Dear Reader,

The art of writing has never come easy to me, for most of my life it is something that I
have accepted as fact. Never allowing myself the opportunity to actually try. I figured I was good
at other things, so whats the use of working on my writing skills. Writing is just for the writers,
isnt it? For those who want to tell fantastical stories of myths and magic, or those who want to
dazzle the world with their prose. And thats just not me.
To be completely honest I didnt always think this way, and over the course of this
semester I started to remember that. While its true that I was never one to write very often, I did
enjoy doing it. I enjoyed the challenge of it. The putting together of big words and the stringing
together of intricate sentences. I enjoyed the ability to collect my random thoughts on things,
often times we dont truly know how we feel about things until we write it down. I enjoyed the
ability to communicate with others without the use of words, or even without seeing them. The
secrecy of passing a note in class, and the ability to have a conversation in the middle math, were
some of my favorite uses of writing. Simplistic writing, but still writing. After all, at its most
basic level, writing is, in fact, communication. And at its truest level, it is a look into the writers
mind. Are you clear and concise, do you ramble? Is it orderly, or do you start with the ending of
the idea and work your way back. How does your mind work?
The daybook entries every morning, at first, seemed like busy work. A time that most
instructors use to get their papers together for the day, adjust their chair to their liking, maybe
dab some water on the coffee that they spilled on their shirt as they rushed through morning
traffic to be on time. It didnt bother me per se, Im a fairly understanding person. Take your

time I thought, as I jotted down whatever the prompt had us write that day. Then the next day,
the same thing, and the next, and next. After the first couple days I started to see the pattern, I
started to understand what may be the point to these. Dont think, just write. Possibly the most
useful advice I have received all year. It was slow coming at first, but eventually I felt the flow of
communication that I had long forgotten. The communication with self that I used to be so good
at.
The literacy narrative I would say, was my favorite assignment of the class. Not only do I
feel like I somewhat accurately painted the picture that I saw in my mind, but it was also my first
big writing success in years. It surprised me how fun writing can be when its not about
something boring that Im being forced to show interest in. I thought I did a particularly good job
with the balance of the storytelling, I was able to flow in and out of the story and there seemed to
be a good flow. I tried to do the same thing in my final EIP, but Im not sure if I did as good of a
job.
The topic proposal was easily my least favorite. Im not sure why, since looking at it now
it seems to be the easiest assignment we had. I think the reflective writing style was unusual to
me, and I wasnt sure how to go about writing about my process. Reading back on it now Im
actually quite proud of how it turned out. It clearly set the ground work for the rest of my inquiry
process. The value of the topic proposal was very evident and Ill be making sure to use that in
the future.
The annotated bibliography was more my style. It is a very non-creative form of writing,
where essentially I just analyze some good sources and describe them. I think I did a good job
with capturing the essence of each article or book in my annotations. An outside reader should
have a very good idea of what those sources are about without having to read them personally.

The citing was new to me though. I never actually took the time to do a proper citation before. It
was a bit complicated but I think that will get easier as I do it more. The main thing that I loved
about the annotated bibliography was that I had already done my citations for my final EIP. Once
again, the value was noticed.
The first draft of my EIP was rough going, no other way of putting that. If it wasnt for
my topic proposal, I would have been in a bad spot. It all started to make sense finally. I dont
think I did that well with this first draft. Like I mentioned before, I dont think I could find that
balance. This is the assignment that taught me a little bit about what works for me when writing
longer papers. When I hit any sort of block, I would stand up, and walk away from the computer.
Id do something completely unrelated for about 15 minutes, then come back to it. I noticed that
I would come back with different perspectives every time, often adding to paragraphs that I
thought were done, making them more coherent.
The final draft I dont think was my best work. Ill take the victory of getting most of my
ideas down on paper, but it just didnt feel like it flow. I would have liked to have worked with
Professor Campbell on this one a little more.
The ePortfolio is by far the biggest undertaking for me so far in college, but it was a blast.
I loved creating a website and making it mine. At times I may have gotten a little too caught up
on the web designing, and should have focused more on some of the content, but overall I am
extremely proud of what I made. I clearly dont belong in my generation, because it took me
forever to figure out how to do everything. If I could frame this website on my wall, I would.
The formality of writing became a big thing during my 10th grade year of high school. I
was taught the very specific pieces to writing a good essay. How you had to state what you

were talking about first, in this thing called a thesis. And then how you had to use the body of the
paper to expound on what the thesis had started, and finally finish it all up with a proper
closing statement. I, like many others, had never written this way before. While it did seem to
make sense, it also seemed very unnatural to me. What if I wanted them to be challenged by
what I wrote, then I would definitely not start off by clearly stating what I was going to talk
about. It seemed so boring. Reluctantly, I wrote the paper the way I was asked. When I received
my letter grade for the assignment, I was confused. On the top left corner of the paper was a big
red F, circled with the same red marker, as if to emphasize how bad it was. I read the few
comments she had neatly written in the margins, not a proper thesis statement, didnt lead into
the body paragraph well, lack of direction. Was my paper really that bad? Surely it didnt
warrant an F. So, not angry at all, I took the paper up to her and asked her what I did wrong.
Rather than an answer, I got a lecture about how shed gone to some prestigious writing school,
and if I wanted to have any chance of going to college and graduating that I would do exactly as
she says, no questions asked. The rest of that class, and for the rest of my adult life, I struggled to
write anything. This was the first time I ever experienced the phenomenon known as writers
block.
This year in Professor Campbells class, starting with the very first assignment of writing
him a letter introducing ourselves, Ive experienced this phenomenon. I thought to myself how
simple an assignment this is, yet as I sat down to write, I could feel my mind starting to go white,
just like the blank page I was looking at. Thankfully, it was a very simple assignment and I was
able to painfully get the ball rolling. This was the first inkling I got to how well designed this
class was. If it got me to write a whole page with relatively no issue, then this was going to be a
useful class. As the class went on I noticed a stark contrast to the way I normally perceived

writing classes, I actually started to enjoy coming to them. The extended inquiry project, which
to me seemed almost impossible at the time, suddenly became feasible. The process, something
that I had given up on, a thing that carried a negative connotation for years, was suddenly a great
thing that I started to believe in. I will honestly use this process for years when I tackle big
writing assignments in the future. My only regret for this class was that I had the distractions
of other classes. In a perfect world I would have taken this class all by itself to really absorb
every bit of it.
While my 10th grade writing class did turn me off writing, she did have a point. Writing
should have a direction sometimes, it should be organized sometimes, but the fear of failure kept
me from trying again. Dont think, just write. These words still resonate with me, even as I
write this. This class showed me that there is a time and place for different kinds of writing. That
sometimes writing is meant to be more formal, and to convey a clear and concise message or
information. Other times, writing can be haphazard, just throwing thoughts onto paper, with no
other goal other than to understand something, or yourself better. Although my writing is still
very much a work in progress, this concept of a shitty first draft has pushed me slowly past my
fear of being a bad writer. I may never be a great writer, but this class has taught me that we
are all writers, as we all have a unique mind that only needs our permission to create words on
paper.

Sincerely,
William Gonzalez