Erica Ravan

ENC 1102 / Professor McGriff

Reflection Essay
04/06/2015

I've experienced tremendous growth in my capabilities of analyzing and writing about

many genres of American Literature. As a writer and a reader my skills have improved
considerably throughout American Literature II. Many approaches to studying literature have
been applied this semester. I have the clearest understanding of regionalism, romanticism,
sociological, and historical criticism. My best discussion entry for this class was on "Editha"
written by William Dean Howells. Prior to taking this course I would not have criticized the
irrational romanticism so clearly. After studying realism and romanticism I was able to
understand and critique the meaning of the text on a deeper level. At the end of "Editha" I was
able to hear the characters voices in the story in a stronger sense than I would have before.
My portfolio does not project a professional level of literary criticism. It does show a passion for
reading and learning which improves as I move forward. My views may not always fall in the
majority or be on point but I do put forward my best effort. Writing about literature takes a lot of
time to digest and understand what messages the writers were intending to send. In some cases
there are multiple messages. Most of the time we take our own meaning from the text. I've had
several challenges throughout this course. The book review was tough. I was trying not to give
away many parts of the story while expressing my review. So many areas of criticism could have
been applied to the novel it was hard to decipher which one to address. In the end I focused on
regionalism, socialism, and political criticism. On the plus side I was able to read "Let the Great

World Spin" by Colum McCann and it was absolutely intriguing. The biggest challenge in this
class was to criticize and respond to my classmates discussions. Knowing they were probably
struggling just like I was to learn how to evaluate literature made it hard to judge in any way. I
do understand peer review is a part of learning but it was still a challenge each time. In the future
I plan to slow down when reading and try to understand more about what the literature means.
What era did the author grow up in? Is this a metaphor with a hidden meaning? Is this realism or
magical realism? Many questions can be applied when reading any piece of art.