This English class has taught me a lot about myself. I have had to really think about what I want out of my life when I was writing these essays and I think that I do some of my best writing when I have assignments that force me to do that. The discussions are helpful because the other students in the class really help me understand the reading a little more and it is neat to see the other opinions that everyone has. I have taken online classes before, but none of them have had this much participation between the students. I think that I get more interaction with the other students in this class than I do in the classes that I go to school for. I think it is great that we can all help each other out without even meeting one another.
The first assignment that we completed in this course was the letter that we wrote to a future American citizen. I have never actually thought about what being an American meant to me, so this assignment really opened my eyes to all of the freedoms that we have in America. St. John de Crevecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer, "What is an American?," helped me have a better understanding of what to write in my letter and it gave me a sense of how someone else views this topic. You never realize just how good you have it until you hear about someone who wants to become a U.S. citizen and about the process that they have to go through. You never think about how easy it is to have the freedoms that we have just because we were born here. This assignment really made me appreciate my life and it allowed me to see the other views of my peers.
The next three assignments that we did were really about connecting with ourselves. That is really what the Romanticism writing was all about. Romantic artists are all about remembering good times and feeling happy and overjoyed, I think this is why I enjoyed writing these assignments so much. Poe, Emerson, and Thoreau’s writing helped me relate to situations in my life. Even though it was hard for me to understand everything that they wrote about, the passages that I included in my writing were ones that really stuck out to me. Poe wanted his readers to use their imagination and confront all of the emotions that you have about a particular memory. Thoreau and Emerson were more focused on the development of the individual self and connecting their emotions through nature.
I think that the last two assignments have really challenged my writing. I am not very good at writing about facts or issues; I am more of a free writer where I like to write about life issues or beliefs. When I had to think of a social problem that is affecting our nation, I had a hard time thinking of one. To help me out with this problem, I actually typed it into Google and I got the idea to write about the death penalty. Once I found my topic, the writing became a little easier. The readings that we had to do for this assignment did not really help me with my topic because it was mostly about slavery and I just could not get it to relate to my topic. I do think it is good that this assignment challenged me because it made me think about what I was writing and it challenged my thinking on the death penalty.
Overall, I am really glad that I took this English class. I am glad that the assignments are challenging me because I have not really had a difficult class at J. Sargeant Reynolds until I began doing the assignments for this course. I am not saying that the assignments are difficult, I am just saying that there are a lot of things to complete and they are more involved than anything I have done since I began going to college. I feel like I am actually working hard for my grade instead of just completing a few assignments and tests and walking away with an “A”. When this course is over, I think I will have learned a lot and I hope to take what I have learned and apply it to my everyday life. The next time that I read literature, I will have a better appreciation for what the writer is saying and I think I will understand it more than I did when I began this class.
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