Class Reflection

I cannot believe that this English class will be over in thirteen hours! Time flies and I will definitely miss this whole class, professor Crowther’s long dress, and miss the feeling of going to a class on Tuesday and Thursday when the campus is still in its dreams. Sorry to be emotional at the beginning, but throughout the semester, I really enjoyed it. I also learned a lot during the semester and among those I learned, the most important is that I become more aware of the fact that everybody has the equal right to read and write.

Originally from China, I have only seven years’ experience of learning and using English. Even after staying here for several months, I still feel weak in reading and writing. I used to keep English literature far away from me. One reason is that I am afraid my insufficient knowledge of the new language and culture will hold me back from understanding the works. I feel even more inferior when it comes to literature criticism. I always have the idea that I am be the last person on earth who has the authority to criticize those native articles and books written by well-known authors. I used to read literature only for appreciating, or as a good way to learn English. With that kind of idea in mind, I never tried to be critical when I read English works. I always think unconsciously that “Those writers are far better than me. How can they be wrong? How can their arguments lames?”

But now, after the semester of training to be a critic, I find myself more and more confident in critical writing. And once I begin to write like that, I become a more critical reader too. It is so true what professor Crowther said the other day: “It (the critical reading) is like a pair of glasses you take on, and once you take on, you wear it all your life, it is hard to take it off.” I began to feel myself questioning the writings of CNN news when I read every morning. I become more and more aware of my own right of reading and writing.

At the beginning of the semester, I wrote down several goals for the course, which includes to have a more complex and diverse knowledge of vocabulary, strategies of critical reading, how to give critical comments on the reading material. At the end of the semester, after writing four critical reading papers, I can proudly say that I achieved the goals I set earlier. Yet even more proudly I can say, that I have conquered the inferior feeling of reading and writing. Now I truly believe that everyone has the equal right to read and write and of course to criticize!