Metacognition: Jane Eyre Writing Assignment

I believe that our group for the Jane Eyre script writing assignment (Anna, Meghana, and I) worked very well together in order to complete the assignment. We met on Friday and attempted to complete the whole thing. This of course didn't work. Three friends+ Friday night+ MANY distractions= getting about one and a half pages of the script done with topic changes about every five seconds. We found that starting the project was much harder than it seemed, especially without having a direct end goal; we were just letting the discussion flow and hoped it would end up in the right place. However, though it didn't work out the way we wanted (we hoped to get everything done and out of the way besides edits), it sure did help. We were much more relaxed throughout the process and it gave time to let the ideas sink in.

What I was shocked about was how much I learned from my group. In the script, when I was reading through it, I found myself having many thoughts to add in and piggy-backing off of ideas. This worked out much better than our original intention of us each covering a character. Every time, there was something new and intriguing, and I found that what another person said caused me to have cool ideas as well. This shows the balance in our group, where we tried to cover as much ground as possible by editing several times.

Another thing I liked about the way our group worked was that we let the ideas flow into the basis of the script, then afterwords we tried to find text evidence. This is because we knew it was all there, so we'd much rather get out what we thought and wanted to say, then we'd go back and cite things.

Sure there was some last minute going over, but that's expected. There was some shouting during the editing process, but honestly I preferred that because it meant our group put in the effort to get together and work face-to-face rather than through a computer screen. And I believe this in part is what brought success to our group. In the end, it turned out just the way I'd expected from a group assignment and I was proud of the work we'd done.

Metacognition: Jane Eyre

While reading Jane Eyre, I saw a slight change in my reading habits and began to understand more of how I work as a reader. There were some parts that would just be descriptions for a full page. For these, sometimes I would read enough to capture the essence and then would skim the rest of the paragraph or page until something 'interesting' came up. I've always been the type of person who has read novels where something is always happening. I need something in there to keep me wondering and pulled towards the novel. I wish that with this book, I would've taken more time to read these slower passages and see the beauty that came from the writing. To be quite honest, I feel that at times I would read just so I knew would be prepared for a reading quiz. Yes, at times they could be obnoxious or what I found annoying, but in the future, I'd like to not be so quick to dismiss such passages from the start. Though I tried to become more aware as the novel went on, I hope that in the future, I would be more careful with parts like these and take them slowly rather then just try getting past them.

However, as the novel progressed, I began trying to read these more and paying attention to these details. As hard as it was at times, I attempted taking breathers and reading slower to take it all in. I know in class we talked about Jane's submission to others and looking for something to admire in other people, while putting herself down. Then I realized that this occurs in our society as well. We sometimes look to others whom we perceive to be better off in some way or another. We see people bashing on themselves because they don't think they are good enough. Over the reading of this novel, I began to make deeper connections between our society and Victorian society. I began to see the importance of Jane's story and how it might've impacted female readers of that time period.

This really shocked me about my thinking, because without really noticing it, I was able to make valid connections within and outside of the text and this illustrates an improvement I've made over the reading and year as well. This book may not have been my favorite this year, but I learned that I can bear with it and learn something from it. Yes, it might've been much too slow for my taste, but that shows how our society differs from Jane's and we can then compare fast and slow cultures as well as how the culture impacts the speeds of life. After reading Jane Eyre and thinking about my thinking while I read it, I was able to not only pinpoint what I've liked about my reading and learning habits, but what I would like to improve as well.