Reflection - American Survey - History of America

Reflection

After  10 weeks of reading and discussing texts about the history of America, it is time to step back and reflect. When I first came across the title of this course, American Survey, in my degree plan, I felt curious. I couldn't resist seeking some of my friends who took it before for an overview and shortly I figured it couldn't be simply pinpointed by few lines. So, when I started my course my intent was to have a better grasp of American literature in general and to probably have a clearer idea about the history of America. In the following paragraph, I will reflect on how I grew in the course of this class, what I have learned and what skills I should improve on.

When I first started this course, I thought it was just like any other literature course where I'm supposed to read, analyze and write about some literary work assigned in the plan. However, I later found out that this is not exactly the case. It's nothing like Introduction to Fiction or Introduction to Poetry and Drama. This one is more advanced. It is more about the history of America, which is something I didn't get the opportunity to study before. My idea about the history of America was very vague. I barely knew who Christopher Columbus was. Then, we started by discussing creation stories. It was very interesting to know about the creation stories of different cultures and what they signify. I find that one of the most interesting topics I came across in all the courses I've taken before. After that, we started focusing on how America was discovered and how people started moving there. Then, we read about different periods in the American history after the 1700s. I think that the most important thing I learned from this course is responsibility. I had to be responsible, do my work and not wait for the teacher to tell me what to do. If I don't read what I'm supposed to for the class, there's no use of attending it! I should also mention critical reading - this course is not about memorizing stuff and writing them down in the test. It's about reading critically and reading texts from different points of view.