My midterm essay was on Audre Lorde’s Poetry is Not a Luxury and how she used metaphor, metonymy, and other techniques to express her message that poetry is essential for women to realize the true power of their womanhood.
Strengths:
- I did end up really liking the different elements of Lorde’s writing that I chose to write about. I’m happy with some of the meaning I found in her various techniques.
Elements of writing the midterm essay that I found difficult and would like to work on:
- Choosing which parts of the writing to include in my essay
- There were so many different things in the writing that I could’ve talked about, so it was difficult to choose between them and also to integrate the different elements into one arguable thesis statement.
- Organizing the different parts of my essay
- I moved different sections around quite a bit because I wasn’t sure what order would be most logical. Again, it was difficult to figure out the best way to connect the different things I talked about and make them fit together into one coherent essay.
- Using varied language
- I tend to use the same words a lot
- Transitioning between summary and analysis
- I had a hard time integrating the two such that the transitions between the two weren’t too awkward or abrupt
- Making my sentences concise/ easy to read
- I really struggle with expressing my ideas effectively instead of having long, rambling sentences that are hard to follow