great works in literature II 2850 kta 2:55-4:35— Shades of Truth . . .

Your End of the Semester Assessment of Your Work

 Some said that seeing their classmates present orally, has helped to ease their own discomfort in oral presentations (this is useful for me, because now I think all presentations will be in-class). A few said that they feel they can better organize their paragraphs (I’m happy, because I know I harp on this!) Some said they are beginning to see a real difference between analysis and summary, and that your critical thinking skills had improved, and this is really important to know, not just for the university courses, but later, when you’re asked to do reports at work. Radia says that she became more creative with her thinking, and that, of course, makes me very happy! I don’t want you to be an army of robots! (and none of you are). She also mentions that the online writing has helped, and I truly hope that is the case. It is something I’m constantly working on, myself, to create meaningful online work that will help your overall communication skills. Some said they were able to start to see connections between works, and this is important, to see connections not just in this class, but between classes, between school and life, life and work. A few said that you felt you are better able to move away from literal thinking, and this, too, I think, will help you in your careers.

For myself, I want to work on a few things: I want to work to give students more time with free-writing in class; I want to dedicate even more class time to close reading of a text; I want to spend more time preparing you for the oral presentation (although your oral work was awesome!)

Thank-you all for a wonderful semester. You are a fantastic group of people, and I wish you only the best in the future!

(Don’t forget Final Exams due by May 22, 12pm, noon)

Jeanne

Throughout the course of the semester, I have definitely improved my writing skills and critical thinking skills. The weekly posts where we had to connect a work we read to a more abstract concept forced me to think more analytically; I noticed that with each post, I was able to find a connecting theme with more ease. Most importantly, I feel that I have finally found my writing style. Through constantly practicing my writing skills, I found that with each writing assignment, I was better able to express myself and translate my thoughts onto paper. One thing I feel that I still need to work on is organizing my essays; I always have trouble when starting a longer paper because I feel overwhelmed with the amount of ideas that I want to incorporate. I think through creating an outline I would have been able to better organize my ideas.

• Zuzanna, I’m glad that we both learned useful skills from this class that we could carry on using in future classes. Writing for this class has definitely helped us make some final tweaks in our writing styles to improve them even further. I also found it a little hard to organize some of the paper we had written for this class because my ideas were all over the place. Maybe we should try to make stronger outlines before we even start the writing process; it would definitely help us with the organizational aspect.
  • Borys
• Zuzanna, I agree that the weekly posts had a strong impact on finding my writing style. I am so glad you have found yours. It’s an important skill – if not one of the most important skills – to take away from college English class. You mentioned that you still have trouble starting longer papers. I understand where you are coming from because it can be hard to introduce as well as summarize what you’re trying to say in the first paragraph. I agree that writing an outline can be beneficial for you because it will create a base layout for each piece of the essay and even if you can’t figure out what you want to put down for the introduction, you can move on to the body paragraphs and, once you finished, go back. This also gives you more time to think about the intro.
  • Emily

During the course of this semester, I think one of the greatest areas in which I have improved is in free writing and in open response. In the past, I have struggled with trying to write the “perfect” paper, whatever that may be, and hindered my ability to simply let thoughts and ideas flow out into words. I have a lot to say, but I worried so much about how to say it. The limitations that I put on myself while working on an essay or any piece of literature made it harder to keep in touch with my creative side. Our weekly free writes and posts have pushed me away from that oppressive mentality and allowed me to focus on my artistry and inspiration. Regular practice has helped me learn how to get out of my writer’s block and in turn has also boosted my confidence as a writer.

• Emily, I know that trying to create a “perfect” paper can make one feel as if everything they write is wrong. I have definitely felt that way before, and tried to make every draft ideal. However, when writing an essay, I found that editing and revising is one of the most important parts of the process. I am happy that you no longer hinder yourself and allow your creativity to translate through your work. I think you have definitely improved as a writer and I think you should always keep in mind that when it comes to writing, nothing is permanent and you can always fix something that you may not initially be satisfied with.
  • Zuzanna
• Emily, I can agree with you that my free writing skills have also improve throughout the duration of this class. I don’t believe I have ever done this much free writing in any english class. One benefit of free writing is that it actually forces you to really think about the prompts that the teacher asks in class and get a little more in depth with one’s analysis.
  • Borys

One strength I have developed is incorporating evidence more smoothly into my work. The paragraph structure that we learned in your class proved to be very useful throughout the duration of this class. It gave me an organized outline to follow, and showed me how to better incorporate evidential text into my writing. This has overall improved my abilities as a writer because I am now able to better support my arguments. One thing that I still have to work on is trying to stay on topic when I write, because I sometimes have tendencies to run all over the place while I analyze the evidence I provided. It is important to stay on topic when one writes because an unconcise argument is a weak one.

• Borys, I’m happy to hear you feel as though you have an easier time finding and including evidence in your writing now. Our midterm was definitely a test for that, and you did very well. The paragraph structure is also a nice way to organize that evidence. When it comes to staying on topic, consider starting a paper earlier with the goal in mind to edit and re-edit your essay to condense whatever it is you are trying to say. You could also consider writing an outline as it lay that out clearly for you before you get to the final writing.
  • Emily
• Borys, I am glad that you have learned how to better incorporate text evidence into your writing; it’s important to be able to prove the concept you’re writing about with direct quotes from a text. I think something that could help with staying on topic while you write, is creating an outline beforehand and constantly going back to your thesis in order to remind yourself of the main idea. I also tend to stray away from my thesis as soon as a new idea floats into my head, but then I remind myself of what I am generally proving or analyzing and I find myself back on track.
  • Zuzanna
    

Before this Semester free writing was a concept I couldn’t grasp and now I feel much more comfortable doing it. Due to this class I’ve been able to try new things that I learned I enjoy such as editing photos, like I had to do for the Group Project. Reading and examimg a text much deeper than what is given at the surface is a process I haven’t had to use in a long time and I now feel even better doing it. I’ve also known i’m not a great test taker for many reasons and it is something that  I struggled with in this class as well. I’ve also learned that in groups I need to delegate more and not take everything on myself to complete. I’ve enjoyed this class as a whole and feel like I’ve learned many useful things from it such as the journey models.

Hello Professor Jeanne,

This class has been my first English class I ever have taken at Baruch as being a new student. I would say I don’t regret taking this class at all and my fellow colleagues can agree with me as well. I loved how open and expressive you can be in this class. I really enjoyed the open discussions we had sitting in a circle. Listening to each of my classmate’s ideas it has opened my mind to view ideas in different perspectives in ways I would have not imagined. I think this class is a very knowledgeable and crucial to one’s education. Not just for education but beneficial to the real world.It made me look at the world and analyze it differently. For example, when we talked about nihilism it made me wonder about my existence.  In class, I liked how in the readings I could take the shoes of  the character and picture myself in their world.

I agree with Kelly as well. I love how Jeanne encouraged us and put forward a friendly atmosphere to share our ideas while doing our free exercises. I think by doing that we the reader have a  more clear and better understanding of the readings. This class as definitely not just made us improved our critical thinking but helped us improve our writing skills as well. I agree that I too have to improve my grammar skills. I think this class as pushed us out of our comfort zones to be more mindful and think out the box. I have definitely learned to go behind the lines and grasp what the author is saying. I also enjoyed doing the final project. It made me bring out my creativity talent. Although it was challenging with hard work and planning it helped us discover nothing is impossible. I think behind the scenes were sometimes aggravating and hilarious at the same time but it helped us learn nothing in life is perfect. One simply does not know how many scenes it takes over and over to finally get the final cut you desire. This project has helped me and my partner to push ourselves beyond our comfort zones and we achieved skills necessary for the real world.

I agree with William as well. I think this English class was very enjoyable and we learned and acquired new skills we can take with us. This class as helped me to analyze the text more rather than summarize. Now I can look at a text and skim through it and find specific quotes or ideas. I can pinpoint those quotes and further deeper analyze and interpret what author is saying. I also enjoyed the readings as well and like how we took a closer look at specific lines and quotes which made us understand the reading better. Even though it was a hybrid class I feel like we had a full face to face experience twice a week. Thank you for the experience!

During the middle of the semester, we were asked to do the same thing, reflect on ourselves, our weakness, our strengths, what we learned what we needed to improve on, etc. Now we are at the end of the semester and I truly believe that most of us have improved on ourselves. Me for example, I always had trouble doing group presentations, but from watching other fellow classmates do their presentation I was able to learn from them and apply it to my presentation. One of the main strengths that I had developed was the perspective of the story. I story is normally written in a specific way, but you have to be able to look at different points of view to truly understand the whole picture. The novel “Aura” is the best example of this, it is written in Felipe point of view, but I was able to see it from Consuelo point of view as well. I would say that one of my weakness and still need working on is connecting a story to an another story or theme. For example the extra credit, it took me a while to connect “House of Asterion” and “Aura”, but I got around to it eventually. Overall it was a really cool class because it was hybrid and I had a great time.

-Denny Huang

After having taken this class I feel as if I have improved in some aspects of my writing while at the same time new issues I didn’t know I had was brought to my attention. I feel like i have improved when it has come to creating more effective paragraphs in order to convey my point more accurately.  Something I would say about this however is I need to work on my use of quotes because I feel like I don’t always use the best quote and then when I do find a better quote I end up rewriting my paragraph.  Another thing I would need to work on would be to manage my time better.  During the in class midterm we had I found myself rushing at the end of it because of time.  This made me think that if I could improve something it would be to be better at planning my arguments better in my head so that when i’m writing it it will come out more easily and I won’t be in as much a rush.

-Brian Baigorria

After taking this class, I can say that I have increased my reading and writing skills. Prior to this class, I did not know how to write an analyzing paper. I always just used to summarize. This class taught me how to write an analysis paper and helped me improve my writing skills. I really enjoyed the literature we read in this class. All the stories were extremely interesting, and knowing them makes me feel more educated as a person. My favorite part of this class was the blog assignments because everyone got to express their own opinions and comment on one another. This class was my final english class in college, and I took the most from it than any other english class I had ever taken. Thank you!

-William Dayan

After completing this course, I feel that I have improved a great deal of my critical thinking skills when it comes to literature. Before, I never really thought much in depth to what an author may have meant, or may have been hinting to in the story, however after our many in class discussions I feel my mind has opened up to the many possibilities of what a story may actually be about. I also feel that my taste in literature has been broadened as many of the stories we read were ones that would seem a little odd at first, until you actually began to think deeply about them, which is now something I am very intrigued in. However, I believe that is also something I need to work on as well. This class has definitely given me a lot in terms of critical thinking, and the class discussions we had were my absolute favorite part as I got to hear everyone’s opinions. Overall, I had a great time and feel that I got a lot out of this class.

-Sabera Qazi

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.  

I have developed a lot in English since the midterm. I definitely improved on my critical thinking skills throughout the class. I was able to get a better understanding for each text we read, and I was able to clearly relate them to any themes or to the given journey models. This helped me during our free-write exercises. Many times before the midterm I would feel a little lost and really rely on what my peers were discussing. However, this time around, I was able to make clear assessments of each reading. I definitely still need to work on my grammar and becoming more confident in group settings. Overall, I felt like I definitely gained more confidence in my ideas, and I am not afraid to be ‘wrong’ when interpreting something. I really liked the last project we had to write. It really allowed me to be creative and explore every journal model. I feel as though the free-write exercises helped me gain other perspectives from the text. Overall, I can always improve on my grammar, but I also improved on my critical thinking skills while analyzing the text.  

-Kelly Kay

The most significant strength I’ve developed in the second half of the semester is critical thinking, in other words, being able to see things from different ways. I would give credit to the interesting and thought-provoking reading materials given by professor and, all the unique, novelty ideas that came from our class discussion. For instance, I used to see The Metamorphosis as an allegory in which the transformation may symbolize something and Gregor is the victim of the problems of society. Later I found that it can also be seen as  a psychodrama, a manifestation of Gregor’s own unconsciousness. This dramatic change of perspective also happened to me reading Endgame and Aura. Overall, critical thinking really helps to understand the readings, and also makes reading a more enjoyable activity for me. As for my weaknesses, I think I still need to work on building up the structure of my writings and word accuracy. Surely there are more issues I need to pay attention to, but I think right now these two are my biggest problems.

Zeyu.

End of semester

Group Members: Chi Z., Myra K.

Since the midpoint of the semester to now I feel like I have improved a lot on understanding pieces I’m not used to reading. This class has taught me how to do better in-depth analyses of works such as “The Judgment”. An area I feel like I can still work on in order to improve is connecting a theme of one story to another story. I felt like some of the pieces we worked on, the themes were a little challenging to work with cause the story was just so different and you really had to think about what the author was trying to say, like in “Aura”. But I really enjoyed the class and learned a lot and am glad I took this class.

-Myra K.