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Semester Reflection

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During this past semester, I have grown as both a reader and a writer, mainly due to the differing types of literature that we have covered and studied in class. Reading pieces such as "The Stranger" really opened my eyes to another side of literature that I have not seen before. I have never witnessed or read a novel that has a writing style similar to Albert Camus's. Camus's unique way of writing challenged us readers given that most of us have never seen a character such as Meursault. Typically when reading a novel, I am able to connect and understand the protagonist and the reasons behind the way they act. However, when I read about Meursault, I found myself confused yet at the same time, astonished. It became clear that even when a character has an unusual mindset, a theme or message is still able to be portrayed through the author's work. As I was doing my research for the midterm paper and digging into the psychology of authors to understand further why they write the way they write, I realized that their mindset and psychology heavily play into their work. Before, I never thought twice about the author, however now it makes sense that an author's psychology would significantly influence their writing. In particular, I believe the debate we did helped me develop as an overall English student. This assignment required a lot of research which allowed me to find new meanings of the work that I missed the first time reading "Oedipus". Also the hours spent conversing our ideas as a group both grew me closer and more comfortable with my classmates and also opened my eyes to new ways of thinking/viewing literary works. Conclusively, I think this semester has been quite beneficial seeing how much I have grown as a student in such a short and unique period of time.

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