Reflection on the Course

Some of the skills that I have learned when it comes to our class is when it comes to identifying different parts of a novel, story, or article. Some of the things that I have learned is the difference between summarizing and analyzing a story, summarizing is when you take something that you have read and break it down into a small summary that is lacking very few details but has the main core of the story. When it comes to analyzing it takes on a bigger picture of what you have read, getting down all the details, what the story has to deal with, and the main themes that affect the story. I also learned about motif, in truth I never knew what a motif was until I took this college course. When we was dealing with motifs I was confused what it was and what it meant, so I did some researching on it along with learning about it through our lesson resulting in me gaining new knowledge about something that I did not know existed until now. The readings of the class have definitely been very interesting and stories that I probably would never have read in reality. I was not that overly fond of “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift, to me it was weird and I could not really get a good grasp upon what was happening and I did not understand the satire that Swift was trying to use. Out the three of the stories that we read, I thought the “White Noise” by Don DeLillo was the best and the most interesting, at first it was confusing leaving me scratching my head trying to understand what the author was talking about. Then after research and going back through the novel I started to understand it along with all the different types of themes that were within the novel. When it comes to my writing process I believe that I try to find the main points of the story and the themes trying to narrow them down rather than have them blowing around in the wind. Before I use to have all my ideas for my writing scattered throughout the paper that I was writing and truly never had a good flow. Some of the challenges that I faced were trying to become a better writer through the internet and very little communication, I think I tend to do better when I am able to ask a person face to face about what I can do to become better. Though I enjoyed our class and learned so much from it, I thank you very much for your teachings Professor Cline!