English 101 initially seemed to be just a class I would be reading novels critically and writing papers on each individual novel. After composing the papers, however, I realized that this course had been structured specifically to intertwine each novel to topics in the next. Overall, the class related to the same subject: whether the electronic age is coming too close for comfort to the reading world. English 101 surprised me as we branched out from the typical forms of writing and the normal assigned books to broaden my knowledge with glogs, hyper textual books, and the idea that a movie could compare to a novel. At first I was unsure of how much of an English class I could have on this track, but in the end I realize now how important the topic of the novel is in my technologic generation.
For my final paper I chose to revise my fourth essay in which I argued that Shelly Jackson’s “Patchwork Girl” is not a novel based upon my definition of a novel. Using ideas from my first essay of the semester, I edited the paper by bringing the importance of history in a novel to light with another paragraph. I inserted new quotes and ideas into each of the other paragraphs in an attempt to revamp my new ideas by strengthening them with my old ones. Just as the course emphasized the old medium of the novel compared to the new medium of hypertext, I choose to combine the ideas of these two essays in order to connect the course ideas from beginning to end. Starting with my ideas concerning reading and writing and ending with my ideas on hypertext, this essay argues that, in my personal opinion the old medium of printed novels is better than the newer electronic hypertext.
As I continue to the next semester at Washington College I know that I have worked hard in this class to improve my writing skills. I hope to continue with intensive writing courses in order to keep my writing skills fresh because I feel like I did improve during this semester of English 101 in the areas that needed just a little more focus.
