Ten to The End
"The scope of your college dictionary will surprise you" (Roberts 153).
I wonder how many college students actually have a dictionary. I think I have one, but I don't use it. It's more like a collector's item now or a tool that I have just for looks/because you should.
"What makes a symbol symbolic is its capacity to signify additional levels of meaning - major ideas, simple or complex emotions, or philosophical or religious qualities or values" (149).
I remember when symbolism first truely clicked with me while reading a book and I wanted to try to put symbolism into my stories. It was my first step in the literary direction (writing literature that is, not analyzing and writing about it). You want to know the book?
"The Scarlet Letter"
Moving on to chapter 16...
"Our present focus is with the literature that has risen along with many changes brought about by our unique nation of immigrants and their descendants" (234).
What about the natives? Aztecs, Cherokee, Iroquois? I'd love to see literature on that.
"Too often it is easy to read texts as though they were all written last week and to attribute to writers ideas they never had" (234).
This reminds me of American Lit last semester and "The Great Gatsby." Like in older literature where there is little feminism, we (the class) were frustrated that Daisy just didn't leave her husband. Sometimes it's hard to keep in mind that cultural differences and something little that Daisy did might be progressive for the writer's time, but not ours. This is where it's good to have a liberal arts education so there can be a history understanding/application.
Now for a reflection on the course. My work can be seen through the four portfolios I have done for the class. For me, for my creative writing degree, the class furthered my range of literature that I can apply to my own writing. The book Writing About Literature gave me good ideas and explanations of traditional literature tools. However, I still feel this class is really an extension of Introduction the Literature class I took last semester. I see the value in learning to analyze literature and write papers, but I'm not an English Literature major, it's not what I want to do, and I'll be learning and writing lit papers for many of my other courses.