge herself all the time. It not only can show in the decision making in studying at a different state where one thousand and five hundreds miles away from her home, but also can show in her experience of trying new things. She loves to ride the roller coasters in Disney World and does fun with her friends, adventurous things, because they can stimulate every cell in her body, but she really hopes to try bungee jumping and skydiving. She really enjoys the feeling of her heart rates rising faster and faster; she will feel that she is strong. Since she studies at the college in the northeastern of the country, Talia is going to try skiing and snowboarding during the winter. She believes that these sports will become her other interests.

In the first English writing class, I have already felt that Talia is quite different from the others. She is sunny girl, who let me feel that she is active; she is focusing, which let me feel that she is conscientiously; she is speechless, which let me feel that she is shy. In one of the major assignment of the English writing class, I was assigned to interview Talia for writing her biography. I am a very shy person, so starting a conversation with a new people seems hard to me. Talia looked like that she can read my mind, so she started our conversation first. She understood the processes of interview for our assignment very well, even though I did not ask her any questions, but she knew what she should tell me. In fact, she successfully demonstrates her self-confident and well verbal organization to me.

The very first sentence that Talia told me was: “I love my family! It offers me warmth!” she emphasized the word of love. Talia cares about her family very much, because family occupies an important position in Talia’s life. Even though Talia’s family lives at Naples of Florida, she can choose a college which is closer to home, but she decides to attend in University of Massachusetts Amherst, “Umass is separated by 12.21 degree of latitude from my home.” Talia told me with a smile. I could tell that Talia misses her family very much. Talia has a younger brother who is nine year-old, and Talia and her brother get along very well, that makes Talia missing him so much. Since the case of divorcing get to the historical highest rate in the United States, Talia feels fortunately that her parents still stay together. Talia’s parents are wonderful examples to educate Talia that what true love is, what each other should be giving out, and what family is about. Because family offers Talia the feeling of love, feeling of warm, and feeling of safety, Talia does not want to leave her family at all. However, growing up under this safety and stable shell, Talia does not realize how many competitions the world has, how many kinds of people in the country, and how difficult to get along well with each other. Talia understands that if she wants to see the society clearly, she has to leave her family, so will not get any helps from her love ones, but she will be learning to be independent. In order to have a good future, Talia challenges herself to be more independent. She expects that college life can train her totally to be independent, so Talia makes her decision to come and study in University of Massachusetts Amherst, then she will not give herself any excuse that changing her decision.

“David and I have been dating for three and a half years.” Talia is proud of it. After I heart this, I totally understand the way of Talia’s though. Talia has a warm family, which raise the Talia’s desire to have a family. The appearance of David lets Talia feel that she is the luckiest girl in the world; she feels like she is living in the heaven. David is the most important person to Talia. David understands her completely. Talia just speaks out the first part of a sentence, and then David already realizes what Talia will try to tell him. David helps her solving difficulties, and stands with her at the hard time. Once, Talia has been betrayed by her good friend. David gave her his shoulder, and then explained the whole case to her. David told her that she should not do the same thing to her friends, instead should be more honest to others in the future. Talia forgiven her friend quickly, but she would never forget what has happened to her. Since she understands the importance of being honesty, she promised to David that she will never let the same thing happen. After Talia decides coming to University of Massachusetts Amherst, she understands that David and her will be separated. Even though there are many challenges in the long distance relationship, Talia trusts Davis, trusts their relationship, and trusts the distant will not obstruct their love.

Actually, Talia is the same as the other teenager girls in the United States. She loves shopping, and spends much money on herself; she loves to eat ice-cream and junk food, because she believes that food can bring her happiness; she goes to Disney World all the time, because she loves it; she loves beaching, because the beauty of ocean lets her feel relaxing; she loves traveling around the country, because she believes that she can see and learn more information during the trips, she loves having a lot of friends, but few best friends; she loves cheerleading, and she is the captain in high school.

Talia is not satisfied in her bachelor degree, and she will go into graduate school, to get her master degree of psychology. Majoring in psychology will train her more logical and more thoughtful. I believe psychology can train Talia to be more professional, more understanding in human’s needs, and more thinking of logic. Talia will handle all her challenges well, and she will be succeeded in the future.

WinMi 11:18, 15 November 2007 (EST)

[edit] My first reflection letter

So, I know this class seems like a bit of a challenge, but YOU LIKE CHALLENGES TALIA! The Wiki is annoying, I don’t know if I’ll ever actually enjoy doing my work on that thing. We do have a lot of student interaction though; posting comments and feedback on each other’s blog, and with our writing posted on the Wiki where it’s available for everyone to see, I feel that will really start to help expand my writing with more of the audience in mind. I definitely think the audience will play a big part in how I write my papers from here on out. Already, I see the tiniest bit of improvement in my writing. Looking through my portfolio, I noticed that in my first essay on “The Wall”, my peer reviewer said that my thoughts and ideas in my paper were fairly disorganized. Although my disorganization was partly because of my confused ideas and thoughts on the movie, I should have tried to work harder on that aspect of my writing, considering that every English teacher I’ve ever had nagged me about the disorganization of most of my papers! Tisk, tisk, tisk. But as I looked on to my next peer reviewer’s comment on my second paper “Culture Shock”, he seemed to have really enjoyed the paper. No hard critiques, which was good and very nice to see. Considering the paper was about him, I’m glad he enjoyed it. Hopefully by the context of my paper, he got to see a little bit of my style of writing as well. Browsing through my portfolio also brought me to realization with the fact that I write some pretty decent and thorough feedback on other’s work; I feel like if I help them to improve THEIR writing, it will help me improve MY writing. Reading, seeing, and learning from other people’s mistakes in their writing is teaching me how to expand my own writing skills. I’m hoping our big writing projects have really interesting topics, that’s when I can REALLY write. Although I do need to expand myself in that way so that I can write about anything at anytime. Already I see a little bit of that in myself, when writing about somebody else’s life in the Introductory essay. I’m so used to writing about myself, MY challenges, MY problems, MY situations, MY life; nobody else’s. It was interesting to write about somebody else’s life in the way that I see it through my own eyes and the way I interpreted our interview. Just by reading the contents of my portfolio, I can already tell that as a writer, I have grown. I wrote about things I never thought I’d be able to; like that confusing Pink Floyd movie “The Wall.” Taking on challenges like I have been so far in this class, and will continue taking on, is stimulating. I’m excited to learn new things and be able to become a better writer. We all know that being an excellent writer is one of the most important traits to have in college; considering I will be writing paper, after paper, after paper, after paper……. I might as well learn to enjoy it more while I’m at it! Seeing as how interesting our two writing topics have been so far, I have a good feeling that it’s only going to get better. Harder, but better.

[edit] "Eating Away"

Eating disorders; eating away at our Western cultural images? Or are our own Western cultural images eating its way into self destruction? “A GLAMOUR magazine survey revealed that, out of 33,000 female respondents, 85% felt dissatisfied with their bodies.” (Jill S. Zimmerman) The visual media sets a certain body image to be accepted by its viewers which is found to stir up this dissatisfaction of one’s body. This unhappiness has ultimately led to the proliferation of young girls developing eating disorders and seems to be setting certain standards for our “cultural image.” It is said, as well as understood, that Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa are the most common eating disorders developed in human beings. Anorexia Nervosa is a disorder characterized by a large weight loss, fear of weight gain, and faulty eating patterns. (Paul R. Robbins pg. 25) Statistics show that people with Anorexia are usually adolescents, and nine times out of ten, the victims to this disease are females. Bulimia Nervosa is characterized by compulsive overeating and is usually followed by self-induced vomiting as well as laxative or diuretic abuse. (Paul R. Robbins pg. 43) Binge-purge eaters consist mostly of women in their late teens or early twenties. People with Bulimia are said to eat in spurts similar to the way alcoholics drink alcohol. Now, curiosity comes into play; why is it that women are more susceptible to an eating disorder than men? Are eating disorders genetically induced, is there a chemical imbalance in the brain, or is it developed from environmental factors? Maybe the fact that abnormally thin supermodels are every young girls’ dream? Perhaps family background? Or even because of faulty advertisements for diet pills along with the claimed next best workout machine? What makes a young girls mind tick; what makes a girls mind yearn to be thin and do whatever it takes to get there? What makes a young girl with Anorexia still feel fat and remain obsessed with losing weight? Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa among young women makes it seem that eating disorders are becoming the new cancer; rapidly widespread and nevertheless deadly. But, unlike cancer, eating disorders can be prevented; so shouldn’t we try to prevent them? Eating disorders don’t just harm the human body, but they can sometimes lead to death. So shouldn't we put this problem to an end before we let eating disorders and our Western cultural image eat its way into self destruction of a young girl’s body? If it means passing a law that prohibits advertisers from publishing unrealistic images in a means to change our cultural “accepted” image, then by all means, a law needs to be passed; we need a change and we need to prevent disease where we still can.

Over the years and across the globe, supermodels and celebrities have developed a more intense obsession with thinness, and in some celebrities, accumulated eating disorders. These skinny-obsessed stars are major role models of most young, impressionable teens. Take Mary-Kate Olsen for example. Growing up, I watched the Olsen twins’ fame and success continue to progress; I have always admired the twins. When Mary-Kate became sickly anorexic, what was I to do? Change my entire view on her, or follow in her footsteps? There are thousands of other young girls asking themselves the same questions and giving themselves excuses; “But Mary-Kate is doing it.” “Mary-Kate is that skinny, so I should be too.” It’s difficult to change your own view of someone you have grown up to admire and follow. If they’ve been successful this whole time, how are young girls supposed to know that THIS is wrong; that becoming anorexic is unhealthy to the body and the mind. The unrealistic standards of beauty and thinness depicted by the visual media can influence dissatisfaction with young girls’ own bodies. Seeing as how you have to be extremely skinny to be a runway model, or even to be on the cover of a magazine seems to pressure teenagers to be thin no matter what they must sacrifice. Think to yourself, when do you see a thick woman in an advertisement? The only time I can think of, is “before and after” pictures or commercials advertising a new diet pill. Instead of advertising bodies of all shapes and sizes, the images teens see in visual media; magazines, advertisements, television, and in movies are unnaturally thin, which can create an immense pressure for most young girls to acquire that thinness. For most adolescent females, eating disorders have arisen because of our society and the cultural opinion that being “beautifully thin” is how every woman should be. “You have to be thin to be beautiful, and beautiful to be liked by others.” (Paul R. Robbins pg. 35) This Western cultural opinion is a major factor which drives impressionable, young women go to insane measures to be skinny and “beautiful”. Is it really the young girls’ faults by following the footsteps of their “idols” and “role models”? Take Nicole Richie, for instance; a rich, famous, but extremely thin young woman and despite her thinness, Nicole Richie is a role model for thousands of young girls across the world; or is it the faults of the false advertisements, and celebrities who have acquired unhealthy habits as a “perfect example” for young teens everywhere?

The visual media, like television commercials, advertisements, or magazines, can change or mold the imaginations of its audience day after day and encourage people to catch up, and follow the new image as if it’s the “new fad or fashion,” to obtain this so-called “perfect body.” This has been the case for ages. Back when my parents were young, the “style” was to be thick and have an hour glass shaped body. Because that was the trend on television, in movies, and in magazines, that’s how almost everybody looked. Back around the time of Audrey Hepburn, a very skinny yet very famous actress, and Twiggy, an extremely thin mega-rich supermodel, more and more people acquired a thin body image just like these two very famous and influential women. Throughout the years, the trends in the media have set forth the trends in the audience. Today, the media makes it seem as if the women are supposed to have a manufactured body; which is a body fixed and reconstructed by over-exercising, new diet pills, plastic surgery, even self-starvation, or binging and purging. If we change the image being portrayed by the visual media, we can change the “new fad” of being extremely thin, to being healthy and further prevent the development of dangerous eating disorders; if we change the body image to a more natural and realistic representation, we can change the understanding of the people in our society and what image will be “accepted” as beautiful. The idea or fantasy of being extremely thin, which is portrayed in commercials and advertisements may conflict with a woman’s actual body type. A woman trying to rebuild her body into that “beautiful” image exposed by the media can lead to the development of a major eating disorder if that image cannot be achieved in her mind. For a great period of time, American newspapers, magazines, movies, and advertisements have been creating “fantasies” to the viewers of idealistic beauty. Only the strict followers of these “beautiful” images are looked upon as successful, attractive, and liked by others. I don’t know how others feel, but growing up in this thin-struck culture as a young girl, I don’t see an overweight woman and think to myself, “I want to look just like her.” It’s sad to say but the visual media of today seem to have molded my own opinion of what is really “beautiful.” “Sarah Murnen, who has studied this for fifteen years, and her colleagues, reviewed 21 studies that looked at the media’s effect on more than 6,000 girls, ages 10 and older, and found those who were exposed to the most fashion magazines were more likely to suffer from poor body images.” (Qtd. in Hellmich) In one national survey, statistics show that nearly one-half of all US women reported feeling negative about their appearance and preoccupied with being or becoming overweight. (Cash & Henry, 1995) Turning on the television, or looking at advertisements and celebrities in magazines give even greater influence on the adolescents with low self-esteem to harm their bodies to reach that ideal feminine image. Now the young teens are more susceptible to develop an eating disorder to reach that goal set in their minds. The portrayal of the thin, ideal body in our culture has built a terrible situation where the majority of young girls seem to be pressured into the participation of extremely unhealthy behaviors to control body weight, like self-starvation, over-exercise, crash dieting, as well as binging and purging. The development of these eating disorders is slowly destroying the health of young women and this faulty body image is misleading our culture to accept and develop unhealthy and damaging habits to follow this feminine image which the visual media displays. We advertise TRUTH commercials to help people stop smoking and stop acquiring the unhealthy habit of nicotine addiction, what about advertising TRUTH commercials to stop the growing development of the unhealthy habit of self starvation or binging and purging?

Women who believe that they have to be extremely thin to be "beautiful" are setting themselves up for the near impossible due to the beauty image which the media emphasizes is unrealistic; it is untrue to life. Supermodels and celebrities have make-up artists, physical trainers, and other assistants to create that “perfect image” for them. Computer artists also change the celebrities’ body shape and appearance as a whole after the photograph is actually taken. Also, some models haven’t fully developed and matured yet which makes them appear to be thinner than an older, more developed girls’ body may look. Therefore, the celebrities’ pictures and the images portrayed that young women are seeing and trying to follow, are truly unrealistic. Being unable to acquire the “perfect” body image, most young women begin to feel badly about their bodies, which can often lead to the development of an eating disorder.

It may seem as though advertisers are just “doing their job,” but in certain aspects, I think advertisers are overdoing it. Why edit celebrity bodies in magazines? Why not show the world the REAL picture? Nobody is absolutely perfect. These young girls who don’t know any better, get the impression that celebrities and supermodels are absolute perfection, and try to mold their own bodies into “perfection” as well. If only I could open up a magazine and see girls with bodies of all shapes and sizes so that I can idolize their “normal” and real figures. Unfortunately, that’s not what I see when I open up Cosmo or Seventeen magazine. Visual examples seem to be the strongest influence on the people of our society; as children, we watch and see the actions of others and use as examples, like learning from our parents for instance. When the only photographs or popular images portrayed by the visual media are unhealthy examples, young girls easily follow these images which shape understanding of acceptance and beauty.

“Only about 2% of women are as thin as most models,” says the National Eating Disorders Association. (Qtd. in Kathiann M. Kowalski) So for some young women, obtaining super slim thighs may not be natural, and over-exercising, self-starvation, or even plastic surgery could actually be working against their own natural and genetic body types. “Therapists have a difficult time trying to persuade young women that they can be attractive without looking like a fashion model.” (Paul R. Robbins) Most women think that to be appealing to others is to have a perfect body and look exactly like a supermodel; extremely thin and tall; resulting in the majority of women going to extremes to mold their bodies into this supermodel image, although they may never look exactly like a model or celebrity. Coming to grips with reality for women arouses body dissatisfaction, depression, low self-esteem, anger, and resentment. However what initially provoked all of these negative emotions? The poor body images depicted by the visual media and the inability for young women to obtain them.

There are different factors that can lead to the development of eating disorders as well. Like peer pressure, for example, can influence a young adolescent’s body image to “fit in” with the crowd or the popular group. But these young teenage girls originally get the “image” standards to compare themselves against from the media and the messages it depicts. Also people who are depressed or insecure can be influenced to harm themselves by self-starvation or binging and purging as a way to “escape” or “ease” their inner-pains. Today’s fashion industry is very competitive, and a young girls’ self-competition with the industry can arouse this insecurity if she thinks that she cannot compare, or is not as good or pretty as the images the fashion industry portrays. Again, the root of these negative feelings and emotions are provoked by the poor body images exposed by the media. Eating disorders do not provide a clear indication that they are developed because of childhood traumas, sexual abuse, or family background. However, genetics can somewhat influence the susceptibility of developing these two diseases. For instance, identical twins are more likely to share the same disorder than fraternal twins. Gender differences in body image were clearly evident in a British survey of 3,500 bank and university staff, in which males were more likely to BE overweight, and females were more likely to PERCEIVE themselves as overweight. But most of the pressures that these young adolescents felt were diffused by the images of unnaturally thin models and celebrities that appear in the media. (Tovee & others, 1997) Take the Barbie doll for example. Barbie is adjusted to a height of 5 feet 7 inches. Her 32-16-29 figure defines a body shape approximated by fewer than 1 in 100,000 women. The majority of young girls in every ethnicity and race idealize this thinness; Barbie is how EVERY young woman should look, or isn’t it?

Negative messages that the visual media sends out give young women a poor body image, which ultimately leads to self-harm. The inability for women to achieve the “beautiful” body can arouse many negative emotions like low self-esteem or depression which influences the young, impressionable beings to become Bulimic by binging and purging, or Anorexic by starving themselves. These messages portrayed by the visual media greatly influence women to believe that you have to be skinny to be beautiful, no matter what the cost may be. In order to help decrease the rise in young girls developing eating disorders, I believe that the advertisers need to do a better job of advertising REAL and true-to-life things; when advertising a new diet pill, I think it should be projected towards overweight people only, so that young, skinny girls understand that it doesn’t apply to them. I think models and celebrities’ bodies should not be edited when advertised in magazines. We’re all REAL human beings, we need to learn to be proud to show our REAL bodies, not bodies that are computer edited and airbrushed as to fool the audience of true reality. Acceptance is a value young teens should learn and follow, and changing the body image portrayed in visual media can be extremely influential in helping young girls acquire this value of their own bodies. Advertisers should be enforced to pose girls that are all shapes and sizes and celebrities should take into consideration that the whole world is watching and looking over them, and when they develop bad habits such as an eating disorder, it can put pressure onto young girls to look just like their “idol”. All in all, I believe that advertisers and celebrities need to take into prospective that the rates of young girls developing Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa are greatly increasing, and they should adjust their behaviors, along with their advertisements, being sensitive to the fact that young girls are vulnerable to wanting the “Barbie doll image,” and will go to immeasurable heights in order to achieve that desired goal. This is going to be a difficult task being that advertisers are just doing their job, trying to sell their new diet product or their new magazine, but it needs to be enforced. Since we can’t change the psychological minds and perceptions of young girls, we need to change the “beautiful body” image itself; let’s make that image more realistic to save these young and impressionable teenage girls. There are too many widespread and deadly diseases in our world that have no cure. I strongly believe that eating disorders can be prevented or "cured" by changing this faulty image in which the visual media portrays as "beautiful." Shouldn't we prevent a disease which we are actually in control of and capable of doing so? If it means passing a law that prohibits magazine publishers from editing superstar bodies for advertisements, then a law needs to be passed. Our government and the people of our society need to open their eyes and see the growing destruction of the health of our young women and do what it takes to change the image that our culture accepts as beautiful. As part of our “reality fooled” Western culture, we need to force the advertisers and the visual media to display TRUE body image so young girls will instead follow true to life images and eating disorders will be easily prevented. Thick girls and girls of all shapes and sizes used to be the “beautiful image” and the past has clearly shown that as the media image changes, so do the body images of its audience. If we stop creating and displaying this unhealthy image, it can change the bad habits that its’ audience have acquired and we can finally say goodbye to the widespread development of eating disorders among young teenage girls.

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[edit] My FINAL Reflection Letter

Throughout the semester, I have honestly learned SO much. Coming to school thousands of miles away from my home in Naples, Florida, I have had one of the greatest experiences of my life. I have learned more of independence and living on my own, without having the advantage of going home when I please. I have learned to deal with the HUGE change of weather and of people and different personalities as well. Finally getting away from “the group” I grew up with, I am able to learn more of NEW people. I truthfully think that I have learned more in my first semester of college than I learned in the majority of my time spent in high school. High school was different and teachers made assignments clear, giving us little responsibility; we were told what was due, when it was due, when tests were, etc. We even got study guides before tests so it was almost impossible to get a bad grade if you used the study guide! Here at UMass, professors leave the “knowing” up to you and your own responsibility; NO MORE STUDY GUIDES! We take our own lecture notes and have to actually know all of the material in order to ace our exams. The workload here is MUCH more intense than what I had to deal with in high school. The workload adjustment was difficult to get used to, but I am so accustomed to getting A’s that I forced myself to work harder and harder to keep up my good grades, despite of the change in the difficulty of college work and exams and the change in the amount of work we do in our classes.

In English 112 I have learned many new lessons and realizations that I never knew existed in the “writing realm.” In Steph’s class, I have really improved my individual writing skills. Throughout the semester, I had problems with creativity of hooks and titles that included both the audience and the context of the paper. But I overcame my “creativity problem” mainly in my BIG paper, when I had changed my title from “We Need a Change” to “Eating Away.” I also brainstormed a new, catchy hook to grab the audience in my introductory paragraph “Eating disorders; eating away at our Western cultural images? Or are our Western cultural images eating its way into self destruction?” With Steph’s feedback, she seemed satisfied if not impressed at my new title and hook compared to the feedback from my original draft of the paper; “Beautiful: so much potential!!” It is VERY difficult to try and spark up enough creativity and imagination for a catchy title and hook WITHOUT forgetting it has to sum up the context of the paper and include the audience in just a few words/sentence!; but I had accomplished this.

In my BIG paper, Steph also pointed out that I need more writing parallels (using the rhetorical triangle; pathos, logos, and ethos.) I never knew of the rhetorical triangle before entering this class, but keeping pathos, logos, and ethos in mind has shown me how important writing parallels truly are. I also had a problem with “keeping the audience in mind” and connecting the audience to the context of my paper. But on my recently graded BIG paper, Steph didn’t really mention this; I think this really shows that I have pretty much reached my goal to take the audience into great consideration in my writing.

Throughout the semester Steph pointed out that I had some organizational difficulties. From Steph’s feedback on my BIG paper, I can see that I have a problem with separation of paragraphs. I seem to include more than just one idea with supporting information in each paragraph. I just rewrote my BIG paper and really focused on the paragraphing issue; I’m really glad Steph emphasized it so much in her feedback because re-reading my paper made me realize how untidy and un-uniformed it really was. As in my previous reflection letters, I had also mentioned that Steph pointed out I had a problem with the flow of my papers and my writing was too verbose. In my midterm report, Steph said “Improved from first draft, TIGHTER, flows better. You are changed because of reading. That’s powerful writing!” Yes indeed, I have overcome yet another one of my writing problems and put it behind me. Also, as time went on during the semester, my portfolios continued to be more organized (which was a slight issue Steph mentioned in my first portfolio.) Overall, I really think I have “conquered” the organizational aspect of my writing. During the semester in English 112, we have learned to use conversation in our essays. Steph used a discreet way of teaching us this skill, using the online programs The Wiki and Wordpress blog. Using these programs, we posted our writing (anonymously or not, whichever we felt more comfortable with) and used class interaction to give and receive feedback from our peers to help us improve our writing. As time passed, I feel that I continued to improve on my ability to give good, detailed feedback on others writing and I am continuing to write good, detailed blogs and comments; Steph doesn’t give too much feedback on those, so I sort of assume she’s satisfied with it. But, I won’t lie, blogging and using the Wiki was ANNOYING and hard to adjust to but all in all, I feel like it really helped; it was different, and a creative way of teaching and getting students to interact through our writing to help us overall improve as individual writers, including all students in one big “conversation.” Although, I do wish the Wiki was a bit more organized and easy to navigate, it probably would have made it easier on us as students to KNOW what was due and when it was due.

An interesting project I agreed to take on towards the beginning of the semester, was to join the Magazine Team and exempt out of writing our last paper. The Magazine Team required a lot of extra work and time aside from regularly going to class. In the Team, we had to organize all of the students’ BIG papers into 5 different categories that somewhat “related” to each other. Our theme was the song “What’s Goin’ on?” by Marvin Gaye. We had a few meetings and stayed late after class a few times to work on it; we put a lot of time and effort into the magazine and I think it turned out awesome! I enjoyed doing this extra project instead of just writing yet another paper; it was creative, different, and a big challenge, which I personally enjoy.

My improvement on my organizational skills and writing have greatly improved, which gives my papers better quality and enable my audience to read and understand them more thoroughly. In high school, when teachers have tried to help me improve my writing, I honestly never saw a difference. But I can truly say that I feel and see a change; and it’s definitely for the better; (all of the improvements I previously discussed in this letter.) I can honestly say I can’t remember a time when I have worked SO hard in a class, and I really hope my final grade in the class (and the rest of my classes as well) will reveal how hard I have worked and how many obstacles I have overcome in my first semester of college at the University of Massachusetts.