I think one of the best things about taking this course was the flexibility. I allowed myself to be challenged and most importantly, I read so many novels. Personally, I have long grown distant to reading, ever since English in high school. I will say some weeks got difficult but having read the number of texts I have contracted for, I feel so accomplished. The biggest hardship for me was finishing a lengthy novel within less than a week as I also work almost full-time from Friday to Sundays. As well, I will admit that I am a slow reader.
In particular, I surprised myself on some days as I began to immerse myself in works that I would never have thought of reading before. I am thankful that I allowed myself to be challenged and be open to reading new styles of writing. Some books I unexpectedly enjoyed are: “Combray,” Mad Toy, Agostino, The Time of the Doves, and Money to Burn.
I quite liked the overall structure of this course. That is, watching the lecture beforehand and coming to class for the discussion of the books. I thought this allowed us to be much more productive and utilize our time wisely. Furthermore, I also found it extremely thoughtful how the topics for Monday and Wednesday classes for compulsory texts varied in what was discussed. This incentivized more people to attend both.
Another aspect I liked was responses to each other’s blog posts. Although this was mandatory, I found that this sparked more discussion and even if there were no replies to comments, it sparked more ideas. I truly loved seeing what other people took away from the novel and the different perspectives that arose from reading the same text.
Something I thought was difficult at the beginning of the course was figuring out the structure for each of the weeks. However, once I found a routine that worked for me, I found myself relying on the schedule I set for myself and following it to be successful.
For some weeks, I was anxious about the short quiz even though I completed all the work. This was mainly for the texts that I read but did not fully comprehend. Even though I had read the full book, watched the videos, and taken notes, I was afraid that I may have lost a super important detail that would be tested on the quiz. I also was worried that I may have misunderstood what was going on. Yet, I understand the purpose of the quizzes, I just hope there was a way to make it less-anxiety inducing.
Overall, I loved the structure of this class! Yes, it is a lot of work, but so worth it. Thank you to everyone! I enjoyed listening and discussing the different texts with you all!