Reflective Essay

It is astonishing that my journey through English class has come to a close. My path has been a smooth and enjoyable one, and it is with great sadness that I begin to gather up the ends of my literary education. I know that I will continue to grow and develop as a critical reader/thinker throughout my life, but I will miss the educational structure that has shaped my literary understanding for the last year. I consider my greatest strengths as a writer to be my insightfulness and creative slant with which I approach my work. I understand most styles of writing and I enthusiastically grasp the text with an eagerness to understand and relate to it. I enjoyed gathering research for essays and try to explain them to my audience. Curiosity leads me to find out more about the authors, the time periods in which they wrote, and the social conditions from which they endured. These essays demonstrate my strengths by showing that I am not satisfied with taking work for what it is worth after I read it a first time. I know that not everything is apparent at surface level, and only after reviewing it and going back for more will I truly begin to see what the author is trying to say. I enjoy looking at pieces from different and creative angles in an attempt to try to comprehend them. My choices also reflect my interest in a variety of styles, as one essay focuses on a Narrative analysis and the other on athletes in school. By reading the story of Fenton and the struggles he endured, I gained insight into what immigrants go through in order to start a new life. In both essays, I have used critical strategies to pick apart the work being discussed. By dissecting the lines and passages, I have been able to pick up on details and details that have brought the focus and message of the works into finer focus. Paying close attention to detail lends itself to the particular, complicated readings that I have presented. In the Fenton essay, he was engaged in a battle