Metacognition: Jane Eyre Mash-up

When first looking at the directions for the Jane Eyre Mash-up project, I was confused how to get started. My group had decided that we wanted to explore love and feminism, but we weren't quite sure how. Our first step was to find all of the quotes in Jane Eyre pertaining to love and feminism. Once we did that we started to make connections to other things that we had seen or heard in our lives.

After we began seeing connections to other songs, videos, and pictures, we found that what we were actually exploring was the status quo of feminism throughout different times in history during Jane Eyre and since. This focused our project and allowed us to find more outside sources.

I found that while doing this project my thinking changed a lot. I began to see aspects of modern feminism everywhere, and I was able to apply those to what I read in Jane Eyre so I could gain a better understanding of it. Just by looking at all the different views of feminism throughout time I saw that while there are many ways women have gained freedom since the 19th century, there are still ways we are held back.

Previous to this project I thought that feminism was something wasn't relevant anymore. I thought that in American society women were pretty much equal to men, but now I see the many stereotypes that are put on women these days, and I understand that feminism is still important.

It Matters: Greg Mortenson

Greg Mortenson, best selling author of Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools, has recently been suffering a lot of scrutiny for apparently making up many of the stories that were in his memoirs. The stories were supposed to be based off of his life and tell about his adventures in both Pakistan and Afghanistan building schools for underprivileged children. He is now a world famous public speaker and has his own charity devoted to raising money for more schools. At least, this is what we have been led to believe.

In the past few days, information has been brought to the public's attention that causes us to question how much of these memoirs are true memories, and how much of them were just made up. Even if some parts were made up or exaggerated, should that take away from the parts that were real?

Memoirs, by definition, are usually allowed to be partly or even mostly fabricated, so why exactly are readers so outraged that Mortenson would do the same thing? One reason I am offended is because people are paying money to support his charity, and he has not been honest with the donors about where exactly the money is going. Many of his charity expenses were due to book signings and promotions, not going to helping the actual schools.

When Mortenson takes the novel, and turns it into something that is real, like a charity, he no longer has the right to make up stories no matter how much they may add to the experience of reading the book. He does not have the right to lie in interviews about how many schools were actually build, nor tell stories about kidnappings that never happened. These are no longer just parts of a book, they are lies being told by a man who is taking money from well meaning people and doing what he pleases with it.

This is not to say that Mortenson has not done any good, he has, in fact built many schools in middle eastern countries and is one of the most effective speakers around the world, but in order to maintain that, he has to have credibility. He cannot have news about his lies overshadow news about his good deeds, and I think it is important for Mortenson to recognize his responsibilities as someone that is trying to promote good in the world.

360 Degrees: Literature in the 21st Century

There has been a lot of controversy lately in our class about reading. Mr. Allen has mentioned many times before that the books that we read that were written over a hundred years ago will challenge us, but exactly how much of a stretch is it for our brains to go at this pace?

So, what exactly is the problem? Why can't we adjust to this different way of life? Considering we have been raised in this brand new world where everything is available to us within seconds due to the internet, cell phones, etc. we are used to a very fast pace. So, when we sit down to read, after our long day of activities, between our math homework and social studies project, it is hard for us to devote the kind of time that is necessary to truly appreciate a book like Jane Eyre.

Even if we do find the time to sit down and read, how many of us are actually 100% focused on the book? This is another problem we face with our generation: multitasking is something that is encouraged from the time we are young, it is seen as being efficient. So, we have been raised to think that we can do things just as effectively when they do not have our full attention, but this is just not possible when reading a book from the 19th century.

So should we just give up and accept that these books are just something that are not possible for us to fully absorb? I don't think so. If we disregard all classical literature as being outdated and unnecessarily detailed, then we will just be going backward in our knowledge of language. It is up to us to be able to learn and to teach future generations that sometimes we need to slow down and allow ourselves to be immersed in a world that is different than our own.

Dialectics: God and Man

The relationship between God and man is a unique one, and it is individual for every person. It is one that has defined much of history, shaping the way people interact, societies form, and governments rule. It seems that religion became a tool for people to justify anything, and it was acceptable to fight for your faith because your god would reward you in the end.

However, something in me tells me that if God (whichever one, if any, you happen to believe in) were to come down and have a conversation with man, he would have quite the opposite to say. There is no way that any God would approve of destroying anything that he made, making terms like "Holy War" completely ridiculous.

People started believing in God because they needed an explanation of why they were here and what happened afterward. If we take the concept of "God" back to its most basic meaning, which is the creator and protector of the world, it is difficult to see how the interpretation of this concept became so complex and twisted into anything that anyone wanted it to be.

Man would most likely step into defend themselves at this point and say that God wants this and God wants that and if there are people that do not want this or that, then they deserve to be destroyed for disrespecting their creator.

God probably is sick of his name being used to justify crimes and wars and atrocities, and would say that this was never what he intended to happen when he created the world. There should be no reason to be killing in his name or using religion as a means to separate.

Whether you believe in God or not, I think it is time that people realize that a persons relationship with God is something that should remain personal, and not be used for anything more than a source of worship and guidance, because when it becomes more than that, the very things that God worked to create have been destroyed.

360: Current Events Strategies

Now on well into our second round of our new current events system, we have had many discussions on how the system is working, and if anything can be done to improve upon it. In these discussions I have been listening to the class and developing my own ideas off of theirs. I think it is very important for us to always be open to exploring and changing our way of doing things until we find the process that works best.

One of the great things about the new current events systems is that it allows us to really dig into a topic and take everything out of it that we can. However, this does run the risk of topics becoming too redundant and discussions lagging. This may be avoided by picking broader topics with more to talk about. But, then it is possible that the topic is too broad and four weeks isn't enough to get anything out of it.

Clearly, it is a difficult balance to strike for all of us. I think that the best thing we as students can do is try to be prepared and choose articles that will truly benefit the class instead of just the first one we find. I think that the best thing we could have in terms of direction is a little more structure to discussion, and as a classmate brought up, more intensity in the discussions.

All in all, I think that our new current events process definitely leaves more room for deep insight and true understanding of a situation. It would be nice if we could rev up our discussions and see if we can get anything more out of the topics we choose, but I think that these are things that can be changed by us students and not necessarily the process.

Best of Week: Imperfection is Key

When discussing "Cathedral" we touched on the subject of how the main character being in an uncomfortable or undesirable situation is what stories are built on. This confused me at first, because as a reader I know that I always like it when my character is satisfied and I get stressed out when things keep going wrong for them.

However, as I thought more and more into it, it is when the character hits an uncomfortable situation, I want to read further so I can see them get out of it. The books that left everything perfect for the protagonist may have been the most pleasant, but they also were the least interesting and had the least amount of depth to them.

I can use this to help me when I am writing my short story in the future because I have seen the circumstances that Carver placed his main character in in "Cathedral" and these are what made it a short story worth telling. Not only does keeping the reader on their toes make the story more interesting, but it also makes it much more satisfying when things actually work out, like in "Cathedral" when the main character finds something in common with the blind man after being so uncomfortable with his presence.

The most beneficial thing I gained from our english class this week was how to write my short story and how to spot a good short story when I am reading. If the character isn't uncomfortable at least once, then there is no story.

Connection: iPad Commercials and Postmodernism

Recently, Apple has released a string of different commercials for the iPad proving their slogan that "iPad isn't just one thing, it's thousands of things." These commercials show all of the different things that the iPad can do, ranging from showing constellations to organizing presentations.

While looking at these different advertisements, i was reminded of the chart we read about modernism and postmodernism for Heart of Darkness. I could not help but think that the iPad is the perfect example of postmodernism in our world. It perfectly exemplifies the multiplicity of postmodernism as well as the ambiguous nature of it.

The iPad commercials show multiplicity very clearly because the main point of them is that the iPad can perform thousands of different tasks, so it cannot be said that the iPad has one specific purpose, but rather all of its purposes overlap, and vary from person to person.

The iPad itself is a very ambigious piece of technology. It contains elements of a mobile phone, a computer, and an MP3 player all in one, so it is hard to define exactly what it is. The ambiguity of the device I'm sure had something to do with the fact that we are moving into a postmodern world where it is harder to define exactly what something is, because it will contain elements of many different things.

Reading about postmodernism has made it a lot easier for me to see examples of how we are living in a postmodern world. In the same way, seeing these examples make it a lot easier for me to understand exactly what postmodernism means. It is a difficult concept to grasp, and one that few people can truly grasp, but I guess that makes perfect sense because in a postmodern world, no single person can explain anything entirely.

Metacognition: First Semester

I saw my thinking change a lot over the course of this semester. We started off the year reading about healthcare. While reading i found myself taking a very biased view of it. However, by the time we finished our discussions in class, I had managed to open up my mind much more to new ideas and viewpoints on our healthcare system. I was usually scared to jump in on class discussions of this nature because I am not completely informed about the subject, but towards the end I became more confident in what I was saying and started talking a lot more.

One thing i noticed about the way I learn is that the lessons I get the most out of are the ones in which I am active and participating instead of just reading or listening to learn things. When doing activities that pertain to what we are learning about, it gives me something to hold onto instead of just words.

I have also noticed that my reading skills have changed. I believe that I now am seeing many more deeper meanings in books than I ever did before. I think that much of this can be accredited to Sophie's World. Hearing all of these different philosophies has made me think more philosophically.

A pattern I have seen in the way I work Is that I am very motivated and determined to do well at the beginning and middle of the quarters, but once it gets to the end of the quarter and the work loads get bigger in all of my classes, it is much harder for me to get everything done. I believe if I was able to control my procrastination that this would not hit me as hard. This is one of the things I hope to develop during the second semester of Sophomore year and use for the rest my life.