Midterm Essay Reflection
Essay:
- I wrote about Small Beauty
- I did three close readings from the three flashback scenes in the novel
- I wrote about ambivalent ghosts
- Ghosts = flashbacks
- Ghosts = memory
Strengths:
- I like what I wrote about and think it is an interesting topic
- I think I break down my close readings well
What was hard:
- Pinpointing what I was arguing outside of just a close reading
- Setting boundaries with my analysis
- Being concise
- Being motivated to edit and work on this paper, I did not really edit.
- Not saying “this” or “that” when referring to ideas expressed in the paper
Where I need more guidance:
- I would like an opinion on the strength of my essay and what you think it was trying to argue
- I wonder if essays necessarily need to argue something as I felt my essay was less argument based and more of an analysis
- I am not sure if that makes sense
- Creating a reverse outline would be helpful
- Defining my terms, I could have elaborated more on how ambivalence played into my argument, though I wasn’t sure how. I think with that I struggled to incorporate the themes from class as they pertained to my argument.