Richard Marley

UWRT 1101

Professor: Malcolm Campbell

So here we are again. This time at the end of the semester, instead of just the middle of it. I’m

not sure how I feel about my first semester back at a university. Coming into this whole thing I was

afraid of a few things, mostly being too old (yep even at 24, people I started with at 18 have already

graduated), and then there was the not fitting in with other students. I really didn’t want to be the weird

one in the class. Day one walking in to my English class I was a little at ease by everyone else’s relative

uneasiness that was pretty close to mine… and I realized that I didn’t look any different than anyone else

there… in fact some of them looked older than me (probably because I can’t grow facial hair.) The first

thing we did was watch some “Ali-G Indahouse” videos, which I thought were hilarious and then break

into talking about our first real assignment… well, two assignments. First, we were going to have to keep

a blog, “A what?!” Yes, a blog. I wasn’t excited about this. The first post didn’t seem bad and I actually

kept up with them quite nicely until the end of October. I still have to go and add a few to my blog to try

to make the required posts, I did at one point attempt to throw in an extra post too, about my dog and

how short life is, but that ended up being the only one because I just didn’t have any good ideas for

extra posts. Overall I think I would keep a blog again for a class and I would just schedule the days as

alerts in my phone that I needed to make the required posts… so I don’t forget. As I’m putting the

finishing touches on my E-Portfolio I’m resenting not making the blog a more important part of my

homework/study routine. This could have been so simple, just like you said… but I let it get behind and

now I have to work harder to catch up. Damn.

Next, the first real assignment. Our Genre Analysis. I was frightened by the idea of analyzing

something like a book or film to try and get everything into a paper and make it make sense. I actually

started off trying to do this paper on “The Call of Cthulhu,” by H.P. Lovecraft. For some reason I decided

to put my favorite quote from this story into my introductory letter for the class but the story was just

too … something … I couldn’t get started working on it while using the Lovecraft story as my selection,

I’m not sure why, I wish I could fish that information out of my brain and stick it in here but I honestly

can’t tell you. Anyway, about a week before the paper was due I decided to use my favorite movie as

the subject, “Fight Club.” Hell yes, I started typing about this movie and before I knew it I had like 5

pages of information down. Reading all that I had typed ended up making me angry at myself because

all I had done was tell the story of the movie and not analyzed anything. I let my peer review partners

read the paper and they gave some pretty solid suggestions as to how I could cut that synopsis down.

The only thing that was upsetting about the peer review process on this paper for me was that neither

of my partners had their papers ready or available for our peer review session, oh well it was our first

one so I decided to take what they had to say about mine and try to work them in. After editing the

synopsis down quite a bit I ended up with something I liked, now to finish the assignment by checking

the bullets from the assignment sheet. Those assignment sheets helped so much, they helped keep me

on track with my paper and guide me into what I should talk about next, I really enjoyed having those

and when I was typing always had it open on my second monitor so I could just glance over at it. Out of

the three, I suppose this was my least favorite? Not that any of them were my least favorite but I think I

had the most difficulty doing this one, probably for multiple reasons including that it was my first real

academic work since coming back to school.

The literacy narrative I had decided to start as a non-Army story. I don’t quite remember what I

started tossing around in my mind and in a blank word document as my subject matter for the paper… I

just know that I scrapped it because I was talking to my wife about it and she wasn’t really feeling it

(she’s a graduate student, so she’s been there.) I started typing things that happened to me while I was

in the Army and when I got to typing about Korea I decided that I would talk about my first experience

with the people and the language. This seemed to fit the bill perfectly. I wasn’t literate as far as Korean

culture or language both spoken and written… so this is what I started typing about. I honestly just

started from the beginning, getting off the plane. I remember perfectly what that flight attendant said to

me and how I reacted to it. There are some slightly fabricated parts of that paper because I don’t

remember exact dialogue, but most of it is pretty spot on. I ended up typing the whole paper in one

night and being pretty happy with it, I shot it out to my peer review partners and my wife to look over. I

don’t think I received any real feedback on it from my partners again, we liked to just talk about them in

person. During our peer review time in class we talked about my paper a little, neither of them could

really find places for me to elaborate or that I needed to move, they kept with trying to pick at little

grammar issues or punctuation which didn’t really help at all. I got home and decided to flare the paper

up with a picture and fix some of the grammar pointed out to me earlier that day. I enjoyed this one the

most of the three I think because it allowed me some degree of creative freedom. I have always really

enjoyed writing fiction, but sadly the opportunity doesn’t present it’s self very often in the educational

arena. Not that my story was fiction, but parts of it were up to me to create to make the real story seem

more real. I think I submitted this paper the earliest of the three major assignments because I had it

done so early, I just wanted someone to read it. While adding it to my portfolio I actually read it again

just to see if there were anything I could do differently, and there isn’t.

The mid-term reflective letter was optional for our class (and likely the other sections) but I

decided to do it anyway. I think it was helpful for me to do that even though my format for it was

weird… almost schizophrenic. In the letter I was talking to and at myself from first and third person. I

didn’t edit it at all, I just typed what I was thinking about everything and submitted it to moodle.

Boom, the mini-ethnography, our last paper for the semester. I knew right from the beginning

which group I was going to observe… it’s almost like this assignment was made just for me. I was so

amped that it lined up perfectly with a drill weekend too, so I had the perfect opportunity to get my

observations done. Just listening to the chatter around class about the paper was quite amusing. People

seemed to be dreading typing the paper and mad about their observations being hard to do, and weird

about talking to someone else in an interview. The last day before we turned the paper in most people

were like, “Oh my god, I haven’t even started typing it yet.” Meanwhile I was upset that I had to stop

mine at 10 pages or likely be fined points for going way over the page count (as had happened in

previous classes I have taken.) My observations went over well and got me even more excited to type

the paper. The night I started typing, my wife and I were sitting in our little office area of the house

talking… and during my conversation with her and reading over my observation notes I had typed 5 of

the pages and not even gotten my main ideas across. I knew this was going to be a long one and I

accepted the fact that I might be penalized for it. It turns out that I wasn’t penalized at all and actually I

netted my highest grade of the semester at 99/100, where the other two were both 98s. This paper

would have been my favorite assignment but the narrative beat it out by a hair.

My experience in my freshman Writing 1101 class was overwhelmingly positive. I was a fan of

the atmosphere that was provided for me and the assignments all challenged me in some way, which is

nice (the English I took before leaving the university the first time was so boring and not fun that I ended

up not coming to most of the classes and failed because of it… I was so mad at Ms. Caruso for that.) I

think that having this class in my first semester back from military life was a great advantage for me. It

helped me get over my somewhat fear of writing for someone again, and sharing that work with others

(even though my peer review partners were a bit… lacking, they still helped me be alright with sharing

my work.) I tried for no less than three days to look for my current UWRT professor (you) for the next

section of the class I would have to take so I could bore you with more of my Army related papers, but it

turns out that you had been assigned to a few 1103 sections… so I’ll have to get used to someone else’s

grading and expectations again next semester, which could be alright and might also help me in the long

run by being able to adapt my work to suit the situation. As you work your way through my E-portfolio

and my previous works, please know that I gave everything I did the most effort I possibly could (except

the blog, admittedly) and I hope you enjoyed having me in your class as much as I enjoyed being there.

Side note- that stupid “more” button on my portfolio won’t go away because of spacing constraints

apparently, I got into contact with WIX support over it, I hope everything is still easy to navigate and you

enjoy what you find.

Thank you for an awesome semester.

Very Respectfully,

Richard Marley