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Rashidah Nazziwa

Professor Batty

English 102

10 December 2019

My Progress as a Writer: English 102

English is not my first language and I surely hated English classes up until this fall

(2019). I joined the course about two weeks late and I was worried about ever attaining a good

grade, but a big thank you to my professor who was so welcoming, listening, and willing to help

me out with anything. This class has challenged me throughout the fall and made me not only a

better writer but also a better listener, analyzer, critical thinker, and greatly increased my

confidence as a writer. I have learnt a lot from this class among which include: the

psychoanalytic theory and use of psychoanalysis to examine and understand a text, the queer

theory, the use and citation of scholarly articles, as well as gained an increment in my confidence

as a writer.

The psychoanalytic theory provides a lens through which we can analyze art, literature,

film, among others and was established by Sigmund Freud. Before this class, I didn’t even know

that word existed. We used the psychoanalytic theory to analyze a monster novel and find out

how monstrous and scary monsters can be. This theory tells us there are three parts to our

personality that drive our unconsciousness. The id is like the ‘Bad Boy’ of our sub

consciousness; it is an impulsive part of the psyche that seeks pleasure and it wants instant

gratification. The superego is the second part of the psyche that wants to control the id; it

unconsciously and consciously acts to follow rules of society and tries to keep the id from

causing some serious damage. The ego, the third part, lies in between the two forces and is
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always at constant struggle to balance the two forces. In class, we analyzed Dracula by Bram

Stocker and concluded that Dracula is a representation of the human id and Dr. Van Helsing

represents the super ego.

Queer theory is a field of critical theory that includes both queer readings of texts and the

theorization of queerness itself. This theory builds upon feminist challenges to the idea that

gender is a part of the essential self and upon gay/lesbian studies’ close examination of the

socially constructed nature of sexual acts and identities. We applied this to Angels in America by

Tony Kushner to analyze how the play treats issues relating to gender and sexuality.

We also learned how research and cite scholarly articles. The scholarly journals are

usually peer reviewed and referred. These give researchers a venue to impact their knowledge

onto one another and since they’re peer reviewed, they save us the time of having to do the

‘CRAP’ test during our research. They’re usually hard to understand and I had to read some a

couple of times in order to perceive their contents.

My confidence as a writer also increased. In my 101 class, we never had our essay peer

reviewed by our classmates and so, the thought of having another person, besides the professor,

read through my essay always frightened me. My ‘102’ professor on the other hand, always

encouraged us to visit the writing center and also use net tutor. However, all was in vain as I

wasn’t willing to open up because I was scared to have a bad feedback. It was until our first peer

review class when I had no choice but exchange my draft for review when I realized how

harmless and helpful it actually was. That positive feedback I got from one of my colleagues was

the reason I scored so much on my first essay. Since then, I have never looked back; I went to the

writing center as much as I could and I have been able to progress so much as a writer.
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I learned a lot of things in this class however, I was faced with some hardships too. The

semester wasn’t perfect after all. Since writing is not necessarily my specialty, I always had a

hard time writing my essay; I barely could think of something to write or even understand the

prompts given not until I had like a day or two to submit my essay. With this, I always had less

time to get my essays peer reviewed. Since I had three other classes to worry about, I was always

behind on my assignments and in most cases had to submit them late which wasn’t so good for

my grade. But besides that, I really had a great experience with the professor and my course

mates as well.

As we finish this semester, I extend my sincere appreciation to the professor for being so

considerate of us. I learnt a lot from this course among which include: the psychoanalytic theory

and use of psychoanalysis to examine and understand a text, the queer theory, the use and

citation of scholarly articles, as well as gained an increment in my confidence as a writer. I’m

glad that I can now write any essay asked of me in the future.