Learning, Learning, Learned

The literature we studied this semester was interesting. The book that I enjoyed the most was Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, and the novel that I enjoyed the least and the one that failed to make it on my “Best Books Ever!” list was In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck. In addition, the papers that we had to write after finishing the novels helped me expand my knowledge on how to write properly. Another thing that I also learned was that one cannot have two topics in one paragraph. Before this course, I would sometimes introduce two topics in one paragraph instead of separating them. However, now I know that if I have two or more topics in one paragraph, I should start a new paragraph by introducing a new topic sentence. I also learned about new theories, such as the reader-response criticism, formalist criticism, gender criticism, biographical criticism, psychoanalytic criticism, and new historicism.   I had never heard of them before I took this class. I found these theories extremely helpful when constructing a paper because it kept my thoughts organized. In addition, these theories will also help me in my future classes because I will be able to read novels and write papers while applying these theories. I also learned about the struggles of the laborers and the workers. Before I read In Dubious Battle, I did not know what they had  faced and are still facing. I also did not know that UFW are working day and night towards stopping the government from adding pesticides in various kinds of fruits.