An Analytical Apprentice

I have been a student of analyzing literature for many years. Sure, everyone reads The Great Gatsby in high school, but not everyone loved ripping it apart the way I did. For me, there was endless joy in scanning a novel for theme, metaphor, and symbolism. I thought I had gotten pretty good at this as well. Turns out there was still plenty for me to learn.

In this class, one of the lessons that taught me the most (simply because I'm not sure I ever learned any of it before) was about the different schools of literary criticism. I'd known that the form of a poem or a short story was important, but when you view a work from a purely New Criticism point of view, the form becomes something altogether more powerful and important. Biographical Criticism was the same way: I'd always enjoyed learning about author's/writers biographies, but I hadn't always considered using their lives as a means to analyze their works.

I also tend to struggle with organizing my writing, especially in long papers. This class really helped me to improve. For starters, I was introduced to a number of new ways to organize my annotations and notes. I had never given my analytical thoughts visual qualities before. Our note card activity was really interesting because it forced me to simplify my thoughts into a single representative image. This post by Leah K. is a very good example of how creative, clear pictures can organize thoughts. In this post of mine, I combined my note card images into a single page to create a sort of map, showing me how my evidence built up so that I could know which parts of my paper would be strong and which would weak. Even more than a bullet point list or an outline (which I've done plenty of before), the visuals helped me to understand my analysis on symbolism better and organize the flow of my major points.

In addition to the way I analyze literature and write, I also expanded the variety of genres I analyze. I've read hundreds of novels, poems, and short stories. I'd even read a decent number of plays. However, I've never analyzed a live drama, film, or oral works. In this class, I was able to attend a live performance with the intention of analyzing it. I found that it was incredibly engaging. I focused more on the play and got more out of it than I would have if I'd gone to watch it without any of the skills this class taught me. I've truly learned to take nothing for granted, and to treat every detail and aspect of a work with respect and curiosity.