Hello

 Hi Professor Hamilton. In class you had said that we could make a website or something creative when turning in our Final Portfolio. I chose to take a page from my junior year English class. Our teacher, Dr. Preston, had taught us how to create blogs and we used our blogs for everything in the class. He’s a former UCLA professor, and is a strong supporter of Open Source Learning, which is what we focused on that year. He’s written a few books, and even given a TED Talk on Open Source Learning. If you’re even a little bit curious, you should check out his website. https://davidpreston.net/blog/

I originally contracted for an A in this class. And at the beginning of the semester, I was well on my way to that. It was my highest and most important priority in August: to get an A in this class. Things slowly started going downhill from there. I’m not a great writer, I never have been. So writing a two page essay every other week soon grew to be too daunting, and I slowly fell behind. Then September happened. Over the course of one month, I turned eighteen, lost a coworker, lost a family friend, lost my high school best friend, my aunt, AND my professor to this class. I spent the month planning and attending funerals. I spent a week in Texas with my family, though I only missed one class for it. It was a bad month, and I did almost no work for this class. I knew then that I’d never get an A in this class, so when you asked us to resign our contracts, I changed mine to a B. You had offered to let us turn in four late Evergreens, and I thought, maybe I could make that work. So I got started. I tried to write, and for the most part, I did. But it wasn’t easy. I’m a great storyteller, and a great writer once I get going, but getting started? That’s my problem. One I’ve never learned to overcome.  So I can admit, while I really want a B, I really deserve a C. I turned in all it one of my Evergreens late, and that one wasn’t even for full credit. I did attend all but two classes, and did the majority of the work on our group paper though. I started a group chat to help my group with the project and reminded them when everything was due and such. But that doesn’t help me, does it? Yeah, I can admit it: I deserve a C in this class. I be surprised if I got anything more. 

I did mean it though, when I said yours was my favorite class of the semester. I learned a lot, and generally enjoyed the class. You kept me engaged, I was never bored. The only professor I had this semester that did that, actually. So thank you.