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Manuel Flores

Professor Batty

English 102

12 December 2019

English 102: Reflection

As I came into English 102, I always thought myself to be a great reader and writer. It’s

always been one of my favorite subjects simply because I believed it to be one of the easiest. I

came to find out that it isn’t exactly true. There has been a lot that I have learned throughout the

course that I wasn’t previously educated on, which in turn helped me to grow as a reader, writer,

and critical thinker. From looking at novels through specific lenses, such as psychoanalytic lens

and queer theory lens, to delving deeper into poems/ songs to try and truly understand the

message that is being portrayed, and learning how to properly cite and quote when putting

together an essay, English 102 has taught me a lot of helpful techniques that will serve me well

moving forward.

I’ve always enjoyed reading, specifically stories of Greek mythology. I was a great active

reader, which helped me picture the events taking place in the story in my head. That was with

books I liked reading, though. My biggest challenge coming into English 102 was how to

actively read even when I don’t quite enjoy the subject of what I’m reading. When we were

assigned the monster novel, mine being War of the Worlds, I thought it would be yet another

story that I’d suffer reading through. We were assigned to focus on the story through a

psychoanalytic lens, and that is what ultimately saved the story for me. I found myself actively

reading again, something I haven’t done in a while. When looking through that lens, it was easier

to delve into the story to try and understand where each creature, those being humans and aliens,
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were coming from. The lens helped keep me both focused and interested. It was a great step to

becoming a consistent active reader once again, regardless of the subject.

As a writer, I’ve always had trouble with quoting, citations, and also creating the works

cited. Through trial and error, I’ve finally learned how to correctly utilize these. Professor

Batty’s “quote sandwich” was a major help when attempting to utilize quotes. “Quote sandwich”

being leading up to the quote, introducing the quote, and finally speaking about the quote. How

to properly cite a quote is now a breeze thanks to English 102. This is definitely something I

should have learned in 101, but being the arrogant writer, I was, I never paid much attention. Just

another lesson learned through Professor Batty’s course. Finally, the works cited. That has

literally been one of the worst parts of writing for me for a long time. I always had trouble with

how to properly organize the works cited and also what to include and exclude. Also, learning

how to check for plagiarizing in the works cited has been a life saver. All in all, I feel as if I’ve

developed more as a writer and that’s in large part due to the lessons taught by Professor Batty.

I’ve mentioned before the psychoanalytic lens, but there was also the queer theory lens. A

couple of things that made me look at certain topics in a different light. It forced me to look at

topics such as gender, sex, sexuality in a whole different light. This was great because as the

world continues to progress and minds continue to evolve, it’s nice to know I’m not all the way

ignorant on a topic such as this. The psychoanalytic lens helped to educate me on why we do the

things we do. Also, the internal struggle we have within ourselves; the struggle between the

desires of the Id and the Superego and the mediator in between, the Ego. Although we weren’t

assigned to listen and interpret our song/poetry essay through a psychoanalytic lens, I did

anyway when looking back on my song essay. It made the song even MORE interesting than I

already thought it was. Just an example of the influence this class has had on me already.
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Coming into this class, I thought I had nothing left to learn when it came to English. Of

course, I was wrong. It was a wake-up call finding there was so much left to learn. Professor

Batty’s class, and Professor Batty, of course, helped me to develop my skills even further.

Through constructive criticism and comments and great lessons taught, I’ve evolved. I like to

think that I’ve become a better reader, writer, and critical thinker. Learning about the different

lens, how to delve deeper into the stories assigned, and learning to properly quote, cite, and

create a works cited are the end result of this course. Though my major mostly emphasizes math,

it’s still important to be proficient in the dominating language of the US.