Jacob Dyas

American Lit

Final Reflective essay

Final Reflection

Being an Information Systems Management major when I registered for this class I took

it as just another class I was forced to take in order to graduate. However, after going through

all of my daily assignments it really surprised me just how far my writing had come. Before this

class narration to me was just the simple first, second, and third person that everybody learns

in high school. Now I realize just how many different aspects there are regarding narration. As

you can see through my portfolio I had a serious problem with understanding and explaining

the narration of a specific story. However, I honestly think that improved exponentially over the

course of the semester.

A perfect example of my struggles with narration are very noticeable in the daily writing

assignment I wrote about the story The Resurrection of Life. Instead of talking about whether

or not the narration is heterodiegetic, autodiegetic, or homodiegetic I instead talk about how

the narration is simply in the first person. While this is not technically wrong, it is not the

concept of narration that we discussed in class. After speaking with my TA about narration and

listening to the discussions in class I began to understand what was expected with narration a

little more. While not perfect, the first time I began to experience just a little bit of

improvement I think was in my essay one assignment. In the first sentence of this essay I was

sure to note that the narration was heterodiegetic, not just first, second, or third person. I was
then able to explain how this narration helped tell the story and allowed the reader to better

understand the circumstances. This essay really helped me to understand what this class

expected from narration that I recently did not understand.

Now that I have had time to sit back and really reflect on this class as a whole I am

realizing just how much things in this course apply to other courses that I am currently taking.

While I do not usually go into such details about narration when writing for other classes, it has

really helped me when writing to think about the best way to write about an article. I better

understand how writing a certain way allows my readers to better understand the topic that I

am discussing and better grasp my argument. Through both my essays and daily writing

assignments in this E-Portfolio I think it is very apparent that I have come a long way, but still

have a very long road ahead of me if I want to become the writer that I know I can be!