During this semester, my time in this class has allowed me the opportunity to grow as a

writer and as a reader. One particular learning outcome that I can think of would definitely be
learning about gothic literature. Prior to the classes where we discussed this type of genre, I had
no previous experience or knowledge on the subject. I think I learned a lot about this type of
literature and can see myself picking it out of future texts since I now know what I am looking
for. Attendance to this class was something I took seriously, as I do with all my other classes. I
always showed up on time to class and engaged in the lessons. Though I am not a huge
participator, I still was able to learn the content and be active in this class. I am not a huge fan of
speaking in front of the class, but I found myself able to participate more in the breakout rooms
once the awkward silence passed. Somewhere that I found myself struggling at first was with the
reading Frankenstein. I remember trying to read the first section that got assigned to us from this
text, and I struggled a lot. For some reason, I was having trouble comprehending what was even
going on in the text and it was hard for me to get through it since the section was long. After that,
I was nervous when the next section got assigned and it was just as long. Once I started reading,
I tried to really focus on what was going on. I can say that with each section that we read, my
understanding of the text increased more and more. As we read, I felt like I was grasping
concepts better and no longer felt confused. An assignment that I actively enjoyed was the first
writing assignment, the personal narrative. I find this kind of writing to be so much more
enjoyable than research papers or anything to that nature. I felt like I was able to tell my story
and not have to worry about outside sources or having to go back and cite things. Being able to
simply write and not feel that pressure made me enjoy this assignment and it came more natural
to me. A skill I knew but developed further would be citing and making works cited pages. We
had to do this for the critical analysis paper, and though I have done citations in many past
classes, I still felt like this refreshed my memory and helped me further develop this skill. This is
a very useful skill because it seems like I am doing it in more and more classes as I go through
my schooling. One goal that I will continue to try and develop as I move further into my major is
that I do not need to be so hard on myself, because my work is good enough. This is something I
have struggled with all of my life and now that I am in college, I see more and more that I am
able to do the work and I don’t need to be so critical of myself. As long as you put in the work
that it takes, you will get there one day, and it will come sooner than you think.