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Joel Kim
Professor Jessi Morton
UWRT 1102
28 April 2016
Final Reflection: Journey through my UWRT class

Taking UWRT 1102 my spring semester has to be the most helpful choice I made. In the
beginning of UWRT 1102, I was expecting to write a lot of college papers non-stop. But in
reality, we talked a lot about Violence. Talking about current events relating to Violence was
fun and I enjoyed having discussions with the class. My expectations was highly met, for
example, I had the opportunity to be involved with my group team members. I always liked
working with other peers because we are able to share diverse perspectives on our writings. I am
able to write more, which is always fun to do. In high school, my goal was to become a better
writer, even today, I want to continue to develop as a respectable writer. When I was a little kid,
I grew knowing that English was my second language and Korean as my first. English writing
was the most challenging subject I ever faced. I went to a lot of English tutoring from Pre-K to
sophomore in High school. I just seemed that majority of the tutoring I have been too did not
help as much as I expected it to be. But this semester, I realized that UWRT 1102 helped me to
achieve my goal. I got be familiar with the fundamentals of English writing. The tutoring offered
here at UNC-Charlotte has been very helpful too. In the first half of the spring semester, the
tutors gave me a lot of good feedbacks about my individual writing assignments. They seem to
be dedicated in helping me to succeed and I really do appreciate the University for offering such
a tutor center. The goals I hope to continue working towards in the near future is be an effective
group member. I am a business major and my job will consist of business meetings. Being an
effective member can get any job done. I always wanted to encourage others to add their

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reactions or ideas to build on someones comment. Its all about teamwork and I am excited to
implement that goal whenever I am in a business meeting.
In my portfolio, I included my argumentative essay, annotated bibliography, inquiry topic
proposal, individual mind-map, and my team mind-map. I chose my argumentative essay and my
annotated bibliography as a must to put in my Final Portfolio because I know that I needed to
do a lot of revision on them. For the other two individual projects, I included my inquiry topic
proposal and individual mind- map, those are my most proud individual projects. If you click
on Individual Projects on the left side on both the argumentative essay and the annotated
bibliography there is a draft that hasnt been fixed yet and on the right side is the revision of the
assignments. I also included Professor Mortons comments which helped me revise my papers
easily. When I first created these individual projects, I felt that I needed to use my high school
knowledge and implement them to a college paper. It was hard at first because I didnt know
how to write an effective argumentative essay and annotated bibliography. I remember in high
school that I did something similar and I had a lot of English teachers who were not as helpful.
They didnt give me feedbacks and just put our letter grades on top of the paper. I really like
having Professor Morton giving us really long, but helpful feedbacks. It actually helps me to
understand what I need to get fix and what needs to be done. Currently, I feel like revising my
argumentative essay and annotated bibliography has been the highlight of this UWRT 1102
course because of how much revision I had to do.
No one is born a writer; I believe that the ability of writing is cultured skill like any
additional skill. So I found a lot writing strategies that would help me become a better writer. I
would speak before I write something. Whenever, I have some sort of an idea I would create an
outline and I am ready to write. But I always find it difficult. So the best thing to do is to speak

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out loud of what it is that I need to write. Second, since high school, I would leave out relevant
details for my audiences. I remember in high school and my English teacher told me this, Use
the Best Details You can imagine. I thought to myself what she meant by that and further on, I
realized that she wanted me to catch the readers attention and make them imagine the complete
plot or storyline, nearly like the audience is there with the characters viewing the story happening
right before their eyes, similar to a motion picture. Your main objective is to not have the
readers bore to death. My last writing strategy that I have learned throughout the course is
spellcheck and editing. The most important tool, the spellchecker. While taking UWRT 1102, I
found a unique and fast editing technique that work. I would print out an individual assignment
and I would place a ruler or a thin book underneath each line and as I read down the page I am
able to catch errors more without difficulty. These writing strategies enabled me to catch
mistakes and clarify my individual writing assignments. Aside from writing strategies, revision
was the important step in my Final Portfolio. Revising my work lets me to correct noticeable
glitches before others like my group team mates realize it. It helps me to get an improved score
or it can frequently aid others to grasp my point-of-view. There were a list of specific changes I
had to make, especially on both my Argumentative essay and my annotated bibliography. For
example, my citations was the weakest overall. For my annotated bibliography, I mistakenly
wrote each source as a summary. Instead the direction was to use my voice to analyze the sources
and I was able to revise that. The feedbacks that Professor Morton gave me was helpful in many
ways because how in-depth her comments were. For example when she commented on my
annotated bibliography, Joel, Your annotated bibliography doesnt do what it needs to do, and
even though some of your summaries are strong, there are several issues with this piece. Your
citations are not correctly formatted. They should not be in bold, and they need hanging indents.

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Some are also missing information. You also don't seem to have analyzed or connected these
sources. All of the writing you've done here is summary. I don't see any places where you've
added your voice by critiquing or analyzing the source or by pointing out the links between one
source and another or between a source and your specific questions. I think there's a lot more you
could have said about those things, and you could have cut back on the summary to make room
for your own thoughts about the sources. Let me know if you have questions or need help as you
continue to work, Such feedback from a college professor can aid me to absorb more
resourcefully and I realized that good feedbacks can also become a great tool to encourage
myself to learn. I am so pleased to have an instructor like Professor Morton because I can tell
you that there are no professors at UNC-Charlotte do things like that.
Before beginning my Final Portfolio, I wanted to have it to be simplicity. Simplicity is
defined as the state of being simple. Having my work disorganized can cause complications
which can cause vagueness and a sense of lack of skill. Plus, I want to show-off my work and
make things easy to navigate. If you click on the About Me page in my Final Portfolio, I
included a photo of a man that is about to write something in his journal. I believe that this man
and I share something in common. We both have the interest to learn. The navigation on my
portfolio is very simple, in each tab there will be individual projects and group projects. In my
individual project tab, I included my argumentative essay, annotated bibliography, inquiry topic
proposal, and individual mind-map. I wanted to include my argumentative essay and my
annotated bibliography because of how much improvements I needed to make, so on the left I
included a draft that was not reviewed yet and on the right I had them revised. I wanted to show
you my inquiry topic proposal and individual mind-maps because those assignments are the ones
that I was most proud of and had the best feedbacks from Professor Morton. I was delighted with

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my About Me page because I got to talk about my interactive journey throughout my literacy
history. I had the opportunity to present my hand picked works we did in class and I got to talk
about the love of writing and continue to do so.
In conclusion, taking UWRT 1102 my spring semester has been the best because of how
much support I have had from my group members. Working with group is a huge factor for my
accomplishments in UWRT 1102 because of how much interactions you get with your peers.
Also, I have already been able to apply what I have learned to my other classes and cannot tell
you how much it has helped. Even though my writing is still not the best, I figured out the plan
that sets me up to write the best. Besides remembering all the techniques we went over in class, I
now know that I need a rough draft and that before I revise I need a break from my paper. Also
that my revisions are the best when I read my papers out loud and that I should have other people
read my paper. The writing I have done this semester had helped me build a rhythm that I can use
the rest of my college time to write some of my best papers. The growth I have done in the class
has made me confident in my writing and its allowing me to get more comfortable with it.
Therefore it has given me courage to write creatively, show my personality, and express my ideas
clearly. Overall the confidence I have grown this semester is due to all the practice and learning I
have done in my class. The help from my teacher has made me grow and build my confidence as
well as taught me where my weaknesses and strengths are. The growth I have had goes beyond
this class or the English subject it taken me to learn about the importance of language and
contact zones. I had a gained a lot form this semester and I thank my professor for helping me
overcome one of the biggest fears: writing college papers.