Reflections

Throughout this course the analytical writing was the most challenging for me although those essays are the ones that are most gratifying. This is mostly because they motivated me to think in a different way- especially the comparative poem assignment where I compared William Blake’s Ah! Sun-flower, and in Allen Ginsburg’s Sunflower Sutra. The most difficult aspect when writing this essay was comparing the same subject centuries apart and analyzing what each author was trying to say about the social and political characteristics of their time. Another analytical assignment that was both challenging and interesting was the song of a lifetime research paper, I chose Do you hear the people sing? as an inspiration to research topics I find interesting and care about deeply- economic inequality and the refugee crisis in the middle east. The most challenging aspect of this assignment was finding reliable sources with little bias on the specific logistics of each topic. The most interesting analytical writing piece for me was an expository essay on the novel Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. This paper was fun for me to write because I enjoyed reading the novel and found Atwood’s ideas of a futuristic world fascinating and thought the main characters had universally relatable faults. My interest in this novel mad the topics relatively easy to write bout in this format.

The journals consisted of my thoughts of topics we discussed in class and I found them very helpful when it was time to reflect on the end of the course. Journals #1 and #2 were lists of books- ones I’ve loved and ones l would like to read. I liked physically seeing the lists of books I have loved and noticed that my reading tastes are very expansive- meaning I like how the author tells the story over a specific genre. In journal #3 I wrote a light hearted short story and personified emotions as characters within the story. Writing this was entertaining because of the irony each emotion felt towards the others. Mostly my journals consisted of my thoughts on Ted Talks, journals #4 and #5 focused on wider perspectives on social media and its impact on human existence while #6 and #8 were about spoken word poets and their performances. The way both spoken word poets could express their struggles through their pieces was moving and made the audience connect to the subject. Journal #7 was a reflection piece on Judith Ortiz Cofer’s poem Common Ground- I found it interesting how she could connect her culture and her struggles through a simple scene of her grandmother. Overall journal activities were an easy and relaxing way to learn more about creative projects and the people who made them.

On the surface the original poetry component was seemingly the easiest but articulating an idea proved to be more difficult than expected. Poem #1 was a comical copy change poem about an ongoing problem in my household- my sister leaving hair in the shower drain. I wrote it as an explanation of why I react so poorly and it was selected to be featured in Hidden Valley’s student magazine “Muse”. Poems #2 and #3 were easy to write once I knew what topics I wanted to explore- the first was about societal inequality and the other was a free verse of a vivid childhood memory. I appreciated the latter the most because we were given the chance to meditate in order to gain the nostalgia of our first memories.

The final and most exciting assignment was our 20 Time Project where we were allowed to use 20 percent of our class time working on a self-assigned plan on a topic that we picked. My group consisted of myself Lily and Caleb- we decided to start a paranormal investigation blog. This gave us the opportunity to write about anomalies, interview people who have had strange experiences and visit locally haunted locations. I truly enjoyed being given the option to work a group and being given the freedom to do this project however we wanted. By having this creative freedom and occasional check-ins allowed us as a group to work at our own pace but also stay on track for achieving set marks. I believe our project was successful because we were able to start a paranormal blog with a flowing, consistently write and post articles along with visiting and uploading a trip to a haunted location. Through this assignment learned to organize three different schedules and collaborate each of our strengths in order to set up and maintain a successful blog.