1. Read text closely and critically

For Who and What is an American? (ENG201), the final paper was based on using the readings to support who and what is an American. The readings I used were by Charles Chesnutt, Luis Valdez, and Gene Luen Yang respectively, “The Wife of His Youth”, Soldado Razo, and American Born Chinese. I chose these works because I felt as though the best depicted what it meant to be an American, through the voices of minority authors. All of authors based their work to show how people try to assimilate to the “American culture”, tryin to fit in with what is “right”, but in doing so lost themselves as an original human being. Their works show that to be an American there is no set definition of looks, or actions. There is no true American person, just a bunch of people trying to fit into the same mold. The link for the webpage is ENG 201.

2. Demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of Literature in English. 

In Animal, Literature and Culture (ENG 204), I was able to connect the field of literature with that of animals and culture, due to the nature of how animals are portrayed through literature. Many of the readings were through the perspective of an animal on the world that it lives in, and the humans that surround them. Some of these pieces spoke on the environmental impacts humans have on the environment, the bonds animals can create, the poor portrayal of animals, and in general the symbolism of certain animals in literature. The final project of the course revolved around selecting an animal movie that I believed would benefit the class from watching it. The course didn’t have as many dog stories as I had thought it would have so I chose Isle of Dogs as my movie, and how it shows the importance of dog as man’s best friend in a new and unique way. The link to the webpage ENG 204.

3. Communicate effectively.

I wish I could find more of my work from Public Speaking, SPC 100, but for some reason I can’t. What I can find is the first speech that we gave, which was based on our experiences in public speaking.

“My only experience with public speaking comes from in a classroom and on the lacrosse field. In highschool I took a public speaking course my senior year, this is my only experience with graded public speaking. During my junior and part of my senior year of highschool I also coached youth lacrosse, so I would have to do a lot of explaining to 11 and 12 year old boys. As a public speaker I think my strengths include speaking loudly and clearly, I never seem to fade out or mumble on my words very often. I also have weaknesses when it comes to public speaking, which include going on for too long and I sometimes tend to add to many filler words into my speech. I think public speaking is a very necessary asset that all people should be somewhat proficient in because it can help in almost any profession and in every aspect of life. I think public speaking will benefit me with my career as I hope to become a doctor because I will be having to talk to many patients and have to tell them about the issues at hand.”

This was before my eventual switch to Secondary Education and English, and the first few weeks of the spring 2020 semester. Although I don’t have other examples from this course, since most of our speeches were given through Zoom and I never thought to record them or keep my speech notes. I do have examples from other courses like, Prize Fiction (ENG 300). In this course we had to give month in reviews podcast on the books we read, what was happening in class, and our own commentary on the books and outside resources.

My editing skills are not exactly great and could use some work, but this is the only example that I can get onto a website, since I cannot speak to whoever is reading this directly. Between SPC 100, ENG 330, and honestly all of my courses, since almost all revolve around discussions, this is an easy one to support, but the evidence for it was a little harder to find.

4. Conduct research in literary and cultural studies. 

Here would be my Capstone, LIL 420, project that is in the process of being created. My project for this course revolves around banned books and how they can be used in high school classrooms. Book banning grew larger during Covid with students at home and parents becoming more concerned about what their kids were learning, since now it was happening in their own home. Although I haven’t used MLA or the school library for resources, I have used Google Scholar and found some helpful websites. The best one I found through Google Scholar was the American Library Association’s website, and the statistics on banned books throughout the past couple decades.