Going into British Literature and Composition, I had no idea what to expect. I thought all I would be doing was writing essays, indeed there was a lot of essay writing, but there were many other key skills that I learned. Which included critical reading, collaboration with my peers to achieve a common goal, and understanding the connection between British history and literature.
             One very important skill that I learned during the class was critical reading, thinking, and writing. Before I started British literature and composition I had limited critical reading, thinking, and writing skills. It was very hard for me to read a piece of literature and then write a critical essay on it. For example, when I wrote the essay on "Dulce et Decorum est," I had an extremely hard time relating everything to my thesis and making comments to support the relationship of the evidence to the thesis. After reading and analyzing more poems my critical reading and writing skills improved and I decided to rewrite "Dulce et Decorum est." All of my comments were insightful and showed an understanding of the relationship between the evidence and the thesis. From that point on I could put it all together without problems. For instance, the essay on the "Song" by Sir John Suckling and the in-class essay comparing Christopher Marlowe's, "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" and Sir Walter Raleigh's, "The Nymph's Reply to The Shepherd" were the first really good essay's that I wrote, I was able to critically
             read the poems, critically think about what I read, and then write it all out on paper.
             Another key skill that I improved during British literature and composition was collaborating with a group of peers to achieve a common goal. I considered myself an active participant in all of the group projects that I was a part of. For example, during the ballad presentations, my group was extremely upset that we didn't get our top choice, had to do "The Bonny E...