Letter to Mrs. Cline

Mrs. Cline,

            English 102, to this point of the semester, has been an exceptionally challenging class for me. Literary analyzing is not a style of writing I have done in the past. The majority of my readings, to date, have consisted of text books and technical manuals. I have never taken the time and given myself the opportunity to enjoy the artistic side of reading that one can get by reading fictional novels. Without a background of reading these types of writings, I feel that I may lack the expertise required to really critically analyze these works properly.

            Winter’s Bone was a novel that touched me close to home. My wife has had members of her family that have had to deal with affects of addiction to meth. This addiction does not just change the addicted but involves everyone around them. I have seen first hand how this addiction can turn otherwise good people into thieves, liars, and criminals. I was surprised that you would incorporate this subject into our readings. But, I am glad you did because meth is a drug that is destroying our community and I think people need to be educated about it effects on our entire society.

            My writing in English 101 came very easy to me. This is because they were mostly based on me, my past, my career choices and subjects I had an interest in. My writings in Psychology were ones that also came naturally to me. But literary analysis is a new and foreign style of writing that I find challenging. My goal for the remainder of the semester is to continue growing in my ability to analyze these writings and increase my ability to see what the author’s underlying statement is. Another goal of mine is to understand more about the authors and what events in their lives have led them to write about the subjects they have chosen to in their novels. Hopefully by the end of the semester I will have accomplished my goals and have given myself a good foundation of writing skills to take with me throughout my life.

You help has been greatly appreciated.

Respectfully,

Michael Kean