My thoughts on what I've learned here.

I have to admit that I was already a huge fan of literature before this class. I read often whether or not I'm being instructed to for a class, but this class definitely broadened my horizons. I never really read poetry for entertainment previously, but I'm considering giving it more of a chance now. I also really enjoyed the novel we read, and I never would have thought about reading it if I hadn't been assigned it because I'd always had my concerns about the actual value of reading a translated work. In general I feel that I am a more well-rounded reader thanks to this class, and I feel that makes me a much stronger reader overall.

My thoughts on the pacing of the class.

I've already spoken about this elsewhere, but if I did have one negative thing to say about this class it would be that the pacing felt a bit too quick. There were large amounts to read every week--and that's fine, normally, but the amount of writing we had to do on top of that felt a bit much. I had trouble sometimes thinking of things to say here or in the forums--while it's nice to have the open discussion of the forums or the lit circle chats, it's a challenge to say something that no one else has said yet. I can't help but cringe when I browse down the list of posts only to see the same exact idea or point that I was going to post--it makes me feel like I'm not actually contributing much if I express the same concept, as if I'm just popping in to say "Same here."