Reflection On American Literature

Being able to reflect on the entire semester of American Literature, I am not only confident of my growth as a reader, writer, and speaker, but also proud. The progress made from the beginning of the year is vast. My annotations have grown from being short and metacognitive to lengthy and critical, my speaking abilities have shifted to allow a greater analysis of texts in class, and my writing has grown in diction, syntax, organization, and idea development. When I came into English 11, I was used to low expectations in all forms; simple and few annotations, basic and short essays, and infrequent classroom conversations were all norms of my previous english classes. Consequently, my ability to partake in the aforementioned activities were unpolished

As an annotator, my growth is apparent. While this may be unsurprising considering that I started with almost no previous annotating experience, my abilities are significantly improved. Initially, the concept of annotating was foreign and turned reading, an activity that I had previously enjoyed, into a task, burden, and above all a monstrous time commitment. I was uncomfortable while annotating and unable to achieve the desired, and expected, level of critical analysis. Gradually I developed. Originally, my annotations are inadequate. Being almost entirely metacognitive and were short and incoherent, my annotations required a quick reread of the excerpt to grasp the concepts I was writing about. Phrases such as "...happy image...", "...loss of culture..." and "...origin story..." were found frequently scattered across the pages of our first large packet, the Origin Stories of the Native Americans. Given time and numerous texts, I fought the uphill battle of progression. Looking back upon my most recently annotated text, The Great Gatsby, critical annotations filled the entirety of the margins and gaps of the pages. The black and