Response to Material

DIDLS. I'm still gonna pronounce it "Diddles." Helps me as a student. Anyhow, it's certainly been at the forefront of the curriculum and it's actually making a lot of sense to me. The progression from techniques to effects to meanings, and exploring the various signs of each is helping me to break down literature in ways I haven't ever been able to do. My past attempts, before this class, have either had me picking at small details and being unsure what to do with them, or made me try to step back and see the big picture but be unable to do so in depth. What we've learned so far, building our analysis from the specific, concrete DIDLS and moving on to interpret effect and meaning has allowed me to put these skills together and really see not only what the author is doing or saying but HOW she is doing it and what that says about the work. I'm a bit lost on essay scoring because my estimates on those we looked at were way off, but I guess that's just something that will come as i write and get back more responses to prompts. Ooh, also, a big help for me was the assertion that a good essay can make sense and have a point by simply looking at the first sentences of each paragraph. Organization of my body has never been a strong point of mine and that bit helps. Overall I'm pleased with what we've done and it's been much more helpful as far as writing goes than months of some other classes I've been in. DIDLS to effects to meaning; it just makes sense.