When I enrolled in this class, I was feeling somewhat confident because in my senior year of high school I decided to take an English class through our community college, putting me straight into Writing 39B this year. Although I was feeling confident in my writing abilities, I was also pretty nervous because the thought of creative writing intimidated me. All throughout high school I had only ever written research papers, compare & contrast and argumentative essays, so creative writing was pretty new to me.
Now that the quarter is over, I realize that there was no reason for me to stress. This class ended up being extremely enjoyable as it focussed on fairytales. I had fun reading the same fairytales that I read when I was younger because I got to compare point of views. It was really interesting to me to read these stories now and look at the moral and lesson the writer was portraying to the younger readers. I also found it crazy how mature the stories could be at the same time. They could be read by a young or mature audience and be just as entertaining. I would have to say my two favorite fairytales that we read were Bluebeard and Little Red Riding Hood, both written by author, Charles Perrault. Those fairytales inspired both essays I wrote in the class as my GAP was about Bluebeard and my IP was inspired by Little Red Riding Hood.
I definitely think my writing had improved greatly over the last 10 weeks. The lectures and Anteater's Guide were both very helpful when it came time to write the essays. This class really helped me discover and explore my creative side which was difficult yet fun. I would say the most difficult assignment for me was the Imitation Project. There was a lot of creative freedom and not a lot of structure, which most people love but I found it very challenging. I have always had a lot of structure and "rules" to follow when writing essays for my classes in high school. They always had to be spot on and very direct, meeting all the criteria so I have gotten very good at "following directions" for essays. Having this much freedom overwhelmed me a bit because I did not know how to get started and where to go with the essay. But, as time went on, I started having fun with it and ended up liking what I submitted. I hope I continue to improve on my creative writing skills as I get older as I feel it will help me with many future assignments.