The assignment I found most enjoyable and successful was Essay 3, where we created a flyer on poetry. It was an exciting twist from the traditional essay. Allowing me to utilize my creativity and also familiarizing myself with Canva, this is a great assignment to work on. I also enjoyed our reading of the Ancient Greek tragedy, Oedipus the King. A area in which feel I could’ve improved, was on my writing of the essays throughout this semester. Writing is not my strong suit and is something I struggle with. However, I found the guidelines on quotation inserts and MLA structure formats to be very helpful when writing. One thing I learned this semester was the many pieces of interesting literature that exist. Prior to taking this class, I never explored poetry, Greek tragedies, or fairy tales. I was very captivated by the literature and authors, which I would like to explore further.
Vivian
Before exploring poetry in class, I never truly sought it out. However, within the past few weeks, I’ve come to realize how deep and beautiful it is. My ability to now read poetry is stronger than it was before, I’ve developed a clearer understanding of what poetry is and what it isn’t. My experience and understanding of poetry now can help me better understand Oedipus The King in ways such as the way it is structured. It is also full of literary devices, one being metaphors. “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”by William Butler has the strongest connection to the play. Butler emphasizes his desire to escape to a calmer place, and his quest to find peace similar to the kings desire to find the truth.
Toni Cade brings us through many different facets in “The Lesson.” She explores economic disparity, the lack of socioeconomic security, and the effects of growing up in a marginalized community. A part of the story that I found very interesting, and one I could resonate with, is witnessing how Sylvia’s attitude changed as they made their way through the toy store. At the beginning of the story, Sylvia appears to be a very outspoken individual with strong opinions on her classmates, environment, and Miss Moore. However, as Miss Moore takes the children outside of their comfort zone, she’s able to evoke many different emotions out of them, including Sylvia. As an individual who grew up in the North Bronx within a poor community, I could resonate with her feelings of apprehensiveness and uncomfortability being in such an expensive store. I’ve had the pleasure of being a nanny to many different wealthy families in NYC, with whom I’ve traveled to The Hamptons, Martha’s Vineyard, and overseas. Similar to Sylvia, initially being within those dynamics and out of my element, I would feel uncomfortable as if I didn’t belong, “But I feel funny, shame. But what have I got to be shamed about? Got as much right to go in as anybody” (Sylvia). I would often times find myself rationalizing my being there and meeting such successful people. Unlike Sylvia, my feelings didn’t manifest into anger and resentment but more so a curiosity to learn as much about the places I was visiting and the people around me to further educate myself. Which was Miss Moore’s objective with the children—to provide them with exposure to cultivate a new way of thinking. I was saddened to realize that, unlike Sugar and Mercedes, who adopted an introspective attitude at the end of the trip, […]
The objective of the prewriting assignment is to help us gain a comprehensive understanding of writing an essay, and how it should be formatted and executed. This week we start off by reading “The Handsomest Drowned Man” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Additionally, we also read secondary sources such as the overview of “The Handsomest Drowned Man” by Dean Rader, and past essays based on the story. In doing so we gained a stronger understanding of what primary and secondary sources are, and how our work should be articulated. PowerPoints also helped aid us by clarifying important components in a structured essay, such as explaining what a strong thesis is and providing key examples of good and bad illustrations. As well as how to successfully insert quotes. We also view a short video on the importance of formatting. Furthermore, we are also able to view a sample essay with highlighted notes on format, font, paragraph structure, and MLA citations. The examples and sources covered in this pre-writing assessment are a very helpful tool. One that I will utilize constantly as it provides a structured guideline to follow when writing and covers all the bases in a successful essay.
