The Final Monday..

Class Reflection

1. I feel as if I've grown a lot throughout the course of this class. I feel as if my anxiety towards writing has decreased. Before I was hesitant on where to get started when I had several different options to discuss in my writing. Sure my writing still has a lot of flaws but I feel as if I am more capable to pin point a concept and focus my attention on that specifically. I will always have the problem I think to much. I always feel as if I have so much I want to say in papers and I don't know how to express all the concepts that are important for me to conceptualize.
2. I feel like the text in which I struggled with the most were the ones I enjoyed most. Everyone does hate poetry but I feel like when it's our task to sit and pull apart a small poem and try to figure out the meaning of what each line brings to the table puts a different perspective on literature. It allows you to honestly criticize the authors work and think out side the box on the common meanings of what people see at first glance at some poems. The other thing I struggled with yet some how enjoyed was Shakespeare. The text is written in what seems like jibberish anyways but when we are asked to go through and grab a concept that we enjoyed in the text and pick it apart it made me think. It allowed me to relate to the characters and grasp the true meaning of his mysterious words. The last thing I at first struggled with still ends up being my favorite were the graphic novels. There was something so complicated about reading the McCloud story, it was all too much information for me it in fact made me never want to read a graphic novel. But when we read American Born Chinese I was captivated. I finished in approximately 20 minutes. It was as if I couldn't stop reading it. I feel like when students can related to a story more, it's easier for them to engage in reading it. I hated reading The Bluest Eye, and I barely read any of it and I know Toni Morrison is a legend, it just wasn't for me. I appreciate the diversity of a graphic novel it gave a spin to having to wake up at 8am and talk about born pieces.
3. I feel like when it came to literature I never really characterized it as just a novel, with a cover and a back that was bound and sold to me at Barnes and Noble. But it was a lot of different things. It seems that now I am familiar with more types of literature that I would of never read on my own that I would consider reading again. When it came time to read Shakespeare, I remember being in the Shakespeare section at Barnes and Noble and I saw that there were several graphic novels that were done by the No Fear company that told the story of MacBeth, Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet. I believe, and I was telling my sister about how I liked graphic novels and she should considering reading one. Of course she looked at me, as all of us looked at you the first day. But I would honestly read another one if I had the choice. I think people just need to find their signature concepts they enjoy reading about. I personally enjoy reading about romance, because I suck apparently at finding it in my life. But that's a concept I enjoy. But no matter what type of genre of literature it is I will always be able to find a story about classic romance, I just need to look in the right place.
4. I personally hate speaking in front of people I don't know. But that's what this class was all about, and there were plenty of times that I had really good concepts I wanted to bring forth and it wasn't unless you called me out that I really expressed them to the class. I just feel like all we did was talk, that we were getting up at 8am and sometimes the last thing I wanted to do was talk. Occasionally I found myself struggling to get engaged because I felt like we had talked about all of this before, that we were scrounging for topics because some of the literature was repetitive. When you have early morning classes and we are driving to class in the morning sometimes when it still pitch black and we all want to go back to bed, there needs to be some spice, we can't just talk all the time. I loved the day we watched the movie. It gave a relaxing feeling. I think there needs to be more creativity, more spice, more flare. I mean maybe students can have an option of bringing in their own piece of literature that gives a sense of the same topics that relate to class. Or have students create there own panel in a comic after reading McCloud to see what the learned. And maybe all the research papers should be multi modal. I think it gave me an easier time because it was more fun to put everything i was feeling into the paper. I could pick pieces I enjoyed. I think there's a lot you can do with the class. It's just at 8am we can't always just talk because you lost us some days, especially on days with repetitive topics.
5. I think all around I am better prepared to critically analyze literature. I think the best part about this class was I was introduced to different types of literature. Many of which I enjoyed reading. I think this class gave a variety of readings that allowed me to think outside the norm and really read. Which I tend to not do, I'm in the middle of like 20 books right now... But over all I enjoy the way I think about literature now.