Author: Analiese Vasciannie

Throughout this semester, I have learned to read and write at a more critical level. This class has helped me grow in the sense that I’m content with the development of my voice in my writings and that I’m more comfortable with being in a literary space. I used to have self-doubt about trying to attempt higher levels of English courses for the sole purpose of not knowing if I’d be a good writer or not. Now that I’ve managed to make it through this class, I feel like I can better navigate how I choose to present my ideas through literature.

Before I advocate for enrolling into English courses in college, I need to unpack the previous fears I had for fitting in, so to speak. In high school, I felt like grades defined my level of intellect. I would work hard to make sure I read through every assignment before its deadline. From my hard work, I’d end up with nothing short of A’s on my papers. However, these positive reinforcements throughout my high school career set me up for failure. When I was in AP Language and AP Literature my junior and senior years in high school, respectively, I took the required exam in hopes of scoring college credit. What I didn’t realize at the time was that my writing style didn’t grow that much, and I wasn’t ready to receive a passing score on college exams yet. I failed both of my chances of getting AP credits that I believed would’ve benefited me in college. After I received those results, I vowed to myself that I’d never enroll in another college-level English course ever again. Continue reading “Criticism is the New Compliment”

Nearing the end of the semester, I’ve come to realize that I am a decent writer. I wouldn’t have thought this at the beginning of the semester due to prior stigmas I held against myself, coming from a non-English background entering the literary world. Before I learned about the idea of interdisciplinarity and how every academic setting cross-cuts one another someway somehow, I believed that people from different institutions belonged to themselves to avoid conflict amongst the intellects. I’ve come to understand that this narrative is just not true. I’ve also come to appreciate the work I’ve presented in my time here in this English course as a whole. Continue reading “Lift Yourself”

Reading “Logic” in Percival Everett’s book re: f (gesture), I did more than what was asked of me – meaning, I was trying to critically analyze what each poem meant when Everett was simply asking the reader to use basic logic to understand his writing. After our group discussion, I read through “Logic” a couple more times to see if anything would jump out at me. I wanted to see if a certain word or the structure of a certain poem alluded to something else. There are only six poems in this section of the book and interestingly enough, they seemed to be more complex for me to figure out than other parts of this novel. Given that I didn’t have that much to work with, I came up some theories as to what this all means. Continue reading “Breaking Down Logic”

Reading Moran’s chapter on “Science, Space, and Nature” in Interdisciplinarity confused me a lot. I am a Political Science major and a Black Studies minor, so trying to comprehend what is being argued in a book that touches upon actual science in an English course is out of my comfort zone, to say the least. However, I will say that the joy of not knowing does bring out a sense of wanting to learn more so I can become a more well-rounded student and individual. I guess this exercise will help me achieve one or more of Geneseo’s GLOBE learning outcomes. Continue reading “Science is a Literary Study Too”

In my last personal blog post, I wrote about my admiration for Percival Everett’s work. Since I’m clearly obsessed with him, I thought that this is another great opportunity for me to unpack my thinkING one step further and stress the importance behind this author’s writing style. Not only does Everett discreetly write about social issues in his works, but he also has hidden meanings behind the structure of his stories as well. Let me explain. Continue reading “The Author of Allusion”

The reason why I decided to take this course, regardless of not having any sort of academic English background, is because I genuinely enjoy reading Percival Everett’s literary works. Some may argue that Everett’s style is too complex and all over the place. I agree; however, Everett writes this way to include important messages underlying from the main plot of his stories. He doesn’t necessarily spell out what he wants the reader to take away from his stories, but he does stress the importance of researching the meaning of certain things for the reader to unlock a new level of epistemology, so to speak.

Continue reading “Percival Everett is a Genius”

Continue reading “The Significance of Community Sings”

In Joe Moran’s book, Interdisciplinarity, there’s an argument that’s brought up concerning what discipline is superior to others in different academic settings. For example, when someone says that they’re an English major, the general public might respond to them saying, “you must like to read a lot” or, ” what’s the point of earning a degree in a language you already know how to speak?” When it comes to STEM majors, people assume that these students don’t know how to comprehend anything other than equations and calculations. Those holding onto these false perceptions need to be educated on how these disciplines have a common origin and how throughout the years, society applied more prestige to some more than others. Continue reading “The Debate about Academic Disciplines”

On Friday, I attended Dr. Spencer Crew’s lecture titled “Civil Disobedience, the Underground Railroad, and Henry David Thoreau.” Dr. Crew talked about the importance of how the words chosen in his title are interconnected at a certain degree where they can co-exist. Continue reading “A Different Shade of Gray”

In class, part of our discussion mentioned why reading old/classic books are still relevant in the high school curriculum. Some argued that the reason for reading stories from the likes of Shakespeare and Jane Austin maybe be due to the fact that they evoke a sense of empathy towards what was important during that time. Others, including myself, would argue that focusing on other factors, such as SAT practice and maintaining a decent GPA, is more productive in high school.
Continue reading “Old Books vs. Test Scores: What Matters More?”