Reflection Of Literature

I have taken several literature courses throughout my educational career, such as courses in high school and a couple through Post-Secondary Enrollment Options. The Introduction to Literature course taught at UMR was distinct compared to these previous courses. I don’t mean distinct because we learned what female animals eat their mates or what not to do when a stranger is appreciating your calves. I mean distinct because I actually learned writing skills. From my previous experiences with literature, I have mostly learned how to format a paper. After completing this course, I learned how to analyze writings and tie my thesis into each main point of a paper.

One of our first assignments in this literature course was to write a paper analyzing lyrics from a song of our choosing. This activity showed the beginning of my

Dr. Nichols commented on four of my six paragraphs in the body of my paper about tying my ideas back to my thesis. On my second draft of this paper, I double-checked to be positive I have a concluding sentence for each of my paragraphs. Dr. Nichols’s commented on this draft and didn’t write anything about my connections so I must have done okay on linking it to my thesis. This first assignment showed me that I need to connect these paragraphs with the main idea to make it noticeable that the paragraphs have purpose.

The second closed reading was an analysis of a relationship between characters from The Piano Lesson by August Wilson. In the first draft of this paper, my biggest problem was the thesis. I failed to truly argue a thesis. I stated one but did not elaborate on what I meant. This caused my analysis to be vague and not arguable. It also made it difficult for me to connect my each paragraph to my thesis. The thesis is a very important part of an analysis paper and without it, it is difficult to form a well written