Cover Letter

25 March 2011

This class started out very interesting and perplexing.  Learning how to do a video to introduce myself to the class was uncomfortable but I managed to do it.  Also learning literary analysis has been a challenge but I think that so far I have been okay, granted there have been some mistakes that I have made because this is something that I had not done in the past but slowly I have been able to do the my work.  I feel that with practice I can get better at this.

My first paper was to read a poem and then write about what the writer was trying to convey to the reader. Writing a literary analysis paper was very different from anything else that I have written in the past.  Analyzing the poem then having to write about only a few stanzas and keep my focus on that proved more challenging that what I had expected.  I would then write about what the writer meant or what he was trying to deliver as he was writing the poem.  I had a difficult time trying to understand the process but after many rough drafts, multiple revisions and with the help of the tutor I was able to complete the essay.  I was pleased with the results because this type of work was out of my comfort zone and very foreign to me, but the outcome was very pleasing.  On the other paper I had to read certain chapters of Tim O’Brien’s book The Things They Carried, then choose one of his stories and write about it.  This was difficult to write about because of the content of the book.  The story that stuck out the most to me was “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong,” this particular chapter made me think a lot about how much soldiers witness and the trauma that they incur from what they see.  When they are discharged from their duties they have to go back to their old hometown and make believe that what they witnessed stays there and that once back home they continue where they left off, well unfortunately we are all human and not computers where we can reboot our mind when it begins to overload.  Soldiers cannot erase their memory and make believe that they have not gone through much.  I felt really bad and I would be lying if I would say that it did not have any effect on me because it did.

I would like to say that the biggest challenge for me this semester was writing about literary analysis. It was something that was unfamiliar and therefore, it took me longer to comprehend what was required for that paper.  I was very pleased with the results and I learned about the complexity of literary analysis.

My goal this semester is to be a better writer.  Although I will not be majoring in English or anything that has to do with writing I feel that obtaining further knowledge of writing helps me as I work towards my nursing degree.