April 1, 2012

Laura Cline, Instructor

Yavapai Community College

Prescott, AZ. 86305

Laura Cline,

     As we near the end of this English 102 course I have grown in several aspects as an online student.

I have learned better time management, improved study habits, and most importantly identified some of my weaknesses. My biggest challenge or weakness has been correcting the habit of waiting until the last minute to do assignments. Often times my schedule calls for me to do homework on Sundays, as that is a day where other than attending church, I am most available to study. This has many times taken an intense amount of dedication and sacrifice to complete assignments by the midnight deadline. At the same time however, I have found that working on this weakness has turned resulted into being my biggest success. I have a better sense of the need to periodically work on assignments rather than to let them accumulate towards the end of the week.

     The readings in this class have to my astonishment been a growing experience for me. I generally do not read literature such as Winter's Bone in my spare time, but I indeed received some positives from the novel. As any well written book immerses the reader in the author's thoughts, this book definitely placed the me in Ree's world. I better learned how people like Ree have such a different life than many of us and  in turn appreciated the novel more. I will probably not read many more novels like Winter's Bone in my life but I can honestly say I appreciated the book for what it is.

     Literary analysis is different from other types of writing I have had in college for several reasons. I feel the biggest difference with literary analysis is concentrating solely on what the author is seeking to convey. In most essays or other pieces of writing there is often some amount of opinion that goes into each essay. With literary analysis the writer is forced to first focus on what the author is conveying and then interpret the novel based on that. This is a little different from essays based on research or perhaps article response.

     My goals for the remainder of this course are to maintain my overall grade and to further improve on time management as well. I plan to improve on time management by completing my assignments a little earlier then I usually have. I also hope to have a similar experience with Up in the Air as I did with Winter's Bone. I look forward to what the remainder of this course has to offer.