Radia, Elizaveta, and Mel
Comment #1 – Radia
I believe my writing has improved because of the online writing exercises and the exercises we do in class. This helped a lot for the final essay. On the first essay and the test, I struggled to break my ideas down more. In addition, I struggled to prove my arguments with quotes. This time while reading the stories, I took more notes and highlighted anything that stood out to me. This helped a lot when I was writing the final essay. Of course, I still have room for more improvement. I tried to process my ideas and thoughts beforehand which helped a lot. I e-mailed Jeanne during my thought process for this essay. The feedback inspired me to other creative ideas. I enjoyed the oral presentations, it was a great way to get my creativity flowing and further analyze the texts. Although the writing exercises during class were beneficial, I wish I didn’t restrict myself too much. I held back some thoughts because I thought it wouldn’t make sense to the context. I would doubt myself too much.
Mel, I had the same problem with narrowing my ideas down into one. It may sound simple, but creating the circle charts helped me piece together smaller details into one big concept. Also regarding the stories, you have to have an open mind while reading the stories. If you don’t, you can miss the main message or the symbolism behind the story. A lot of the stories that we read this semester, required us to dig deeper beneath the lines.
Comment #2 – Mel
Since the mid-point of the semester, I think I improved in making connections to different things in the world. What I mean by that is the way that I can find connections between two very different pieces of literature by viewing in different perspectives. One thing I noticed that I had to work on is narrowing my ideas. I struggle with this because I don’t know how to categorize my ideas. I’ll have a bunch of ideas, but I don’t know which to eliminate because I can, one way or another, link those ideas to my thesis or main thought. I think my reading speed increased, since we were assigned many stories throughout the semester overall. However, one thing that I think I could’ve done differently is alter the mindset I have while reading the stories. For example, when I read Aura, I thought that the protagonist was insane and Senora Consuelo was Satan. Perhaps if I altered my mindset to think that it was a story of reminisce fused with reality, I would make a different judgment.
Radia, I don’t know if this is what you mean, but I have experiences at times where ideas make sense to me in my head, but I don’t know how to phrase it in words because it seems like it doesn’t make sense to the context or is irrelevant. I don’t doubt myself about it, though, because I believe that there is a reason why my head made that connection or came up with that idea. There must’ve been something that linked the idea to the context. It just requires more thinking in order to express the idea and the link fully. So don’t doubt yourself, try to think a little more and a little longer; it’ll all make sense.
Since the mid-point of the semester, my creative thinking developed a lot. The class taught me to think in another way since all literary works that we discussed are very deep. Moreover, our projects were not just an analyzing process but creating as well. It forced me out of my boundaries because I am not that great in reading between the lines in literary writings. It was hard for me to look at Metamorphosis and Aura in an abstract way to find out what the author tried to tell to the reader.At the beginning of the class I was not confident in my analysis, but after the class, I developed skills on how to look at the literary work effectively. I believe my reading has improved, at least I find it easier to write due to weekly blog posts, in-class writings, and essays. I was pushed to write more, think faster and find ideas in very abstract texts. Finally, it gave great results!
Radia, sometimes I have a similar problem to yours. Unfortunately, I keep struggling with it over and over. However, I found a way to solve it, whenever I have a good idea, but it is too broad I am trying to brainstorm it. I put away my phone, laptop, and everything that distracts me to leave myself face-to-face with a piece of paper and a pencil. I write down my idea and start breaking it up into smaller ones. I write down everything that gets into my head, and with every step, my thoughts and ideas are getting deeper.
Mel, your problem sounds very familiar to me. Sometimes I have tremendous ideas, but when I write them down, I can not fit them into one outline. I can suggest to you, to start by finding the quotes for every idea you have, and then chose ones that are better. After, you can try to read your quotes and ideas out loud to make sure that they are connected to one thesis. Furthermore, reading them out loud will help you to develop the analysis further and create a better writing,