Week 15: Reading Review

I have had a blast in this course this semester! I enjoyed every unit that I read in the Un-Textbook, and I think that the setup of the class makes it so that everybody can have the same pleasant experience. With all the different combinations of units, there is something that caters to every preference, and one is sure to find stories that interest him or her. The variety was probably my favorite part of the course for this reason.

Looking back at my reading diaries and essays over the course of the semester, I realized that the things I appreciated most about the readings were the introductions that gave background to the unit. Many times, these certainly helped greatly in my understanding of the reading, whether it was historical background, an explanation of certain words in the dialect, or a description of the author's intent. In terms of the actual text, I really enjoyed the different translations of the stories. I had the privilege of reading the Book of Mark from the Bible in the original King James Version, which was something that I had never done before. Later on in the semester, I got to read the Brer Rabbit unit in the original Southern Gullah dialect. Examples like these are why I love the diversity of the Un-Textbook--it expands students' horizons in terms of the vocabulary and styles of language that they read.

As I was taking notes via the Reading Diaries, I realized that I developed different strategies throughout the semester. In the first half of the semester, as I mentioned in my week 8 reflections, I tended to rely more heavily on plot summary of each story as my main method of taking notes. Like I also noticed previously, I liked to take detailed enough notes so that I could simply look back at my Reading Diaries to work on the rest of the assignments for the week. After I made this realization, I continued to try to do this during the second half of the semester, but my note-taking became more reflective: instead of just summarizing the stories, I tried to inject some more of my own thoughts and observations.

My biggest piece of advice for incoming students of this course would be to work ahead and finish assignments early. I got a good head start at the beginning of the course and it was nice to work on assignments week by week at a relaxed pace. Sometime in the middle of the semester, though, I lagged behind a bit and it was definitely stressful trying to get everything turned in on time--this certainly doesn't help with putting in my best effort and generating my best work either. Working even just a day or two in advance helps! It also gives you extra time to do extra credit assignments and possibly finishing the class early so it doesn't add to the stress of finals week at the end of the semester.

Looking back on the semester, this was definitely the most interesting class that I took. The workload was not too great and the reading assignments were all fascinating. I thoroughly enjoyed this course--it stimulated interest in folklore from around the world that I'm sure will continue for a very long time!