Course Reflection

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        This course served as a unique experience for my development as a writer. I wasn't sure about the format at first or the idea of posting to a blog, but I ended up enjoying both processes. The grading and assignments were much different than traditional classes as we determined what we'd be focusing on and deemed our work complete or not. Although this was unfamiliar, I enjoyed this style of learning as it allowed for creativity and self-expression in our assignments. 

I felt as though my best pieces were the critical analyses I wrote as part of my Archiving the Arts Project towards the end of the semester. I was able to improve these pieces after receiving feedback and learning more about how to develop a strong examination of each topic. The more I practiced this type of writing, the better I was able to explore deeper, more thoughtful concepts instead of just summarizing or talking about the subject. 

The most challenging pieces were probably the TIB essay and my critical analysis on Modernism. The prompt of our first large writing assignment asked broad questions about what we believed art to be. There was no "right" answer to this, and it was difficult coming up with a written response based on my experiences. I also found it hard to find a recent concept to compare the Modern Era to, as I couldn't draw clear connections as I had with the previous assignments. 

My goals for the course were to become a stronger writer and create better writing habits. I feel as though I've achieved this as the assignments and the feedback I've received have helped me improve in each area. The AtAP project taught me how to better time management skills and how to break up work for such a large assignment. At first, 6,000 words seems intimidating (as many other people have agreed) but, by developing a solid plan and learning how to budget time, it was actually very manageable as I ended up going well over the benchmark. The process was also much more fluid as we had the liberty of choosing the topic we'd be pursuing instead of being assigned one. 

I'd answer the core questions of the course roughly the same way I did at the beginning of the semester. I believe art is a form of expressing oneself, not limited to paintings or pictures, and can be anything that gives joy or purpose to the artist or viewer. Art is worth archiving to learn from and appreciate, even if it may not be from our time. I think the course did a good job of reinforcing these ideas, as our work is personalized to our interests and heavily based on self-expression.