Thursday, January 7, 2010

Metacognition: Semester 1 Reflection

This semester, I've found that I've analyzed things in different ways than I did before. Previously, I just thought of writing as something you merely do and that's just it. I mean I knew there was something to it, but I didn't think of it as musical. I thought it was part natural and part practice, which as you practice, you could say becomes more natural. I read it and love it, but I never thought of it musically. Learning about the rhythm of writing at first seemed like to much analyzing. But soon after, I realized that it had benefits. It made me look and think twice when reading.

For example, in The Kite Runner, the rhythm made me think of word choice and that made me realize how much thought was put into it. Like we talked about, rewriting all of it with different words just didn't have the same effect. By capturing this concept, I was able to understand it better. Though I haven't particularly concentrated on it in my writing, I have noticed that it's more concise and flows more. By learning about rhythm and noticing it while reading, they are slowly infuse into my work. By reading even more in the future and slowly concentrating more on flow, my writing can improve even more.

In addition, I've found that I look at poetry differently now. Before, I used to really dislike it, mainly the writing part but also reading it. I prefered novels and the like. However, just by flipping through the poetry book we got, I realized how many poems I remembered and realized how interesting they are to read. They have such great flow and use such wonderful vocabulary that anything else would just fall short. Especially after reading "Beauty" by Emily Dickinson, I realized how much meaning there is to so few lines. I've discovered that I do enjoy reading poetry, because it's so different and there's so many ways to interpret it. I'm not saying I like writing it because I haven't really given it a try and don't know how to achieve that quality and effect. Perhaps because I don't know the techniques or maybe because coming up with ideas for poetry makes my brain explode. But what I did discover is that whether it works or not, it's worth a try. Because in the end, I'll either realize I like reading it but writing it isn't my thing, or I'll see that I can do something different and learn more through that.

Through this semester in English, I've pretty much learned that I shouldn't shoot things down before I know more about them. Because if you look and give it a shot, there might be something you really enjoy. I can't say I like everything, so even if I try it out and don't like it, at least I can support my opinion of why not, and appreciate that I did make an effort.
 
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