Journey Through English Class

Michael Statchen
English 110
5/3/2010
Professor Finegan
Capstone Project
My Journey as an English Student

When I signed up for this Introduction to Literature course I was not expecting it to be one of the most insightful and interesting classes that I have ever taken. Nevertheless, over the years I have learned to expect the unexpected and that truth held to it’s own with this course. After five years of avoiding any type of English Literature course I knew it was time to finally take one, as did my academic advisor. My expectation was that I would be sitting in class watching the clock tick or trying to text message friends to pass the time. Ergo I do not believe my cell phone left its holster all semester. From the very first day of class when I was walking to my car, a classmate and I talked about how we thought it was going to be a great class, and on the last day of class that same student and I talked about how we were actually going to miss it, so our prediction was dead on. Normally the last day of class is a celebration for the fact that everyone is so happy that it is finally over, but that was not the case.
I was dreading the fact that we would have to read books and stories that I wasn’t interested in and write about them. I was also worried because I sometimes have a hard time remembering books and things that I read when I am taking a test on the facts of the material. I figured I would be taking long exams on long books and struggling to remember what I read which was one of the reasons why I was not looking forward to any sort of Literature course. I did realize that annotating in the margins and re-reading the stories helped me remember more, but I still don’t think I would be too interested in re-reading a very long book. I have always been a good writer and English Composition courses were never hard for me, although they were never my favorite’s ether. As a Business Management major with a minor in Coaching, math and sports... [continues]

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