A Retrospective

15 weeks of writing 140. What have I learned? I have written five formal essays, one midterm, and one in-class essay. Seven essays. I have learned a lot from these. I actually found myself looking forward to the next essays so that I could improve.

I understand now that the topic of the essay is most important for me. If I am passionate about what I am arguing, then I have an easier time writing the paper and feel motivated to make it very good. However, when I don't really care about what I have chosen to write about, it is a very sluggish process.

When it comes to ethics and academic inquiry, I have the same opinion. It is paramount. You have to question, and you have to learn. That's our duty as citizens-- to be informed. Research is key, and through the 15 weeks of this course I have learned to utilize online sources through the USC library, as well as to navigate the book stacks of the library itself.

The blogs. What have they taught me? Firstly, I did not want to do them in the beginning of the year because I was afraid I would forget to post half the time (ironic, because this post is a day late). But, when I wrote the blog post before I began an essay, I found that I was in a clearer mindset to write, because I had dumped a lot of my ideas/ written them out and seen how they stood alone.

Writing 140 gave me a very strong backbone for writing analytical essays. This will be extremely useful for me. It already helped for my critical studies course, which requires the same caliber of essay-work. I have another critical studies course to take next year, and I'm positive that writing the essays will be much easier now that I have gone through the prices almost ten times in one semester.

I enjoyed the class. Even though it was relatively early in the morning, it was a class of beginnings and endings. Every new assignment was a fresh start, in my mind. I felt it: a new chance, a chance to apply what I learned from my previous mistakes and really, really improve. I really liked the use of visuals, especially the screenings of "To Kill a Mockingbird", and "Devil in a Blue Dress", as well as the SNL shorts.

Thank you, Professor!