Dear Professor Intawiwat,

This class has been quite the journey, from walking in on the first day thinking that this
class would be like any other, to seeing how much progress Ive made as a writer through my eportfolio. I didnt take long for me to realize that I had come a long way and I have many miles
left to go. The first milestone of this class was learning ethos, logos, and pathos. This contributed
to my writing style by explaining what content I should include in my papers. Logos is known as
the appeal to reason, pathos is often associated with emotional appeal and ethos refers to the
credibility of the writer or speaker. These three elements assisted me in the process of writing my
first essay, This I Believe.
The This I Believe assignment proved to be challenging for me because I just didnt
know what to write about. I believe in a lot of things, however I felt like my beliefs were too
similar to others and I wanted to choose something different that I could write about openly. The
process began with writing down topic which caused me to come to a writers block. As I jotted
topics down I found that sports and my dad were both important in my life, now I had to tie the
two together. This is what led me to my topic of integrity which my dad instilled through sports.
He had always coached me from a very young age; all it took was turning my personal
experiences into words. I went back and forth defining integrity and tying two and two together.
Truthfully I was confident in my first draft but the peer reviews proved I had some work to do
which helped in my final draft process. After the second peer review I knew what corrections I
needed to make and the direction I would take my paper in, so I did so. I am proud of my final
paper because I feel like it is a part of my life which made it pretty interesting to write about. I
enjoyed this assignment because it weighed heavily on a time in my life that I will never forget.

The second assignment was the extended Inquiry which I wasnt really looking forward
to. The best part of this assignment was watching the movie in class. I like how we got to choose
a topic that somewhat correlated with the overall idea of changing the world or proving our own
points. Choosing a topic didnt take me too long because I knew I want to research stress which
was displayed many times throughout the film. I would make this argumentative by proving that
there are positives to stress and its not always a negative factor in our life. I grew the most in
this assignment because Im usually not good with the research process. This assignment did
require a lot of research and I did not enjoy the annotated bibliography, I had to push myself
through it. However, I found that even though I didnt enjoy the research process it really made
writing the essay a lot easier. I think that writing annotated bibliographies will help me in writing
papers for other classes.
An assignment that I found to be the most challenging was the first discussion activity
about the Ted Talk we watched in class. I didnt necessarily agree with the topic of video games
and found the speakers points to me a little unclear and incoherent. What made this assignment
challenging was attempting to understand where the speaker was coming from and turning it into
a written assignment. I found that my complication was resolved after I completed my
assignment and read the responses of my classmates. I understood that I was not the only one to
react negatively towards her presentation, which made me feel that it is ok to have a differing
viewpoint. This made me realize that I could relate this topic towards my argumentative essays
such as the extended inquiry. By taking a point I dont agree with and fueling my disbelief
towards an argument makes my paper all the more interesting and adds enthusiasm.
When I reflect on my individual participation in this class I would say it was pretty
average. I completed each of my assignments and attended every class due to the fact I never

wanted to risk missing a lecture or assignment. There were times when I would be completely
immersed in a topic and times where I was completely uninterested, which I would say is fairly
normal. This made me realize that I have come pretty far as a student this semester. When there
were topics presented that I was interested in I would go home and do further research or find
that I was anxious to learn more. When it came to the This I Believe assignment I really felt
that I grew as a writer because I havent really had many opportunities to write about a reflection
of my life. I would definitely be interested in doing more assignments like this in the future. The
fact that I enjoyed this assignment also tells me that I have come a long way because in high
school I definitely would have blown off an assignment like this. I think it just took time for me
to realize that assignments like This I Believe are comforting and good for realizing what
exactly I am interested in.
In conclusion, I really enjoyed this class and would definitely recommend it for anyone
whos looking for personal growth and finding their full potential in critical thinking skills. I
think that this class has impacted me positively and am anxious to see how I will use the skills I
learned in this class and applying them to the rest of my education. I am particularly thankful for
your help in putting together a final product, such as my website to assist in creating visuals. I
feel that your overall teaching methods were effective and led me to find strength within myself
to develop a final product and display what I have worked so hard for over the past sixteen
weeks. I would like to thank you personally for all your help this semester while also instilling
independence in critical thinking.
Sincerely,
Frank Leebrick