Jessica Labonog

Professor Batty

English 102

12 December 2019

Reflective Essay

This semester in Professor Batty’s English 102 class has been such an amazing

opportunity. Last semester, I took an English 102 class at Mission. I did poorly in that class, and

it allowed my self-esteem to plunge. When the time came to pick my classes for the Fall

semester of 2019, the decision to take another English 102 class weighed heavy on my mind. As

soon as I added this class to my schedule, I knew I was destined to be in this class. Professor

Batty created such an open and welcoming environment for her students. Her classroom felt safe

and judgement free. The feedback she gives on her students’ essays are insightful and helpful to

the student. Growing up, I had always felt confident with my writing skills, but the first English

102 class I took made me doubt my potential. Professor Batty restored the faith I had in myself

and my confidence came back. I had always struggled with using clichés and creating a thesis

statement. This class allowed me to become more aware of using clichés in my essays. I also

found a method that works best for me when creating my thesis statement. Finally, because my

major is psychology, I was able to use the psychoanalytic criticism when it came to analyzing a

novel. Becoming conscious of the clichés used in my essay, finally finding a way to create a

thesis statement, and using the psychoanalytic criticism to analyze a novel has absolutely

allowed me to develop a better understanding of myself.

 Clichés are very common in essays, and I did not realize how common they were until

Professor Batty informed the class about them. As she finished grading one of our essays,

Professor Batty came to class the next day and said that there were a lot of clichés in our essays.

She said that we added a lot of clichés in order to fill up space, and the more I thought about it,

the more I realized that this was true for myself. I do tend to use clichés in my own essays in

order to take up space when that should not be acceptable. I need to think for myself and

elaborate on my essays for myself. Clichés are the easy way to make an essay longer, and I will

now work on using little to no clichés in my future essays.

Thesis statements and I have always had a bumpy relationship. When it came to creating

a thesis statement, I often found myself with a thesis that was underdeveloped or overdeveloped.

I could never find that balance in between the two until Professor Batty suggested creating an

outline. She let our class know that we should create an outline and fill then body of the outline

with the main ideas we would like to write about. Once our outline was filled out, we then go on

to creating the thesis. I found this to work out for me because too often, I found myself with the

topics for my essay. I would not have a thesis yet. When the time came to write the thesis out, I

would have to change some of the topics I wanted to write about. Thankfully, I can write my

thesis while including the topics I wish to elaborate in in my future essays.

The psychoanalytic criticism was the favorite part of this entire semester. I value

psychology and Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, so as soon as I found out that this was a criticism,

I was overjoyed. We used the psychoanalytic criticism while we read our monster novels. I read

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and this novel made it easy for me to use the

psychoanalytic lens. We were put into groups for this assignment and it was very interesting to

hear what my group members had to say about this novel and this criticism. I enjoy hearing
others’ opinions and their beliefs because it allows my mind to expand to different results.

Overall, the psychoanalytic criticism can be used in nearly every novel because it allows the

audience to think about the main character’s as well as the authors mind.

All in all, this class was such an amazing experience and I am very fortunate enough to

have had Professor Batty as my teacher. I hope that the students who decide to take this class in

the future decide to learn with an open mind. They will be exposed to many new things such as

graphic novels, different kinds of music, and different terms that people use to identify

themselves with. Knowledge is power, and after a semester in this English 102 course, I can

proudly say that I feel much more confident and powerful.