Blog #5: Molly Hopkins

Before this class, I really did not enjoy English. I would much rather be in a Math class than an English class and I have never really enjoyed writing. However, this class definitely changed my opinions about English class. Before, I would dread writing papers, and while this class did not make me love writing papers, I feel that it did make me a better writer as well as made writing easier for me.

I really liked the structure of the class, especially how we wrote the primary source analysis before we even looked at any secondary sources. That definitely made tackling the larger, six to seven page research paper easier for me. It also helped me to remain focused and to not get caught up in using too many outside sources. Having the primary source analysis definitely made sure that my own thoughts and ideas were the basis of my research paper and that I was only using the secondary sources to back up my claims.

Another thing about this class that I really was it was my first at Ohio State that was not a big lecture class, with the exception of my recitations. I loved how laid back the class was, but it was still structured enough that I learned a lot and got my work done.

I also really enjoyed how the class was given a theme, because while gender and sexuality in animated film would probably not have been the topic that I would have chosen to write my research paper on had we been given a free topic, it did make the decision a lot easier. Had it been a free topic, I most likely would have stressed for days over what to write my paper about, and consequently wasted a lot of time and stress over nothing.

Another specific aspect of this class that I enjoyed was definitely Commonplace. I really liked getting to not only write a paper about something that I actually cared about, I enjoyed getting to read some as well. While the one that I was assigned to peer review was not the most interesting, some of the examples that we read in class were very compelling and interesting to me.

While this class was a requirement and I was not expecting to enjoy it considering my past experiences with English classes, I surprisingly really enjoyed it! I would have to say that this was my favorite class this quarter, or at least the one that I dreaded going to the least.