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Logan Hodges
Professor DAlessio
UWRT 1102-008
14 April 2016
Reflection
My group decided to do our project on the topic of disability studies. Personally, I have
always found how society acts towards certain groups differently, interesting. Throughout the
process of researching and writing, I have learned a lot about others and myself. Before this
semester, I never knew what exactly the disabled went through in terms of dealing with other
members of society. With my sources, I have read and listened to many stories told by people
with a disability and/or family and friends of the disabled. This led me to thinking about my own
actions and assumptions that I have towards the disabled. My group as a whole decided that our
group project should be to bring awareness to this topic and inform others about the disabled
community. At first, I was nervous about doing a group project because I did not like the idea of
my grade being affected by someone elses work. I do believe that it all worked out great and I
am very pleased with the final outcome.
My idea on this topic throughout the semester has remained the same, but has grown
stronger. In the beginning, I knew that it was wrong to disrespect the disabled and that it made
them uncomfortable when we would act awkward around them. But, I did not know about the
struggles they faced on a daily basis, the rising of accessibility for them, and the way the actions
of others affected the family and friends of the disabled. During the Question Session, I was not
sure which questions to ask because I had not done any research prior to it. Honestly, I was not
aware that research had been done on the way society treats and reacts to a disabled person.

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But, by the end of this semester, I learned about the trials and errors that successful disabled
people went through and overcame, and also about what the average person with a disability or
disorder goes through to try and live the most normal life possible. My thoughts on this is that
a person with a disability cannot control the fact that they have one, and they want to be closest
to normal as they can be. So, we should try our best to treat them the same way we treat others
in the community.
During the research process for this project, I was skeptical about the information I was
getting from my sources because of the bias opinion the author or narrator had that was writing
or speaking in the sources. Before I did the annotated bibliography, I had to search for sources to
use. I mainly used the UNCC Akins Library database to find my sources. I started out by
searching for the general term Disabilities. This brought up millions of videos, articles, books,
etc. I then decided that I needed to be more specific in the terms I used in the search box. I
searched for specific things such as Societys view on the disabled and Disabled views on
society. I found videos, articles, and experiments retaining information that I could use for my
paper. I went through multiple sources to get accurate information. I had to make sure that the
experiments I was reading were made of random samples and had a variety of interviewees. The
best source that supported my opinion on this topic was an experiment called Living Stigma: The
Impact of Labeling, Stereotyping, Separation, Status Loss, and Discrimination in the Lives of
Individuals with Disabilities and Their Families. The people running the experiment did an
excellent job at emphasizing the effects of people in societys actions on the disabled and also the
friends and family of the disabled. Looking back at my research process and doing the annotated
bibliography as a screencast, I now see that doing the screencast let me really dig deep into my

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sources and see which ones would provide useful information by making me talk about what
information from the source I was going to use in my paper and project.
A lot of the stories and experiments I read had very interesting results. For example, one
interviewee, that was paralyzed and is confined to a wheelchair, mentioned that some people
could not shake her hand comfortably and could only look her in her eyes for a short amount of
time before becoming uncomfortable. Another interviewee, a mother of a boy with autism, stated
that her friends would quickly change the subject or would try to avoid the subject of her son.
These cases surprised me because I have a close family friend that has a son that is autistic, and I
have never seen anything like that happen around them before. The findings from above
encouraged me to continue to look for more information about the way society treats the
disabled. I wanted to find positive actions towards the disabled by society. By searching
celebrities with disabilities and successful people with disabilities, I found multiple people
that fit those categories. Some of which I have never heard of before. One of the people that
shocked me was Tom Cruise. Him having the very successful acting career that he does, I would
have never guessed he had Dyslexia. Since this disorder inhibits a persons ability to read and
comprehend what they read, it amazes me that Cruise overcame that bolder in his life. He
worked hard reading books, having teachers help him, and repeatedly read something over and
over to have the career he has today. This goes to show that disabled people can live a normal
life.
Since last semester, I feel that my writing process has changed. Before, I would write one
rough draft, tweak a few things, and then turn it in. But, this semester, I began to write my first
draft with the goal of having all of my ideas and thoughts on the paper. After that, I would review
my first draft and then write a second one. Next, I would tweak it, and turn it in for grading. With

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the final essay for this class, I brainstormed a lot. I thought about what I could say, the points I
wanted to make, and the examples I wanted to use before I wrote down one word. After that, I
then moved into my first and second draft. In class we had peer reviews and I highly enjoyed
them. They were a part of my composing process and I fixed what needed fixing then turned in
the final draft. The homework we were assigned that was a reading of Shitty First Drafts was a
tool I turned to which helped me write my paper. It showed me how to go about writing your first
draft, review and edit, second draft, review and edit, etc. I believe this is the best way for me to
write any paper now that I went through that process with this final essay.
This inquiry project was different from any other research paper I have ever done in my
life, and in a good way. I really enjoyed and appreciated this assignment because I like the fact
that my teacher, for once, cared about my opinion on a controversial topic rather than only seeing
if I retrieved enough information to write a twelve page paper. With this project, I have
experienced working with a group for the first time in my college career. This was certainly
something new for me that I was worried about at first. I was afraid I would receive a bad grade
because of someone elses doings, but that is not what happened at all. I was very pleased with
how well our group worked together to make a great awareness video on disabilities and how
society identifies them.
Throughout this semester, I have learned an abundance of things. Ive learned how to
become a better writer, about disability studies, how to work with a group, and the list goes on. I
have learned how to be aware of my rhetorical knowledge with my group project because we had
to decide who our audience was, the purpose of it, the best way to portray it, and which point of
view we were speaking from. With our homework that was readings and having to write a
discussion post about them, enhanced my critical reading due to the fact that I had to interpret

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and identify the reasoning of the article I was reading. I was able to add to the conversation that
my classmates and I were creating on Moodle and evaluate what exactly was being told in the
reading. While writing the final essay, I realized this semester I have learned the composing
process that works for me. Well, the one I think works for me anyway. Brainstorming, multiple
drafts, and peer and family reviews lets me feel more comfortable about turning in a paper the
day it is due rather than writing only one draft. I have learned the importance of knowledge of
conventions from making the e-portfolio and writing all of the papers this semester. While
working on this portfolio, I have to put a lot of things in perspective. First being the appearance
of it. Having a theme and structuring it to have a professional design but still have color and
multimodality. Writing all of my papers has taught me knowledge of conventions as well because
of the way I had to continuously use the same format for them, be sure to have perfect grammar
and punctuation, and make sure I correctly cited my sources. Daybooks, my portfolio, and this
reflection paper have taught me how to critically reflect. In my daybooks, even though I did not
have to have proper grammar, I was allowed to reflect back on something we had been working
on and I was able to write about why I did certain things. In my portfolio, I write reflections
about almost all my pieces of work from this semester and tell why I decided to make the
decisions I did.
All in all, I had a great semester in this UWRT class and I hate to see it come to an end.
Even though, at the beginning of this semester, I was nervous about having another writing class
because I thought I was a bad writer, I have continued to see my writing process and my thinking
strategies positively change throughout this semester and last. I am glad I had Ms. DAlessio for
both of my semesters because I believe she pushed our classes to work hard and actually think

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about what is going on. She cares about what we have to say and I am thankful for that. This is
my last writing class for my pre-requisites, and I have to say, it was a good one!