8-31-18
Journal 1
What is meeting halfway?
In Habits of the Creative Mind they mention meeting halfway to being open minded about their writing style. Their approach to writing as they say is very different from the way high school has taught me. By meeting them writers half way I can have my doubts and skepticism but also be open minded to the way they perceive writing and how it should be.
What is the philosophy of habits?
The writers talk about habits as you get a book and read it cover to cover straight through. In all my english classes when i did read the book that is exactly what i did. I opened the book no matter what it was and read it cover to cover. By reading the writers philosophy is different because they say that you are able to jump around in the book and still understand what is happening. By this method we are breaking the habit of opening the book and not thinking about how we are going to read it and where we are going to start.
What is reflection? How might assembly differ from the creation of a full-length written project?
Reflection referred to in Habit of the Creative Mind is that the passages in the book will reflect on the writing style they are trying to inform us about throughout the book. They want to reflect on the way we think and how it can change overtime.
How does this reading fit with your prior experience? How do you feel about this approach?
I like this reading a lot more than ones in high school. When i started reading i was interested in learning what their techniques were and how their outlook in writing was different than what i have been taught for so long. I feel this approach will be interesting and may better help me with writing. Im open minded to this technique and want to learn more.
9-6-18
Journal 2
Altering/changing your approach to openness
I was never one to be open to new ideas or techniques before. If something worked for me then i just kept it that way and didn’t want to change what I was doing. Habits of the Creative Mind has shown me that there is a lot more that I don’t know. There are so many more ways that i can expand my writing style and make it better then it was before. It has shown me that I need to approach parts of my life differently with an open mind.
What is unlearning in this context?
In Habits of the Creative Mind then say unlearning is taking the set of rules that we have known for so many years and changing them. They say that there are universal set of rules that we need to learn to resist and try to be open to new techniques and ideas.
How might you be unlearning one or more of the follow? How does that feel?
I am unlearning a lot of the techniques listed. I need to resist myself from being closed off and be more open to ideas. Then i was never attentive in class, but now i’m engaged and asking questions making sure i’m following conversations. Curiosity goes the same way because i am intrigued enough to ask questions and want to learn more. Even by just reading the book I want to know more. By just reading the first few sections i feel ready to see how my writing grows and where i can be by the end of the year. I want to be able to see that change and am excited to see how much it will change.
9-9-18
Journal 3
From reading “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace he made the normal commencement speech into something that would be eye opening for people. While reading one of the things that stood out to me was the idea of that the most obvious things are the hardest ones to see. I can relate to this because it has happened to me. I took things for granted and wanted so much more but everything i wanted was right in front of me. Instead of opening my eyes I created tunnel vision and didn’t look at the bigger picture that was screaming my name.
When Wallace said that us as humans always think we are right even when we are so wrong. I loved this because we do it all the time. We can say a statement thinking we are one hundred percent right and somehow be so wrong. But we don’t ever stop to think that maybe we don’t know everything. The thought of being wrong is something that we hate to think about so we just think that we know everything and it has become such a habit. Sometime being right all the time isn’t the best thing but we need to learn that being wrong is okay and that is how we are going to learn.
Default settings is something that is mentions a lot through the end of his speech. Going into default setting is almost doing something without even having to think about it. We become unaware of our surroundings and don’t even stop to think about what we are doing or who we are crossing paths with. We could walk by thousands of people everyday and not even look up or make eye contact because we decide we want to be zombies for the day. Getting out of that mindset and being self aware could be a powerful thing because someone could be having the same bad day but instead of just being a zombie maybe you smile and change their mood as well.
Although not everything was a main idea there was a lot that was said that I agreed with. One sentence or thought of his that i really could connect with was that we think we are the center of everything we do but we really aren’t. Yes we tell stories and go through our daily lives and everything we tell or do is from our perspective. That makes it our story or our day but what we don`t tell or see is the one hundred other things that are going on around us. There could be a big event or a proposal that we completely miss because we are all about ourselves. Getting out of that mindset and just enjoying nature and people could open your eyes to a whole world that has been sitting there in the obvious but of course those things are the hardest to see.
This next idea is something i struggle with everyday. That is not wanting to do the hardest things and just settling for the easier route. This could come across a lot of ways but to me its saying yes this is hard for me to do but you never know what could come out of doing that hard thing. It could be oh i was having a bad day well i’m still going to keep my spirits up. Just by having that mentality you could keep you head up, have a smile and say hi to people. You never know maybe you meet one of your best friends in the future or just brighten up someone else’s day. Just because something is easier doesnt mean its the right way.
Lastly, his concept of freedom was a way i never thought of it as. When I think of freedom i automatically think of our flag. Which is not wrong but his way of explaining it was freedom was just being aware. You are attentive and open not distracted and grumpy. You see what’s real and understand what you have and don’t take anything for granted. That is the highest point of our freedom. When you are not weighed down by anything and you can be completely honest with yourself and others. You can be open without any fear of how others will react. Having that completely free feeling could just make life as a whole so exhilarating and I mean who wouldn’t want that.
Unexpected Events
9-9-18
Journal 4
I value trust of friends and family. When trust is broken it’s hard to wonder if you will ever be able to get it back. When you have trust between friends you think that it can’t be broken. Then when you get back stabbed by the two people you thought wouldn’t your whole world could change in the matter of a minute.
This happened to me when i thought i would walk into my senior year, the best year of my life with my best friends who have been by my side since i was in seventh grade. All of a sudden a fight broke out two days before the first day of school and thus ended the friendship i thought would follow me to college. I was never told why they cut me out. I got no explanation just a complete cut off. This was so unexpected because that morning we all hung out with no problems. It was like it has always been. Laughing till we couldn’t breathe and just having a good time. Then come that night I was alone.
I felt so broken and didn’t know what to do. That night I just curled up in bed, listened to sad music and stared at my white ceiling hoping that in some way it would give me an answer to everything i felt. Sitting on my bed in complete darkness just replaying those days events on repeat in my mind was all i did for those two days. I was lost, broken and completely confused.
Thus came the first day of school. The day i was dreading and didn’t want to do. Not because I wasn’t excited I mean its my senior year I was so ready for everything to come and to finally graduate. I dreaded it because i didn’t know what to do. I hated being alone and hated being seen alone. That was my own problem but at the same time in a school of only 400 it’s hard to make new friends. I have known people in my grade science pre-school, going through every year with them, watching them grow up, there really wasn’t a way to just walk up and say hi. Now i had a whole new problem because i didn’t have anyone in my corner. I was completely alone in a hall full of people.
Walking down those halls watching the friend groups all cheer excited for the year and to finally see each other again even though they saw them the day before, but acted like its been years. Then there was me walking down those halls, weaving through the mass groups that were piling up. Almost invisible and zombie like in a sea of people. No one cared and nobody knew what happened. I passed my old friends in the hall as they were together. They just stared as they passed not even acknowledging my existence.
Now some people would just keep this going but for me it brought a whole new light as to who i was. This was my senior year and i wasn’t about to let two people ruin that for me. So I did what anyone else would have I started talking to old friends. People who I may have shut out due to my friendships with others. At the beginning it was hard because they all thought of why I was coming back. After sitting in class with old friends and talking it started to make sense. I started seeing this as a chance to change myself. I wasn’t going to let this tear me down forever. That’s not who I wanted to be. Thus the healing process started to begin for me.
This was a long road to walk down. I was essentially starting from scratch. A new routine was beginning for me. I went to school happy having an attitude that today is a new day and could be better than the last day. I smiled at people who i accidentally made eye contact with. I waved to people who knew my name. Then i went to class and sat with friends, making jokes and was just being myself. As i walked by my old friends it was easier to just keep walking and not stop my step every time i saw them. Instead I kept my head up and just kept walking.
Everyday got a little easier. I was happy, bubbly and didn’t care about what people thought. I was more focused in class, wanting to learn the information and get good grades. I was tired of being pushed around and slacking off. I found myself engaged and knowing I could do better in school if i just put the effort in. My teachers noticed the change too. Some have had me for all four years and even told me how much i changed. It was nice to see that others were noticing. Yeah they did not know what had happened but they saw that I was becoming the best version of myself. I also had a better relationship with my parents. Instead of arguing about how I didn’t do my homework or was failing a class, we were joyful and happy every time I said i aced a test or quiz. Homework stopped becoming this chore I didn’t want to do but a means to better myself and my grades.
Looking back in that moment I would have changed everything. I have asked myself a million times what went wrong. Looking at it now though I wouldn’t change a thing. Without this experience I have no idea where i would be. Would i be at college? Would i be repeating my senior year? Who knows, all i know is that without this unexpected event i may not be where I am today. I won’t ever get over fully what happened because how do you get over something but I do know that i won’t ever let it hold me back because I won’t let people have that much hold over my life and what i chose to do with it.
Just from this experience alone i found a part of myself i didn’t know existed. I was so use to relying on people to constantly be around me. I thought i needed them in order to be happy. Little did I know that by being alone i could be happy also. When i thought about my future I didn’t know what to expect. I learned to take things day by day and not take people for granted. You never know who will be there when you wake up or who will be by your side in the long run. Life is unpredictable. You just gotta take it day by day and see where things will take you.
9-14-18
Journal 5
Page 11: Paragraph 2
“What this means is that Salatin`s chickens live like chickens; his cows, like cows; pigs, pigs.” (Pollen 11)
I agree with this because Salatin lets his animals actually be animals. Yes they are on a farm and they are exactly free to roam everywhere but they are free. They have a system where they are fed properly and what they want. They aren’t trapped in cages sitting in their own feces but they have grass and space to stretch and not standing on top of each other.
Page 9-10: End of Paragraph 3 and Beginning of page 10
“ The U.S.D.A`s recommended the solution to the problem called “tail-docking””. (Pollen 9-10)
I disagree with this because this is just harming the pigs more. Also with the chickens beaks how is this helping anything they do. You want them to be less stressed and not harming each other but instead you take away something of their and cause them more pain. This whole method they want to use is so twisted because chicken won’t eat or pigs won’t eat because chickens eat through their mouths or beaks and now you just take that away. Then for pigs they could just become depressed or in so much pain that they just wouldn’t want to.
Page 8: Paragraph 4
“If we find suffering, we will recognize it without difficulty”. (Pollen 8)
I found this challenging because in ourselves as humans we don’t always see suffering. Sometimes it can be very well hidden. So when they say yes we see it and recognize it well what if you don’t see it. In a sentence earlier they that they do fail but does that mean they don’t suffer. No they could be suffering a lot but we end up putting it off because we don’t exactly see it. I just found this hard to understand because somethings that are so obvious we miss so easily. So what if an animal right in front of us is in so much pain but we ourselves just miss it. Does that mean that it just isn’t suffering?
9-16-18
Journal 6
Pollan took a very hands on approach when writing “An Animal’s Place”. He wanted to know different places that animals live in. Throughout his writing we saw points of view from people like SInger who thought vegetarians were good and that meat eating isn’t always right. Then we say Salatin who owns a farm and his animals are well fed and happy. I was surprised throughout though at the difference in sources. He made his spectrum very broad. We read about pigs being “tail-docked” and chickens having their beaks chopped off to reduce pecking each other. Then we saw a system between cows, pigs, chicken and sheep where everyone was well fed and had a rotating system. I really like that difference in perspective. He said himself while reading that he was sitting in a steakhouse waiting to eat some steak. Although we saw what he liked to eat he didn’t shy away from the other end of the spectrum and talking about vegetarians. He didn’t highlight that eating meat is the only good way and that animals are just meant to be food and nothing else.
Pollan’s conversations with his sources were almost agreeing and disagreeing. We heard his sources point of view but then heard his side. We got both sides to the story and i didnt feel cheated or left with questions about who stood where.
I think the conversations we saw most were Singer and Salatin. They are both very different perspectives and showed two very different ways of their take on animals. One side was that animals should not be eaten and how by reading his story people have believed that. Then there is Salatin who showed that animals can be raised right and happy. I think he chose these because he didn’t want to stay on the same topic for so long and wanted to show everything and not just a little piece of the story.
I have learned from this that there are two sides to every story and that everyone has an opinion. Sometimes it’s nice to hear from both sides and you can from your own ideas from that then if you wanted to, you could do more research into that topic. I also know that this is a conversation that will forever be on going. There are going to different sides and everyone will want to say something when they hear about it but if you ever bring it up i’m sure you will get an on going and never ending conversation.
9-18-18
Journal #7
Page: 43 Paragraph 2
This passage I liked because it described my struggle with putting quotes into my work. I’m always afraid that I will put too little or too much. Then backing it up with my own thoughts I have never been good at. Another problem is never knowing when to add a quote so I just throw one in there because I need it but then never back any of it up because its too short and doesn’t make any sense. Then on the complete opposite I find one quote and just use it for my whole paper and put on sentence after. Mostly this whole passage was something I did a lot.
Page 50 Paragraph 3
I loved this because even though I know i struggle with quotes this basically said just go for it and even if it’s risky you should still take the risk. This gave me hope that it may not be perfect but at least I took a chance at it. It then talks about how we need to say more about how we thought about the quote then the quote itself. Which is true because yes the quote is important but if it’s your paper then why you added it is more important than the quote itself.
9-24-18
Journal #8
Something I interesting was on page 36 where they are talking about a good summary is not just a list of the points that author is making. Using the normal First this.. Then that isn’t interesting. In my writing in high school I use to do that a lot not knowing how boring it actually was. I like how they also point out though that you can use a list but you should make sure that it has one broad topic and is broken down to be easy to understand and effective for the reader. The big point I found after all this reading is to make sure that we are using our own voice and making sure what we are saying fits how we would say it in the real world.
9-26-18
Journal #9
When starting this assignment I first had to come up with ideas to write about. Every paper starts with ideas because you need to have some clue of what you are writing about. What I did was I looked over all the material I was given and I looked over the assignment and what it was asking for. Then I went into my binder and started to write down some thoughts that I had. I started with how did I want to introduce my paper and what was the idea I wanted to start with. This was just a broad idea that I needed in order to get the ball rolling. In my binder I wrote down everything in the paper that I wanted to write about. This way I had all my thoughts in one place and I wasn’t guessing or lost on what to write.
Once I had my ideas down and developed I go on this sort of mindless write. Here I don’t worry about paragraphs or breaking it down into sections. I just get everything i’m thinking out. Once I feel that I have everything I need then I go back and organize my paper into paragraphs and sequences. The reason I do this is so then I will have to reread my paper and start to think like a reader where does once idea end and a new one begin. Where do I switch the focus around and want to highlight something new. This just helps my thoughts because then I can see if something doesn’t sound right or if there are too many ideas that are jumbled or need to be changed.
Now that I have my ideas and paragraphs complete then I go back and reread and rethink what I wrote. This is when I look at my ideas and what the paper was asking me wondering does my work complete this task. If something doesn’t or doesn’t make sense then I need to rethink how to explain that idea or concept. Sometimes it may not even be an idea at all. It could be did I carry a main overall theme throughout my writing? Did I provide enough information and my own thoughts to quotes I added to emphasize my work. Just thinking about all this I can go through my paper and see if I did these or if I need to do some more work to it.
Sometimes I may need more information so then I need to go through my resources and find what I can add to enhance my writing more. Maybe I just need add more of my own voice. In a paper my voice is very important and I don’t want that to be tucked away or hidden because im trying to provide a lot of information too. Adding is an important step to making sure that i’m not missing anything that should be added. Also with that though cutting thoughts or ideas that don’t make sense or don’t help my paper is also an important too. I put these together because for me they do go together. I may cut something because I don’t like the way it sounds or doesn’t feel it’s important. Then I may add something else that I haven’t thought about before. Both of these tool complement each other and when I revise my work I like to use them together.
Most importantly though I want to make sure that my ideas, thoughts, concerns are clear to the reader. Going through if something doesn’t make sense then I need to clarify that and make it understandable to the reader. Even if it makes sense in my mind I always want someone to go over my work because maybe it won’t make sense to them. No one will enjoy a paper if they don’t understand it and if you want someone to read it and enjoy it then you want them to know what you are trying to say. Also, I try not to be confusing and contradict myself. When I do that then i’m just confusing myself because then someone could be confused as to what my thoughts are and what i’m actually thinking. Clarifying is a big step so then I don’t confuse myself or others.
10-1-18
Journal #10
After going through the process of writing four drafts I feel like that gave me a lot of time to actually look through it and make sure I was saying everything I wanted to. Instead of just writing a paper the night before and never having someone else read it or being able to add onto it, I just submitted it and went about my other homework. I liked having someone else read my work and get their feedback because it showed me some things that I didn’t look for or know and then I could go back and change certain aspects of my paper to make it better. Having the deadlines of only certain amount of words was nice because then I had a goal to get too without having to think too far or rush certain parts just to get to the end. It allowed me to focus on chunks of the paper at a time and not worry about finishing it all. Watching the paper grow was fun because with every draft posted you could see the progress and the paper coming together. I can look back and see where I started then look at the end and see what I changed or added to make it make sense. I can finally say after finishing this paper that I’m feeling good with what I wrote and am not dreading turning in something for the first time.
10-3-18
Journal #11
Page 67 Paragraph 1
“… that readers be able to tell at every point when you are expressing your own views and when you are starting someone else`s.”
I liked this sentence because I feel that I have a hard time making sure i’m using my voice and not just sounding like the author who i’m referring too. If the readers are confused then your paper is very hard to get through or just makes them stop all together. I underlined it because I felt that this is an important piece of writing when you are talking about your ideas and others.
Page 71 Paragraph 1 (technically)
“.. well-supported arguments are grounded in persuasive reasons and evidence, not in the use of nonuse of any particular pronouns.”
I liked this because in high school we were always told that the only way we could have a well-supported argument was by the pronouns we use and how we sell it. This statement just says that the evidence in your argument is what matters and it just showed me that a lot that I thought I knew wasn’t exactly right. It was helpful in learning to write but there are so many more ways that I can do things to grow my writing style.
10-15-18
Journal #12
Comedian Louis C.K: Finding laughs post- divorce
One thing I really liked about this interview is that it kept me engaged and wanting to read the whole thing. There was never a part where I was bored or uninterested. Terry Gross wasn’t afraid to ask hard questions about custody, being divorced or his overall life in general. She asks the questions so you can see what his life is actually like and how he can bring his new life into his comedy acts. I really enjoyed this interview because I feel like i got a good overall sense for Louis C.K and Gross asked all the questions that I was wondering myself. I wondered about his children and how he makes that work with his own life. The same questions were asked so I got my answer. Gross is very good at interviews, she’s not afraid to dig into topics, she keeps it enjoyable so that you want to keep listening and overall it was a good interview to listen too.
10-16-18
Journal #13
- What is life like in the mind of another
- I found this interesting because in everyday life we don’t take a step back and think about what other people are going through. As in interviewer though you have to be able to take that step back and go into the mind of another. Earlier in the paragraph we read about Capote and how he had to get inside the heads of cold- blooded killers. He knew what they had done and who they had killed but he didn’t know why. So he had to take a step back from his point of view and look at it from their perspective to get the actual scoop of the story.
- Generate Questions that you background information cant answer
- I found this helpful because normally we create questions based on the information we do know. We take that information then from there we from questions. Now thinking a different way why use the information we already know when we can ask questions that can get us answers we don’t know yet. That was an interviewer does to get the real answers that may be buried somewhere else.
- You may only get one shot. Make it count
- In life you really don’t have unlimited chances. Sometimes you only have one chance to talk to someone. It may be a spur of the moment or you may have time. Either way you need to make sure that you don’t mess it up because if you do the person may not want to talk again or can find someone else who can do it better. This i found interesting because it can relate to life in so many ways. We always think we have so many chances to do something but in reality we can only have one shot and if we don’t take that then we don’t get another and that’s an opportunity missed that could have been the greatest story.
10-17-18
Journal #14
What did you like about this article?
One thing I liked about this article was be able to see what brought Terry Gross to radio. Being able to see why she chose to do radio and interviews. Then i also likes the flow of the text itself. You had the question or topic bolded so then you knew what would be talked about in the paragraph below. That made the flow easy to follow and made the conversation more interesting to read.
What did I learn about Terry Gross?
I learned that Terry is a very self conscious person. Instead of face to face she likes to interview people over the phone. When you think of interviews you think that they are mostly face to face and filmed. So to hear that Terry did over the phone interviews was really interesting because she then had to learn new techniques to get her questions answered.
What questions would you ask Terry Gross?
What has been the hardest interview you have done? What made it a hard interview? How did you get through it? Did you ever follow up with that person or people?
Have you ever regretted choosing an interviewing career? Did you ever want to do something else? What was your childhood dream job?
10-23-18
Journal #15
One thing coming from English high school class to our college English class is the “Not Yet” system. In high school we had the normal letter grades A-F, but that doesn’t tell us how we can improve or gives us the spirit too. Now in college we have the “Not Yet” system in our english class that shows us yeah we are doing good but we still have to improve but gives us the motivation too. Dweck said “ but if you get the grade “Not Yet”, you understand that you’re on a learning curve”. This shows that there is room for improvement. You have got the basics of it but you still have room to improve and make it better. Having our English have this system makes it less stressful. Instead of getting down on myself and thinking I just failed and don’t know anything. I just think okay so i got the basis of it done and I know what I’m doing but I still need to improve.
Dweck talks about having a fixed or growth mindset a lot. If you have a fixed mindset then you are running from what you are doing wrong and don’t make the change to fix it. If you have a growth mindset then you are looking for critiques so you can change and grow. “ ..the fixed mindset students… They run from error…. The growth mindset, the idea that abilities can be developed. I really like this thought because in this semester I have changed into a growth mindset. I know that if something happens and it’s not exactly what I wanted then I learn from it. I saw this a lot with my artifact #1. I had my paper in one big paragraph thinking back to high school ways. After working with Eric I saw that I could break down that paragraph so it looked like a real paper. Now I tie what I learned from the artifact #1 to all my papers to come.
