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Self evaluation - Literature I - 2018.1

The present piece of writing is a result of the necessity to share my point of view about the Literature I course. We have been having great evenings with presentations by the exquisite professor Lola Aronovich and also by our classmates. Besides that task, we have had discussions on the respective subjects that each short story brought up.

It is essential to notice that, since the beginning, the professor was very polite, careful and critical with us during our presentations. She always gave us space for expressing ourselves freely, but of course, making her points about historical, political, social and cultural facts/curiosities that might have influenced the authors. There have been precious moments for my learning process.

In the first class, professor Lola explained prose and short story as a whole and, how the course was intended to work. After that, along the course, we were requested to write some papers to deliver it to obtain some extra points for our final grade. A very efficient method to get us simultaneously practicing our writing skills, once that we were supposed to read more than write in this discipline, isn't it great?

I found the course plan very interesting since the professor had assertively, and maybe intentionally, chosen the genre "short story" to present for us. It is an excellent way to introduce students to reading great literature by showing short texts that probably would grasp our attention quickly. I think it would even suit us as training on reading, to make us read more. That is how it worked for me. It is terrific having literature connected with reality subject matters.
Coming back to the way the professor had selected and organized the short stories, it is remarkable. She brought in one book a selection of classic pieces of art by writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, and Alice Munro. Since she is a feminist, Lola also had the care to assemble an equilibrated number of authors from each sex.

For those who thought it was just what she did to be more inclusive, this great professor also organized the texts by year. That is, we had access to short stories from the late nineteenth century to very recent twenty-first-century ones. Moreover, we could get in touch with writers from different parts of the world such as India, Russia, Ghana, Iran, Nigeria, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti. The dominant literature written in the English language tends to be, principally, North American or European.
To finish, I would like to thank the professor for her time and engagement with the classes, explanations, discussions, and everything. Thanks a lot.    

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