Helpful? Creative? New? Different? Exciting? Challenging? How else would I describe first semester English? Now that I reflect upon the impact of English so far this semester, it seems as if the whole process was natural... Sure, it's been tough in class at times, but in terms of the kind of thinking that I've done and literature and ideas I've experienced, it doesn't seem to have been forced. Making the whole process of thinking critically a more natural process.
First day of English, I will admit I was curious, anxious, scared, and excited for another year of "upgraded" English, no more freshman material. I soon realized that as enriching the experience was going to be, my mind also had a lot of catching up to do. It was no longer just reading to get good grades on a test or writing with a false voice that would appease the teacher. It was all about developing your identity, in a way. Writing, is in fact just that. Writing to express your voice, your character, your ideas, and your mind. The first English writing assignment, I thought, was definitely something new and quite unexpected. A letter to the teacher, about an inspiration? What? However, as the days passed on and we began to dive deeper and deeper into the world of Husseini and Shakespeare, it was evident that digging for gold that deep was hard even though we were pretty much standing on the gold the whole time. It just took someone else to point it out, to open our eyes. That's what I think English class has done for me and my thinking so far. It has helped my thinking mature a little more and deepen the amount of thinking that I'll do while I'm reading or writing. For example, sometimes as I'm reading, I can't help, but to let my mind use some of the critique methods taught in English class, and it's often when I am able to use ideas (memes) and vocabulary outside of English. For me all my classes have begun to flow into one. It's no longer just English or just German. It's English and German. Seeing these continuations in ideas and thoughts just boggle my mind and keep me interested throughout the entire day. And when I find myself making that connection it's like reading Shakespeare and saying, "I totally know what Shakespeare's intentions were with that rhyming couplet there in relation to the characters."
Reading critically and in depth has opened up new doors in my understanding as well as learning the methodology on how to open those doors. However, what I thought was like the explosion of a door was the kind of writing we got to do this semester. Writing in English class has always been extremely stressful for me, but I found that given the opportunity to let my voice shine through in my essays was probably the best thing that's happened to me in English (aside from the awesome theatre we did with King Lear). By writing with my voice, I'm able to look at things at completely different angles, angles I would have never thought to have experimented with. As much as this freedom enriches my thinking it also reveals my weak spots in my thinking, spots where the critical thinking simply stops... So, that's my goal for second semester, develop my voice into a full-fledged one.
Vive l'anglais!
