When I first enrolled in Writing 39B, I just thought it would be your classic college writing class, filled with essays and research papers. However, to my surprise, it was so much more than that. Upon being enrolled in the canvas course, I was surprised and delighted to see the Devil Genre. At first, I didn’t know what to think. Is this a religious class? Am I going to have to learn about the Bible? What does Devil Genre even mean? All these questions went rushing through my head as I went through the canvas page. 

After the first couple days of the course, I realized how interesting the material was. Instead of looking at the Devil in a religious viewpoint, a stance that is usually taken, we looked at the Devil through the lens of humanity and through stories that took interesting viewpoints and stances. It wasn’t anything like I expected, some stories didn’t mention the devil at all. In the end, the course helped me try to abandon my old ways of thinking about the devil and Devil Genre and taught me how to take different approaches to the idea. 

Most of the stories we read gave a different perspective on the Devil and evil. For example, in Maupassant’s short story “The Devil”, the actual devil never showed up and was actually only mentioned once in one of the character’s stories. Confused on how I was supposed to write about the Devil Genre in a story where the Devil wasn’t even a character, I was forced to take a new angle on the piece. Instead of viewing the Devil as an individual, I focused on the devilish tendencies within people and how evil isn’t specific to the Devil. Also, Weinstock’s “Invisible Monsters” Essay helped me empathize with monsters, something I thought I’d never do. The essay made me realize how much people and monsters have in common, and why we find comfort within imperfection. 

Writing 39B was extremely useful in practicing and evolving my writing skills. In this course, I practiced my writing and analyzing skills in two different ways: The first being a more serious, technical writing essay where I analyzed different sources and connected them with a bigger idea and the second being a more creative and open minded podcast project. The readings from the course helped me take a look at the ideas I faced at a different angle, which in turn helped me write and create something I felt was extremely interesting and something I was passionate about. The low stakes process assignments found in this course were very helpful for future, more intense writing assignments, especially for my major. Because I am studying psychology, I am going to have to write research papers in the future, where I have to read multiple sources on a specific topic or genre and in a way connect them to prove another point or make a claim. I can definitely say that my writing skills have grown since the start of the quarter through the assignments I have completed and the readings that I used to aid in my writing.