Annie McClure
Professor McLaughlin
World Literature
27 April 2020
Final Reflection
My name is Annie McClure. I was born and raised in Columbus Ohio. I’m currently living at home with my mom, dad, cat, and our new puppy, instead of in Cincinnati because of recent circumstances. I consider myself to be fun and outgoing. I love sports. I grew up playing soccer for most of my life. I’m a huge Dallas Cowboys and Ohio State football fan. I enjoy hanging out with my friends during my free time. One of my least favorite things to do is read, which is funny because this is a literature class.
I am currently 19 years old, and a first-year student at the University of Cincinnati, Blue Ash. My major is Special Education, which I am extremely passionate about. I hope to one day become an Intervention Specialist for high school students. The reason I choose this career path is that my entire life I have battled with my dyslexia and ADHD. These two things have caused me to struggle my entire life in school. My goal is to help give back to children with learning disabilities like myself. I am an extremely caring person which will help me when I become and Intervention specialist.
What is the significance of literature? Literature helps to give people a way to express themselves, whether that’s as a writer or the readers. It gives us the ability to be creative and to look at things from a broader perspective. Literature helps to expand the way that we look at life and others around us. When we read different books, we learn new things, like about other cultures. Literature also helps to build our appreciation for history. Through literature, we are able to learn about different things that happened before us, giving us an understanding of how things came to be.
The way that I understand the purpose of studying world literature is that it is a way to teach us about places around the world that we are unfamiliar with. Were able to learn about other cultures and writing styles from around the world. Most of us live in a shadow, only reading literature written about the area around us. Studying world literature lets us come out of the shadow and learn about something that is completely different from what we believe or do. When we read literature around the world, we expand our minds to new ideas and costumes. It makes us smarter. We open our minds up to the world.
What matters about the specific selections we have read in the context of the world, US, Cincinnati? It teaches us things about one another. As I’ve said were able to learn about different cultures other than our own. Everything we have read in class this semester has taught us something new. Whether it’s a way of writing, an idea, or a place on this planet, we’ve learned something from each piece of literature we’ve looked at.
Why does any this matter to me? Personally, this matter to me because it’s teaching me about new things, I’m unfamiliar with. I am too able to learn about new things which helps me to become smarter. It helps to change the way that I look at others around me. It also helps me appreciate what I do have in life. I may not personally connect with what we’ve read but I was always able to get something out of books. From what I’ve learned this semester, I’m now a more educated, diverse person with a newfound appreciation for reading and world literature. Which something I never thought I would say.
For major project 1, I looked closely at how the world’s geographic borders influenced the cultures within them. I examined other writers’ texts about geographic borders and what they may influence, in order to try to answer ways in which they shaped cultures. In short, I believe that geographic borders drastically affected cultures, and I explained this in my project.
The project was complicated, and it evoked some tougher questions like “Do cultures form in opposition to each other?” When I thought about this question at first, I was stumped. The more I thought about the question the clearer the answer became. Cultures sometimes form in opposition to another. For example, if they didn’t like something about one culture, they may start to form their own new culture.
I believe that the work I did in Major Project 1 is important because it shows the way culture is formed due to geographic boundaries. It helps to explain why a certain culture may be a certain way. Not every culture is influenced by a border, but my work helps to show that there are cultures out there that are. My work is important because it shows that a simple border can make the things lying on each side entirely different.
This project shows how I can adopt other people’s work and organize their ideas and reduce them to a version to help me explain my ideas. The project also shows that I understand that there are so many different kinds of borders, not just the physical ones, and they affect so many aspects of our lives. This Project has helped me to think about how my identity is influenced by my neighborhood, city, state, and country. This idea was something I have never really thought about, but it has now helped to show the person I am because of the area I live in.
For major project 2, I wanted to understand the theme of identity in literature. My goal was to understand what identity was and what things affect one’s identity. In order to understand the theme identity, I did a comparative literary analysis of 2 texts that we’ve read in class this semester, “Wide Sargasso Sea” and “The Best Place on Earth.” Both texts each shared a similar theme of identity, which helped me to understand the role identity plays in literature.
My work helps to give my readers an understanding of why exactly the theme identity is. Identity is an important thing, it’s what defines the person we are. My work helps to show how different things in one’s life, affect their identity. It’s important to understand what identity is when you are reading because it will give you a deeper understanding of what you’re reading. In literature, it helps to create the characters and the storyline. Without identity in literature, there wouldn’t be a storyline, characters would be bland. My work also shares how you can take the similar themes of books and compare them to another.
My project shows how I am able to take 2 different texts and compare them to another. I’m able to find a central theme of a book in order to understand it more deeply. My work shows my understanding of literary criticism, and its importance. I was able to create an analysis for each book to understand its themes. I was able to relate the two books to another to get a better understanding of the theme industry. My work indicates my deeper understanding of identity and its key importance in literature. My work shows my understanding of geographic borders and how that influences us. In my work, I was able to explain how geographic borders affected charters’ identity from each story. My work has taught me how important identity is. It helped me to think about why a character is a certain way while I’m reading.
For Major Project 3, I choose to write an in-depth series of book reviews, for 4 of the books we’ve read in class this semester. For the review, I rated each book on the same scale and answered similar questions about each book like “Who would you recommend this book too?” I also wrote an in-depth reflection on the work I did for the project.
I believe my work matters in Major project 3 because I am helping others who are wondering whether a book would be a good fit for them or not. Reviews are such an important thing that so many people look at before they make the decision to do something. My reviews can help stop someone from wasting their time reading something that isn’t suited for them personally, or they have no interest in. I put in a lot of time into my reviews to make them meaningful and helpful to those that read them. My work was personal, I wasn’t looking at another writer’s ideas, everything I wrote in my review was my own opinion and work.
This project has really shown how much I’m learning. The project shows that I’m understanding the books we’ve been reading in class. It shows that I am able to go into detail and explain what the stories were about and why someone else would want to read it. My work has taught me that my opinions matter. Sure, not everyone cares what I have today but there’s someone out there who benefiting from the work you’ve done.
This semester was very strange. However I learned so many new things. Coming into this class, I was dreading it. I wished I was taking something different. Now, I’m thankful I took this class. This class was hard work and It took alot of brain energy but it was very rewarding.
Annie's Site 