Midterm Reflective Letter
Dear Marlen,
I have to admit that the first day of your class, I was scared as hell. Mainly because you said how many students always drop your class, and I was scared that I was going to be one of those people. I heard from many people that your class was hard as hell, but that it was well worth it in the end. So obviously I stuck with it and I’m glad I did because I am learning so much in your class that I never thought I would. Also I know that you tried to be mean and scary the first day of class, but I have to tell you that you weren’t scary at all not even a little bit 
. The only thing that was scary was how much work we all knew we were going to have to do. I never thought that I would ever actually enjoy going to a class, but I happen to love showing up to yours every Tuesday and Thursday. I love that we are put into groups because we all get to bond and learn a lot about each other. I also love that you give us the beginning of class to sit around and vent to each other.
When I first knew that I had to take Research Writing I expected that I would have to write a couple of short papers. Little did I know that I would had to write a 15 page paper. I have to admit that I am very stressed with it at the moment because I feel as if there is so much homework that I’m never going to get a break from it. Don’t get me wrong I love your class and the information I learn is very knowledgeable, but it’s very time consuming and I don’t always have enough time to really put my all into it. Well for the blogs that is. The thing that I love most about your class is although we have to write a huge paper we get to work on it a little bit at a time. If it was all due at once I would be freaking out right now.
From your class so far I have learned that I cannot procrastinate at all or I will get really far behind with my work. I’m glad that you are teaching us this lesson because I do sometimes tend to procrastinate on homework, and now I know that for your class anyways that procrastination will get me absolutely no where. I know that this class will be very beneficial, but right now I can’t say enough how much I am dreading writing this research paper. I love my topic, but there really aren’t that many journal articles for it so it makes it a little bit harder to find information that I can actually use. I hope that I can actually write a 15 page paper because at the moment I’m doubting myself about that. I’m going to try my best and turn in a really good paper by the end of this semester.
I never realized how much hard work actually goes into writing a paper. It’s honestly crazy to think about all the time I am going to be putting into this paper, and honestly I’ve already put a shitload of time into it. I know that this class is time consuming and it makes me kind of stressed because this is not my only hard class, and I’m trying to put all my effort into your class along with two of my other hard classes. I hope that I can continue to stay on track with the assignments, and not fall behind.
Sincerely,
Katie Depner
Final Reflective Letter
Dear Marlen,
Although your class has been very stressful at times, it has honestly been one of the best experiences of my life. Like I said in the letter above, I was scared as shit to take your class. In the end it was definitely quite the ride 
. I have learned so much in this class that I will never forget. I’m so glad that I stuck with you and your class it has been so much fun. At times I was super stressed because there was just SO much work that it was ridiculous, but in the end it was so worth it. I usually procrastinate so much, but in your class there is NO time to procrastinate at all. I still remember reading those dreadful emails from you during winter break, and I seriously wanted to drop your class right away, but I’m really glad that I didn’t. I remember you trying so hard to scare all of us on the first day of class, and honestly you didn’t scare anyone considering that maybe one person dropped out of our class haha.
Your class was the only class that I didn’t skip, not even once. I felt that if I would miss one class, then I would be so far behind. Plus, you’d probably just get pissed if one of us didn’t show up. Which I know that most of the class would always show up. I really liked doing the blog for your class because I’ve actually done a blog in a previous class, and I personally feel as if it’s a really efficient way of learning, and also kind of easy at the same time. I loved that we only had to write one paper all semester, and that it took the whole semester to write. I think it was so much better than having to write 6, two page papers which I’m sure that’s what all the other research classes had to do, sucks to be them. I feel as if the paper was a lot easier to write after the Literature Review was done. It was such a pain in the ass, that I seriously wanted to cry.
Not only did I learn how to write a really good research paper, but I also learned more about MLA formatting. I loved not having a book in your class because we had to “research” and look up everything on the internet to find out what everything we had to do was. I found that very beneficial because that way we HAD to look up everything for our blogs and paper.
Thank you for being such a great teacher, and a huge influence to all of us. You are truly the best teacher I’ve ever had, and I love that you treated us as adults and not just “college students”. You didn’t take it easy on us, and I’m so thankful for that because if you would’ve taken it easy on us, then we never would have done anything in your class. Thanks for everything, thanks for being you .
Sincerely,
Katie Depner
