Carry it Forward:Shadow Catcher

While reading The Shadow Catcher I often found myself quite confused. Not by what was actually occurring at that point in the novel, but because I was struggling to see any overall themes in the book. This all changed when we were asked to research in depth the two prompts for the final essay.

During the researching process is when I finally found the themes in the book. I finally saw how the Edward and Clara story connected to the Marianne Wiggins story. Some of the overall themes I noticed were: identity, truth, beauty, storytelling, art, along with many others. The meaning Wiggins tries to display with these things I'm not going to go into, because the meaning could be argued, but there is definitely many truths behind what she has to say.

I got a few things out of this research. First, is that deeper analysis of a work of art is required before you dismiss as unimportant, as I did. The second would be that, I need to reconsider the things I think are true, because Wiggins throws many beliefs out the door. These two facts are something I am going to carry forward with me later in life.

Metacognition: QE essay

My thought process for writing my QE essay had the typical start that I have with any of my school projects, which goes something like this. Ok, what's the easiest way for me to get out of this assignment and the way I can do the least amount of work. That thought process quickly died, as it usually does with school projects, because I realize that in order to complete the assignment I need to do real work. This was realized by looking at the rubric. The rubric is the main thing that guides my thinking on an assignment like this, as it should be. After I read through the rubric I had to pick a question. I read through all the questions and picked the one in which I had a personal anecdote to start my essay with. I did this because only the first section was due, and I didn't think about the later parts of my essay with this question.

This ended up being a big mistake, because while I did have a strong first section, I had nothing to write for my second and third sections. After realizing this I decided to actually change my question. This was not a very difficult process I just had to add a few things to my opening. Changing my question actually made a huge difference on my thought process. It made finding sources a lot easier. After finding all my sources and incorporating them, I just had to make a strong ending. This is I did through making a claim and then also connecting the ending to my opening. Then I was done! and I was like OMG I'm like so done right now.

Blogging Around

This is from Anna C's blog, "Connection: Solitude is Key"

Hey Anna I really liked how you connected Alan Alda's curiosity and solitude with yourself and the world. Good Stuff.

In this blog Anna does a good job of connecting a few ideas taken from the Alan Alda essay. She talks about how Alda is a very independent on account of his parents being absent most of his life. She then talks about how this independance of his causes him to be creative and fuel his life. She then connects it to a movie she saw about living alone. Then, connects it herself and how oneday she would like to live by herself in the forest (or it might have been a quote I can't tell).



This is from Pam K's blog called "Best of Week: Wassily Kandinski impacting perpesctives"

Hey Pam, I like how talk about Kandinsky using shapes and colors in a different way, a way that lets the observer use there imagination when viewing the painting. I also like how you talk about the method of your thinking when viewing things in your life.
George

In this entry Pam is talking about her thoughts as she was viewing the Kandinski paintings. She also talks about the interesting perspectives obtained from viewing paintings like this. She then talks about the connecting between her thoughts when viewing paintings and her thoughts during everyday life