English 1302-02 - at Home Final

Charlea Adams

ENGL 1302-02

Professor Smith

May 5, 2016

At Home Final

                This semester in English 1302-02 I progressed my reading habits and I learned quite a bit about myself as well. After learning how to analyze poems and short stories I understood writings better and instead of dreading the reading and reading responses each week, I actually enjoyed reading them and doing the response. Also, hearing other students’ sides of their story and hearing some of their personal stories, it made the class very interesting and let me learn something new each day.

        I started this semester not a big fan of reading. I have never enjoyed sitting down and reading books, because I lose concentration so easily. Especially if it is a very boring narrative. After you taught us how to analyze short stories and break apart the poems we read, I had gotten a better understanding and I actually liked reading them. If it weren’t for your techniques on how to analyze and break apart each stanza or lines, I would not have understood what any of the poems were talking about. I also started out this semester not understanding the reason of why we have poems. I always thought poems were just a bunch of words that are supposed to have a certain meaning, but now using this technique I now see the bigger picture the author is trying to convey.

        There have also been times that had really made me look at my life a little differently. The first time was when I was reading the poem “You Fit into Me” by Margaret Atwood. What I had gotten out of that poem was she was in a relationship where she was no longer happy, but it was hard for her to get out of. I was in a three-year relationship and after reading this and understanding it, I realized what I had to do to be happy. I ended the relationship. It was so very hard considering all the memories we had together, but my happiness is more important. Than staying with him. There was another time that made me look differently at my life. It was after we read “Citizen 2” by Claudia Rankine. I have always enjoyed reading stories about racism. I was always taught that racism is wrong, but I do like to learn about it. My boyfriend, now ex that I mentioned earlier, is black. My dad, who I don’t live with, is a very prejudice person. Ever since my ex and I were together, my dad would call me and curse me out, tell me things I will never forget or forgive, and has not attended a lot of my school functions. He told me all my ex-boyfriend was going to do was bring me down, when while we were together, all he did was bring me up. I mentioned this in class and you and the other classmates clapped for me. You really don’t know how good that made me feel. I am very proud of the person I have become and being able to speak of these experiences in class to get an applause, made me feel very proud. Thank you for that. Also, speaking of being able to speak of any experiences in class, I really enjoyed how you interacted with us. You never once made anyone feel stupid and you treated everyone the same. Anything anyone had to say you were very interested and never told them they were wrong. This helped me to speak up more in class. I am usually a pretty shy person who doesn’t speak my mind in any class, but the way you treated us made me learn how to get involved more.