~ British Literature ~

This class was perhaps one of the most interesting and engaging english classes I have ever been in. Throughout high school, I had always taken Honors or Advanced Placement English courses, but ENGL 202 British Literature was the first english class that I enjoyed writing papers for. The assignments always had a twist on them, and included multiple books instead of just one, which to me made writing about the readings more interesting. After every few novels, we were instructed to write a “letter” to the “Adventure Club President” and argue things like whether or not certain characters should be allowed in the Adventure Club. Though this may seem childish, it was a small factor that gave writing a lighter weight and allowed for your imagination to work its way into writing.

Below you can see one of those letters. In this one specifically, you can see how the class incorporated argumentative writing into assignments based on opinion (made with interpretation of evidence).

Letter of Admission, Emily Mothersbaugh, Oct 26, 2017

I also found it extremely helpful to look at feedback given by the professor after every assignment to make sure that my next paper is better. We were required to include a small description of how we used the advice to make sure we did not make the same mistakes, and show how our writing has gotten better. Because of this requirement in this class, I feel as though I have grown as a writer and enhanced my writing skills. I have always been a strong in English, but this task pushed me farther as it forced me to look at criticism after a paper and address it rather than look at it and then dismiss it. Applying the corrections to my next paper carried on with me to the next semester, where I found myself looking back on previous submission comments in classes such as PSYC 331 to make sure that I was fixing what I missed last time. I plan to continue to do this in each class I take in the future that includes a lot of writing, and hope to see the same positive results I saw in this class.