Semester Reflection
Dear Mr. Padgett,
Through out this semester at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, with it being my second semester here, and also my second semester in your writing inquires class; I find it hard to explain what I learned in this class specifically. The reason for that is since taking your class both semester, the things I learned this semester built upon and solidified what I already learned in the fall semester.
When this class first started and I learned that it was going to be about social media, I was a little apprehensive at first since I have never been very big on using the different forms of social medias. I mean I’ve used Facebook in the past, but I did not like it, and when my account somehow got deleted it didn’t sadden me one bit, and I have yet to make a new one. As the semester rolled on though, I learned that much of it was going to be building upon what I learned in the first semester, such a digging deeper into what I read, and not just taking everything at face value. The main difference was what we would be researching, the social media aspect was interesting, since I did research and learned new things about social media that I would not have expected in the past. The focus on social media also bought up some questions that I would never of though about, and think about what my personal opinions were to answer the questions. One such example of this question, is what was in my inquiry proposal, what I did my annotated bibliography on, and what I eventualy did my research paper on later in the year. The question was how does social media influence and affect children growing up. Before this class and these papers I did not have an opinion on this matter, simply because I never gave it any thought. But after doing my research into it and putting a lot of time thinking about it, I came to my own conclusions that I personally supported children using social medias while growing up. This ties hand in hand with last semester since last semester I learned how to dig deeper into things, this semester I also had to dig deeper into things I did not think I would.
One more thing that helped me this semester just as it did last semester was the reader responses. Before writing this letter, I reread mine from last semester. Last semester I wrote about how much I dreaded having to write the first reader response, that as time went on and by the tenth one they were much easier two write, and the words just flowed onto the page. This semester I was a lot less afraid of the responses just like the end of my first semester, but I got even less scared of having to write them, to the point where the though of having actually having to write never crossed my mind. The anxiety that was there in the beginning of first semester was nearly all gone, and as a result my thoughts about the writing piece or in one case video just freely came out of my mind and came out much clearer that ever. The reader responses helped me immensely with writing in general, because while I am still not too fond of writing. Deep down I am not a little less anxious when I get assigned a paper, or really anything involving writing, and when I do get to write the word flow onto the paper much more easily.
Through out not only this semester but also last semester I have learned many lessons in reading and writing, some of those I will hopefully keep with me for the rest of my life. I have learned to read deeper to extract a meaning, and I do not dread writing as much as I used to. Thank you for a great first two semesters at college.
Thomas Zickler
Through out this semester at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, with it being my second semester here, and also my second semester in your writing inquires class; I find it hard to explain what I learned in this class specifically. The reason for that is since taking your class both semester, the things I learned this semester built upon and solidified what I already learned in the fall semester.
When this class first started and I learned that it was going to be about social media, I was a little apprehensive at first since I have never been very big on using the different forms of social medias. I mean I’ve used Facebook in the past, but I did not like it, and when my account somehow got deleted it didn’t sadden me one bit, and I have yet to make a new one. As the semester rolled on though, I learned that much of it was going to be building upon what I learned in the first semester, such a digging deeper into what I read, and not just taking everything at face value. The main difference was what we would be researching, the social media aspect was interesting, since I did research and learned new things about social media that I would not have expected in the past. The focus on social media also bought up some questions that I would never of though about, and think about what my personal opinions were to answer the questions. One such example of this question, is what was in my inquiry proposal, what I did my annotated bibliography on, and what I eventualy did my research paper on later in the year. The question was how does social media influence and affect children growing up. Before this class and these papers I did not have an opinion on this matter, simply because I never gave it any thought. But after doing my research into it and putting a lot of time thinking about it, I came to my own conclusions that I personally supported children using social medias while growing up. This ties hand in hand with last semester since last semester I learned how to dig deeper into things, this semester I also had to dig deeper into things I did not think I would.
One more thing that helped me this semester just as it did last semester was the reader responses. Before writing this letter, I reread mine from last semester. Last semester I wrote about how much I dreaded having to write the first reader response, that as time went on and by the tenth one they were much easier two write, and the words just flowed onto the page. This semester I was a lot less afraid of the responses just like the end of my first semester, but I got even less scared of having to write them, to the point where the though of having actually having to write never crossed my mind. The anxiety that was there in the beginning of first semester was nearly all gone, and as a result my thoughts about the writing piece or in one case video just freely came out of my mind and came out much clearer that ever. The reader responses helped me immensely with writing in general, because while I am still not too fond of writing. Deep down I am not a little less anxious when I get assigned a paper, or really anything involving writing, and when I do get to write the word flow onto the paper much more easily.
Through out not only this semester but also last semester I have learned many lessons in reading and writing, some of those I will hopefully keep with me for the rest of my life. I have learned to read deeper to extract a meaning, and I do not dread writing as much as I used to. Thank you for a great first two semesters at college.
Thomas Zickler