As the festivities of Halloweekend came to an end on Monday night, the students of English 105 knew they had a quick turnaround coming on Tuesday morning. While some had the foresight to get to bed at a decent time to be ready for class the next morning, it was apparent that others, including myself, were not so lucky. The class was not at full capacity, and while this was mainly due to illness, many were still reeling from the fun of All Hallows’ Eve.
When we arrived, we dove right back into our preparations for unit three, and the focus for the day was on literary analysis. Professor Blom gave a quick presentation on thesis statements and what makes a great thesis statement. After hearing this, many students, including myself, rushed to their thesis statement from feeder 3.1 and realized they needed to make some improvements before the real thesis statement was due before Thursday’s class. After this discussion, the class dove into some close reading practice in groups. My group, the Procrastinators, lived up to its name to begin this activity, as we were all tired and reluctant to engage at the start. We got rolling in the end, and we had a good discussion about “The Tyger” by William Blake. However, when the class came back together, we realized we were not nearly as good at close reading as we anticipated. Professor Blom put on a clinic of poetic analysis and put our analysis, for better or for worse, to shame. However, his skill and understanding of the texts that we analyzed inspired my fellow students and I to dig even deeper into our selected texts.
Thursday’s class was a bit more energetic than that of Tuesday, which makes sense given not as many students were as busy on Wednesday as they were on Halloween. Students were instructed to read one of four textual analysis essays from past students in preparation for our essay. My group, once again, lived up to our “procrastinators” title, as we did not know as much about the essay on “The Darling” by Remeis as we should have. We still put together a thorough analysis of the elements of the essay, as did our other classmates. Professor Blom’s discussion of the essays was thorough and very useful for our own writing. My personal favorite idea to come out of the session was the idea of using criticism from the period to corroborate the argument of one’s essay. After this session, we had yet another successful workshop, this time for our thesis statements. Koen gave me some great pointers and encouragement for my thesis, and the rest of my group also seemed satisfied with what they got out of the session.
Looking ahead, we have a big week next week. Students will spend Sunday and Monday preparing their rough drafts for their textual analysis essays, and the essay workshop on Tuesday will be key for the coming unit project. Overall, it was a great week in English 105 and students are well-equipped to succeed in our last unit of the semester.
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