During this semester in English 121 I learned several different things about literature from several different perspectives. One of the main concepts that I learned was the monomyth and the hero’s journey. I thought it was very interesting that the hero’s journey always follows the same pattern of the departure, initiation, and return.

We studied these heroes in literature ranging from an oppressed african american woman to a victorious warrior in battle. This really taught me that a hero can be a legendary figure, everyday person, or even me. We also studied poems and learned that a poem can be a haiku, song, or even a recipe. This showed me that my poems did not have to follow a certain format and I could be free with my writing.

I think the course structure was great and should not change. I enjoyed the first half of the semester. There was a lot of information that was taught in the lectures and was very interesting. I was very scepticle the second half when the format all of a sudden changed.

I read the new format over break and thought it was a little bit more work/responsibility and was not looking forward to the group work. I was more scared for the rest of the class about the added responsibility than for myself since I was already a semester up on most of the class from 101 and I am not very forgetful. It turned out that finding a poem for class was pretty fun and usually I could find a good beatles song to go with the class theme. The group work turned out to be better than I thought too. My classmates were really willing to talk and get to know each other in our small groups.

Going into this class I really didn’t have any goals, I just put my faith into marlen having another fun successful english class. As far as the reading went, I knew I hate reading so I prepared by reading one of the books before the spring semester and getting as many audiobooks as possible. This really helped me read the assigned material. My favorite book of English 121 was by far Siddhartha. I found his journey very interesting aswell as the spiritual questions asked in the book. Siddhartha is one of the biggest things I am going to take away from this class right along with the monomythic guidelines for a hero’s journey.