In the beginning of the year when we all introduced ourselves, I defined myself as a person that always sought self-improvement. This year, honestly is one of the most rehabilitating years I’ve had. This course was well designed, and it will be memorable to me because of how life-changing this course has been. I’ve applied the things I learned in this class to my personal experiences and it made a difference. The power of language is something we learned throughout the time of this course. The power of language has the ability to change anything and it is quite flexible in terms of freedom. Depending on intent, language can be used for the good, or evil. This was important to know, the devices we learned were key techniques that brought me to the right way of thinking. We learned how to think for ourselves basically.
To think for ourselves, is sometimes all we have. Our mind is easily tricked if we don’t observe it carefully. Our reason is often succumbing to our desires, thus making poor choices. And these poor choices are a product of our lack of thinking. This was exemplified in our propaganda assignments. Mainly, Animal Farm; this novel by George Orwell will continue to be a classic to me, I’ll continue reading it -- it’s a masterpiece that directly reflects the current “flaw” of people. Learning how to observe these flaws and see the bigger picture can make a difference. Also, Lolita is a life-changing book that changed my outlook. One thing that I learned in this class is to let our beliefs be challenged, Lolita is the perfect example. Personally, I view it as a love story.
The writing assignments that I’ve done varied from prohibition of marijuana to the analysis of Lolita; these issues had improved the way I think. Mainly, the assignments had shaped my thinking in such a way that it’s hard for me to look at things as simply “black and “white”.
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To end this year, I’d like to thank the students for helping whenever it was needed and especially our teacher Jennifer Gross! We did it! Congrats to everyone for still being in this class, it was a lot of work and everyone deserves a pat on the back. I hope you guys got as much out of it as I did. It’s not over yet, but the finish line is near and it’s about time to celebrate! Work hard, good luck to everyone.
To think for ourselves, is sometimes all we have. Our mind is easily tricked if we don’t observe it carefully. Our reason is often succumbing to our desires, thus making poor choices. And these poor choices are a product of our lack of thinking. This was exemplified in our propaganda assignments. Mainly, Animal Farm; this novel by George Orwell will continue to be a classic to me, I’ll continue reading it -- it’s a masterpiece that directly reflects the current “flaw” of people. Learning how to observe these flaws and see the bigger picture can make a difference. Also, Lolita is a life-changing book that changed my outlook. One thing that I learned in this class is to let our beliefs be challenged, Lolita is the perfect example. Personally, I view it as a love story.
The writing assignments that I’ve done varied from prohibition of marijuana to the analysis of Lolita; these issues had improved the way I think. Mainly, the assignments had shaped my thinking in such a way that it’s hard for me to look at things as simply “black and “white”.
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To end this year, I’d like to thank the students for helping whenever it was needed and especially our teacher Jennifer Gross! We did it! Congrats to everyone for still being in this class, it was a lot of work and everyone deserves a pat on the back. I hope you guys got as much out of it as I did. It’s not over yet, but the finish line is near and it’s about time to celebrate! Work hard, good luck to everyone.
It is good to hear that you “self-improved” and had a great year in that regard, it is always good to walk away from a class knowing you learned something. I feel the same way, I feel like my academic abilities have much improved over the course of the semester and I just hope I can carry this into my future academic and professional ventures. Like you, I would have never expected this class to have such a great impact on my life as a whole. I feel more comfortable thinking critically and making decisions. This is a very useful skill to have. I love that you said we were able to think for ourselves, so many teachers cram their own ideas and opinions into students and we take their word for it because they are the teacher and must know what they’re talking about. This sometimes isn’t the case and the only way to grow as a person is to think for yourselves and be able to form your own opinions. Like you said, in Animal farm, this persuasive propaganda can shape our minds and turn us into drones. This has happened throughout history, and in order to avoid having people, like Hitler come to power, is the ability to think for ourselves and form our own opinions. It was a pleasure reading your blogs this semester, good luck in life and have a great summer!
ReplyDeleteYay we sure did! This course has been extremely efficient mainly due to the success rate. I have never seen such a positive response from an entire class. I went into this course not really knowing what to expect and not necessarily looking to better myself as a person. I thought I would at least better my skills as a writer and maybe communicator but not a person necessarily. However, more than I had ever expected it was ultimately a life changing experience for me. It sounds like it was that way for the rest of our classmates as well. I think that the lesson plan was executed perfectly and completely fulfilled it’s purpose.Our analytical thinking and responding was challenged and shaped throughout the duration of this course. I can no longer look at things in simple black and white either. That was a great and important aspect you touched on. It has become so routine that I honestly forgot that I obtained this skill here in this course. Celebration is definitely needed at the end of this course! I too, really appreciated all of the nice people involved in this class. Professor Gross was the amazing factor contributing to the success of all of her students.
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