About Us

Looking back to this semester, I have learned a lot a literary theory, like postcolonial theory from Sherman Alexie, feminism theory from Higuchi Ichiyo, and critical race theory from Kate Chopin. During this class, I like the story “The Thirteenth Night”. It provided a new perspective to observe Asian culture, especially the gender inequality in Asian country. Gender inequality is also a common phenomenon in my country, China. The first gender inequality matter that I remembered was happening in my home. My dad did not do anything, but he always blame my mother did not do well. And the worst thing was the rest of my families usually supported my father. I hate this kind of situation, and I think gender should not be the condition that judge people’s right and wrong. Also, the open lab assignment is making feel like as a writer because I can write the point I found from the story. I also can browser other classmates’s respond. It is full of fun and interesting to do the open lab assignment. It is a new and fun way for me to learn English in the past 15 weeks.

The research paper about feminism theory is my favorite work. I hate gender inequality since I was a kid because the thing that my father done to my mom. However, I never know there is a feminist theory for women, so I was curiosity how did this theory develop and how did this theory affect women’s life. In the beginning of writing this research paper. It was very tough and difficulty because I could not find many documents about women’s life in Meiji era at first. And, the document I found was full of the vocabulary that I did not know. I had to translate those words to see what are those mean. I spent a lot of time to translate and understand those sentences so that I could have a clear thought to develop my research paper. However, after I observed more and more documents, I felt surprised about the class of women in tradition Japanese society. Women were born to be a household wives. This should not be their fate. Thankfully the feminist theory developed in Meiji era. Otherwise, women are hard to be independent and shout their voice out loud. I still believe every gender have the same right and opportunity to pursue their own dream. This is why I like my research paper so much.

The greatest challenge for is the language barrier. As an non-native student, language aspect is a nightmare for me. Even thought I have been living in New York City for about two years, I still can not understand most of content what people said. About the concept in the class, I only can understand part of them. So, in most of time, I just know the outline of what is that concept or what professor said. Besides, I also need to check my grammar and the meaning of the word to make sure my expression is what I want to tell. Translation application is my best friend for this reason. Translation also took me so many times. It is very tired to write assignment and essay sometimes because I have to translate it to understand it at first. If I did not that, I am afraid that I can not develop the statements of my essay. Anyway, leaning a new language is a long process. It was like anything in our life. Being patience is the key point to learn every new thing.

At last, in this semester, I was so happy to learn so many literary theory. This is a totally new thing for me. I read some books sometimes, but I never have a realization to figure out the concept behind the book. Feminism theory is my favorite theory through this semester because my own experience. I hate the bias that exists in different gender. Then, I stated to write about feminism theory, and I expected to learn from those documents. Language is still a big problem for me in my academic life. But, thankfully I can speak and write some English, so that I still can communicate with people and write my assignment. Finally, Finally. As people said on the internet, ” what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger!”. Complain less and do more.

Week 15 finally. I have written lots of assignments for this class in the last 15 weeks. One thing I can say is how much I have improved on my writing since the beginning. I can see that I have started to make my sentences slightly longer than before. I elaborate more on my sentences instead of keeping it short and sweet like how I used to. For that I can say I’m truly proud of. I am most proud of my final actually. I know it’s really recent considering I just finished it 10 minutes ago but I feel that I did good on it because I got to be creative and write a script and make the characters say whatever I wanted to. I got to show my sense of humor with that assignment. I was just sitting in my desk typing away. I was in the zone writing the script for my final. I felt like I was at my best writing that. That was my favorite assignment because I had the freedom of writing what I wanted. And I love having the freedom of being able to write what I want. There were two things that I had challenges with this semester. And that was my time management and Module 1. First of my time management was horrible because I would be busy with my own persona life. I work outside of school, I run my own errands, Appointments, making time to hang out with friends, and working out at the gym. And two Module 1 was a struggle for me because I do not enjoy poetry at all. I don’t like reading it, I don’t understand it, I can write it, and most of all, I can’t do an assignment on it. I really don’t enjoy poetry at all mainly because English classes throughout my whole life has made it so complicated that It just gives me a huge headache when I hear Poetry and Assignment in a sentence together. In conclusion, I feel like I’ve came a long way this semester. I’ve definitely surprised myself for sure this semester. I know I can get a lot done and I’m smart I just tend to get lazy and procrastinate a lot and that’s something I really need to work on. I would like to thank Professor Perry for everything. I always wondered what she looked like because she never had her camera on. It would’ve been nice to see what she looks like. But anyways that’s it. Thats all she wrote. Until next time I guess.

Throughout the weeks of this course, I improved as a person and as a writer. Looking back on my writing, one thing that stands out to me is how much my vocabulary has grown. I’ve noticed an improvement in my writing abilities also. I sound more professional, have improved my vocabulary as I mentioned, and have built a structure that helps me when responding to a question. I’ve come to realize that if I really put my mind to it, I can write anything.

My Erasure poem is one of the pieces I am most proud of. I struggled at first with this style of poetry because it was unfamiliar to me. I was overthinking everything until I understood that I had to go with the flow, and once I started, I couldn’t stop. I just started taking words out, leaving words in, and not overthinking everything as much as I used to when it came to writing. This project drew me a little more than the others because it was so distinct from all the others. At first, it appeared to be an easy assignment, but it wasn’t.

Another piece I’m very proud of is the Where I’m From assignment. This assignment was entirely about myself and my life. I struggled with it at first, but then again, I always do with my writing. I attempted to begin this assignment on my own but found it difficult. However, on my second attempt, I completed this task in my living room, when my entire family was there. Everything began to flow, and all of these memories began to surface.

One of my most difficult tasks was time management, It’s been a long road because I’ve been balancing so many classes. I procrastinated on almost all of my assignments in all of my classes. This added to my already high level of anxiety. I tried and tried to come up with a system that would work for me, but I kept giving up. Prof. Perry, on the other hand, was a teacher who helped me get through it. She wasn’t the type of instructor who would give you a zero if you turned things in late because she understood that we were still in the midst of a pandemic and that we all had lives to live. That allowed me to get back on track with my other subjects because I could concentrate on them first. Except for my Math and English classes, all of my classes were terrible this semester. Prof. Perry believes that children are constantly learning new things and that they do not arrive at college knowing everything. Her grading approach benefited me as a student because it allowed me to focus on what I knew rather than worrying about how perfect an assignment had to be. was able to learn from my mistakes and grow. In my public speaking class, for example, the teacher thought we did TED talks every weekend and did not understand that we were still learning how to public speak especially those with anxiety. This semester’s grading system was not equitable. In general, I’ve realized what I need to work on for the coming year.

My freshman year of college went just as everyone predicted. There was an hour-long lesson and several hours of homework to do. It was a lot to deal with, and it was quite stressful. Procrastination may have worked in high school, but it will not work in college, I discovered. I’ve never liked writing, however, I appreciated this class and all of our assignments. It was a good mix of us writing about our experiences, thoughts, and feelings, and reading and writing about a great story. My experience in this class has been amazing over the past 15 weeks. My classmates are all outstanding writers, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading each of their assignments. I’m grateful for the knowledge and experience I’ve received from this class this semester 🙂

From the beginning of this semester to the present, I found my experience in literature expanded from the text I would have otherwise not read in my free time – which I felt made the quality of my works more descriptive and broad in the understanding conveyed. While I did enjoy the stories, I found myself amazed by some of the feelings I experienced while reading and how I may apply that to my own writing – my pacing and trains of thought seemed to scatter compared to stories that hid messages underneath surface. The structure of the works in the semester will provide me with a guideline in how to convey my message in different manners appropriately in different structures – such as poetry or story telling.

One particular work this semester that I believe I performed well on is the continuation of the short story about Armand. The short story by Chopin dealt with the appalling topic of racism, still prevalent in today’s culture, and I realized how the perspective of a group may be defined by a person outside the group – as a person of color myself even while belonging outside the demographic similar to Chopin. The assignment, calling for the continuation of Chopin’s story, seemed more interesting to me personally as I frequently read stories – even though they are more on the fantastical category – allowing me to display descriptive words of my choice and to take the story in whatever direction I desired. While the work may not be the best, I believe that I achieved what I could and more compared to the some other assignments where my interest were elsewhere – such as the poetry assignment as I did not connect as greatly to.

Throughout the semester, I found myself lacking in the proper time management skills to properly complete my work and in the concepts covered by the modules. The challenge with time management stemmed from the distractions I faced and allowed to hinder me while also procrastinating work from other classes – the collective pile causing a great amount of stress and panic. While I was doing the work, however, I found myself becoming sadden or depressed from the reality encapsulated in the works over the semester – one such example being Ichiyo’s story, “The Thirteenth Night”. The topics introduced in “The Thirteenth Night” were a reality for the author and, the story itself, was evident of what was a part of her life through her writing which greatly disheartened me in the moments as I read it. Sometimes the feelings or themes of a work made it hard to properly grasp the answer to be conveyed from my own genuine understanding.

The semester, as a whole, was full of different genres of works and assignments that expanded my horizons as a reader and writer. Looking back throughout the semester, I found myself learning from the many literary theories covered and the wide variety of stories included in the modules. While I cannot say I fully understood and conveyed the understanding of the topics correctly, I believe that the experience I gained throughout this semester will carry forward with me in further lessons and be used when I need to look back on subjects related in the future.

The main thing that stands out for me this semester is my ability to organize my work, especially the paragraphs. Before this semester, I used to write my paragraphs haphazardly, and on most occasions, there wasn’t any organization. However, in the course of the semester, I have made progress where I am following a specific pattern. For instance, my paragraphs now have a topic sentence, some evidence, an explanation, and a conclusive statement. This is my style now, especially when writing essays and other important papers. Ultimately, my journey throughout the semester has been epic, and I can confidently say that I am a better writer.

            The main piece that I am most proud of is my one-script play. Before that assignment, I had never written a play. I had to challenge myself to “get in the zone.” First, the assignment allowed me to re-read my favorite story from the semester, “The trials of Thomas Builds-the-fire.” Therefore, I used this story to write the one-script play, making me feel good about myself. Second, I had to include the humorous aspect in the assignment, making it more challenging but exciting. The notion that I had to incorporate humor in my assignment was thrilling. Ultimately, I can say that writing this assignment depicted my best writing skills. Furthermore, I enjoyed this assignment more than others because it allowed me to try something new, which I never thought I could do. I think I will write more plays to explore that creative side of my writing in the future.

            My main challenge during the semester was reading the stories. Some of the stories were long, thus forcing me to zone out in the middle of the story. I prefer short stories to long ones. Additionally, some stories were difficult to understand, thus forcing me to re-read them severally. For instance, in the story “This is what it means to say phoenix Arizona,” I had some difficulties interpreting it. I had to read the story several times to understand the message the author is passing. It becomes even more challenging for me when the story is difficult to interpret and long. Moreover, time management was also a challenge for me. There are some assignments, especially the research essay, where I did not allocate my time effectively. I was forced to rush the paper when writing, which I did to beat the deadline. Ultimately, I am glad I have identified my challenges, and I am willing to work on them in the future. I am certain that these challenges will only make me stronger and a good writer.

            In conclusion, this has been a hectic semester with many highs and lows. However, looking back, I think the highs were more than the lows. I got to read some fantastic stories and re-read some stories I had read in the past. For instance, I had read the “Happy endings” story in the past, and reading it for a second time was enjoyable. Another epic moment as described above, was when I got the chance to write a one-play script. It made me feel like a movie writer despite writing just two scenes. However, the lows were there too. As I have depicted in the challenges, my main lows were evaluating some of the stories and reading long stories. This English class has been exquisite, and I believe that I have become a better student during the semester and a good student.  

Throughout the semester the body of work I have done was lengthy beyond my experience and looking over all the work from this semester there were multiple things that stood out to me. Such as the progress I’ve made in my writing skills starting from the total work given this semester. Little by little the assignments given throughout the course gave me the foundation that I needed in order for me to start building the current skills I am formulating in writing. The assignments challenged my knowledge along with my critical sense of writing and formulating interpretations, and theories, along with different writing types and more. Looking through all my writing from this semester up to now allowed me to establish and explore different writing styles. This built a structure which allowed me to explore and also use different writing styles. The assignments throughout the semester along with the different writing materials that I’ve explored gave me access to recognize a writing style that suited me  and allow me to realize the type of writing that I preferred to use. The progress that builds throughout the semester by indulging myself in the work brought me to the realization that I am becoming a better writer and also intertwines with different writing styles. As I progressed in writing and critical analysis I realized different writing styles and how to properly execute them to my advantage based on what writing piece I was given. 

I am most proud of the writing pieces that involve poetry and fiction. In-depth the poetry piece that included the blackout poetry piqued my interest due to not knowing much about poetry and having to explore information about it gave me a liking to poetry. As for fiction, the piece that involved the parents and critical thinking on whether parents should tell their children the truth no matter what gave me an interesting analysis of the good and bad spectrum of that writing piece. The experience I achieve while creating my work builds my confidence and work ethic, from the total writing pieces and readings I’ve learned from. You explore and dive into numerous writing forms along with materials that demonstrate multiple structures of writing. My current writing skill I can’t say it shows my best due to trying to navigate into which writing style I want to produce but with the experience and skill set of acquiring the knowledge of these different writing types I can formulate writing pieces that I can call my best. 

During the semester many challenges arose that tapped into my temporary limitations that would be describable such as greatest challenges. From the complex reading materials to the vast writing forms and structure of writing pieces the difficulty level is always shuffled. Another challenge that arose during the semester was time management. Not knowing the right way to manage your time can make the simplest things difficult, which in terms of assignments for the semester can become very stressful. Not having proper time management forces you to be inconsistent with your assignments along with the materials and memorization of the knowledge needed to complete the assignments. Difficult situations sprung upon when learning about the particular concept of poetry. I did not know that material so the understanding of it was in itself also complicated. 

However, to conclude everything was challenging but an enjoyable experience from beginning to end of this semester. From having no skill set, little to no knowledge, and an incomplete writing form, I was able to achieve better versions of myself in those categories and more. In-depth a wide knowledge of writing pieces, reading materials, and writing types to apply to my arsenal whenever I’m doing a writing assignment thanks to the experience of getting through this semester. Altogether I’m thankful for the experience and knowledge I’ve gained from this course during this semester.

From the beginning of the semester till the present, I found that my experience with writing has improved a lot. There was a lot of first-time experience writing that occurred during the semester such as poetry analysis, literary analysis, and even one-act play. There were multiple writing styles I tried out throughout all the essays and paragraphs. I feel like I’ve developed my own writing style by incorporating elements from different styles into my own. Being a writer with his own style of writing just makes things a lot simpler. The journey of these 15 weeks has been resourceful and gave me a structure of how to express my message.

In these 15 week, I was very impressed on my literary analysis. The literary analysis was one of the essay that took me a while to complete. Professor Perry assisted me in revising it three times, for which I am thankful. MLA reference, making linkages more evident, and finding ways to connect portions were some of the challenges encountered while writing this piece. This writing peice isnt my best writing, but it shows the improvement that ive achieved during the course. The improvement was a good part, but the literary anaylsis was also one of the most connection ive created between multiple authors. The literary analysis took me multiple hour writing sessions and was one of the most productive i’ve been in throughout my whole freshman year at BMCC. This task was definitely more tough than others, but I enjoy taking on challenges since it makes things more interesting.

There were multiple challenges throughout the semester. The main challenge was time management and procrastination. Professor Perry trusted her student to finish all their work by the end of the semester and wasn’t strict on late work. If wasn’t for the kindness of Professor Perry’s late work rule, I would’ve probably been in a very bad situation. I tried to assign myself a fixed day to do a particular amount of work at the start of the semester, but it didn’t work well because of interruptions of other challenges. That eventually lead me to have a random schedule and inconsistency, which also lead me to piling up my work. Procrastination was another problem that I struggle with. I tend to scroll over social media, play a game after every paragraph, etc. Procrastination was a problem that slowed my productivity and i blame the pandemic for online courses.

This semester was definitely an experience, but I think it would’ve been better if it was in person. I tend to learn better in person, but during this semester I’m very impressed with my improvement in writing. I went from having no idea how to write an analysis essay to being able to do so more efficiently now. Learning has been difficult due to the pandemic, but Professor Perry made it much more enjoyable.