Reflection

Entering this semester, I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from English 102. After deeply enjoying my 101 class and relearning how to write formal essays after high school, I wasn't sure what else was left to learn. This semester I learned a great deal of reading and analyzing text. After reading a few stories and discussing in class I realized that there are often times, deeper meanings in the text that go beyond what is just written on the page.

Analyzing text is an important factor in becoming an exceptional writer and reader. Without the skills I learned during this course it is very easy to read a story and be confused or read and interpret a completely different meaning than what the author is trying to portrait. Before this class I depended on spark notes a lot because I had a hard time understanding certain writing pieces. I overlooked the fact that I was not very good at analyzing text and just accepted it but after this course I can confidently read and analyze text as well as add some of these methods to my own writing pieces.

Through Professor Brady's sense of excitement while teaching her lectures, I wondered for a little while why she was so excited for us to read and discuss, but shortly after our first fishbowl I realized that she was taking us, as students on a journey to really decode text and find the meanings behind these stories. It was like a parent teaching their child to ride a bike for the first time. Watching the child needing that parent’s guidance to get the bike moving, to removing those training wheels and almost having to beg the child to come back. It didn't take me much time to start finding that same enjoyment out of reading a bunch if words on a page and then going on to analyze those words and find a deeper meaning in them.