Midterm paper

I found several things challenging about writing the midterm paper.  Mostly, I've struggled to find a way to add all the information I think is necessary or beneficial to my argument in 8 pages.  It's tough to cover 4 centuries in 8 pages.  I could almost write an 8 page paper just on the resistance to oppression through social movements.  I also had a difficult time working art into my paper.  I'm not used to critically analyzing literature or using it to support an argument.  This paper did show me, however, that I have learned a considerable amount in this course thus far.  It was neat to be pushed to look at the art I wrote about from a different perspective and actually look for meaning in it; especially considering I'm used to just identifying whether a picture is "pretty" or not.  All in all, the paper has helped pushed me in a direction academically that I haven't experienced in a few years since I'm in a scientific field.