Midterm Reflection

After being in class and seeing some of the essays, I think I have a better idea of what to do on the final essay. Someone told me on the way to the exam to write as much as I could, I did not take this into account while writing my essay though. Wish I had taken the person's advice because I feel that my essay was too dry. It lacked the detail, but it had the connection. On the next essay, I need to elaborate on the piece. Explain all its detail, all the detail, and then try to connect it to the piece. I need to show that I have a better understanding of what the piece actually is describing, and the things that are going on in the piece. I know that in my essay, I only related a few specific things to the topic at hand. Yet, I have never been a great writer, and this is a big learning experience for me on how to write more of an analysis on a piece.

Today's lab we saw a few papers that had received better grades than mine and some that were worse. When looking at the better papers, they had more detail, and from it the person reading it could tell that the person knew more about the topic. Although the better graded paper did not really relate back to the theme as much as I did, I felt in my paper everything was in line and reflected the theme very well. I also felt that my literature paragraphs were much better than my music and art paragraphs. My music paragraphs were by far the worse because we did not go into as much analysis on them as we did with the art and lit pieces. It is tough to connect a piece of music back to a theme when it has no words in it.

Looking into the future and final essay, I have a better feeling of what is asked of me. I also have a better method of attacking the essay. Since I really want an A and am really bad at language arts, I am for sure going to prepare the essays well in advanced and try to rewrite them during the time period. I did write outlines and one essay, but I feel that it would be better to have the exact draft ready to go into the exam. Also, my essay will be long and full of detail. It may stray from the topic a little, but this will just add detail and show the professor I have a better understanding of the culture. I had great understandings of all the cultures for the midterm, as reflected in my other grades, but I need to better put this understanding into words. Also, I need to open up the essay better and compare the cultures better. Yet, with a better understanding and more practice, I feel that my final essay will be miles better than my midterm essay.