Essay #2 was more difficult for me than the first paper, simply because I don’t like reading and especially analyzing a piece with little relevance to me personally. “Queens, 1963” by Julia Alvarez doesn’t relate to me, considering that I was born here. Although my parents are foreigners, the attitude nowadays towards immigrants is very different to the attitude presented in the poem.
The prompt of this assignment was also a bit tricky. Not being able to use any outside information to support your argument is unorthodox for a paper, since it usually wants you to use many sources. Because of this, the analysis of the text I did had to be much more in depth than normal; I had to read between the lines and think about literary elements far more than typical, which I never liked doing. The message in the poem I chose was so clear and simple that I found it difficult to write more than two pages on the topic. I hope that the assignment for the final paper (which will be 5-7 pages) is something that I can write plenty about, rather than struggling to find filler.
I can really relate to what you said about the paper not having relevance to you personally…it just makes it 100 times more difficult and 1000 times more boring…good luck!