Journal – Kayla's Site!

Journal 1

What is meeting half-way?

In Habits of the Creative Mind, meaning half-way is by open to the possibility that using writing to explore your mind’s connective powers can help you both to think new thoughts and to think in new ways. For example, my teacher gives me a writing assignment, instead of waiting last minute to write the essay. I begin to start and soon find myself fading away onto another topic or become distracted. Instead of giving up, I take a break and come back to what I was doing. I later find out what I was doing what more important than the distraction.

What is the philosophy of habits?

In Habits of the Creative Mind, this philosophy of habits is no single, linear path through the process of learning to write well; indeed, what makes learning to write well so difficult is that it can’t be learned by moving in orderly steps from the easiest concepts to the most complex. In other words, writings must be creative and cannot be plain. For example, instead of making your basic flash cards to study, you make up a new song to memorize.

What is reflection?

In the Habits of the Creative Mind, is that we can connect to all the creative archives that can be accessed on the web and reference to materials that cover everything from punctuation go usage to the conventions governing the citation of online resources. With assembly it would keep your work more organized, but it could be considered “boring” to most people or others. With creation your writing can be more open and freer to write whatever you would like.

How does this reading fit with your personal experience? How do you feel about this approach?

I feel like by using what the book has said so far these “tips” can be used on day to day work. Like studying, writing etc. I feel at first this approach will be hard to go about because I am not use to it.

Journal 2

Unlearning in this context is not forgetting what you have learned because that’s like impossible. They are asking “to question the two assumptions behind the formula for the five-paragraph essay: first, that they primary purpose if writing is to produce irrefutable arguments, and second, that the best writing is immediately understandable by all” (Miller 18). I took this as expanding your thoughts and ideas, be more creative about your writing instead of taking it step-by-step. I think it would be rather interesting to be more flexible with my writing then following a step-by-step like I use too. I feel like this will be challenging because I am so to doing the step-by-step process from middle and high school.

Journal 3

“This is Water” by David Foster Wallace was a speech given to the graduation class of 2005. Rather than giving a boring speech like a “regular” principal would David Foster made an inspiration speech about knowledge, emotions and learning. Mr. Foster talks about the most obvious things in life are usually the hardest to see no matter what situation. I feel like with most things I make it much harder than it is and never look at the big picture. I am one to also complicate everything.

Mr. Foster also talked about the blind certainty. Mr. Foster says that the blind certainty is having a prisoner in a jail cell and not knowing what is going on and why they are there. Blind certainty is not knowing what you are doing and not realizing what is going on. Something that he talked about was learning to think deeper than what you believe. Which is hard to think about when a human is wired to be simple, but we are all creative in our own ways.

Journal 4

They always say you will meet your best friend in college and a couple years from now the ones you had in high school with no longer matter. Coming into college I never thought that was going to be the truth. I have a couple of best friends. One from kindergarten and a few from high school. My best friend and I were very close throughout our ending of sophomore year until about the ending of our senior year. I knew the friendship was never going to be simple because of her past but I would never judge a book by its cover. Something that I never thought would become between our friendship would be our relationships with people or our friendships with others. Toward the end of our friendship I soon learned that her boyfriend would be the reason why we were no longer friends. I know it sounds terrible the way it was said but that’s the way I saw the situation.

This was unexpected for me because her and I always said we would be best friends no matter what. We talked every day, I saw her every day and I had no problem telling her my problems. Soon, the trust was lost, we no longer saw eye to eye and things had to be changed. Something I wish I knew going into my freshman year of college was that a lot of things will change, and people are serious when they say, “most high school friends will no longer matter.” I wish I knew that the people you barely talked too would impact your life more than the ones that were always by your side through everything. I know focus on the present day and no longer the past. I knew that the decision that was made would be better for us in the long run. I now know that when I get the chance to give advice about friendship to the ones younger than me, that friendships that are said to last forever will not. Not always but most of the time.

Journal 5

A passage I agreed with is when Joel Salatin and his family raised six different food animals. They raised chickens, pigs, cattle, rabbits, turkeys and sheep. I agreed with this because this family let there chicken live like chicken, along with the other animals they raised. These animals lived like animals should, out in nature and eating the right nutrients.

A passage I disagreed with was on page ten when they talked about tail-docking and break-clipping to get rid of stress in a pig or chicken. I would love to know how break-clipping is de stressing for a chicken, when a chicken is suppose to have a break and use it. Chickens are suppose to use their beaks for eating food, if a chicken does not have a break then they can’t eat. So they are starving the chickens in this areas. So the chickens do not have water, food or sunlight. Not okay.

A passage that I am conflicted with is on page ten when they talk about how “…the American industrial animal farm offers a nightmarish glimpse of what capitalism can look like in the absence of moral or regulatory constraint”. I am conflicted with his passage because I thought it was interesting that industrial animal farm(s) can have a glimpse of capitalism.

Journal 6

Pollan engaged with other sources by having people talk about their experience(s) and their thoughts on how eating meat can either be a good or bad thing. People gave their thoughts on animal tortor and facts how this information was proven. Pollan used sources by talking about both sides of the conversation. Pollan had people either relating to why we should or should not have meat. In this source, Pollan had an endless conversation to why eating meat is good or not. He had conversations from the people who related or did not relate to the idea. Having more than one source in the conversation left the conversation more open and free to thoughts. Pollan wanted both sides of the conversation and why they thought this way. I have learned that most conversations never end and can be brought up at anytime and be connected.

Journal 7

Something I found interesting was on page 50, “…when in doubt, go for it. It is better to risk being overly explicit about what you take a quotation to mean than to leave the quotation dangling and your readers in doubt”. I found this interesting because whenever I quote what another person in saying for a text I feel like I always take too much of the text and I do not even take the important information. After reading this section was interested to hear that it is better to over quote than to leave the reading hanging.

Something I also found interesting while reading was on page 45, “Given the evolving and messy nature of writing, you may sometimes think that you’ve found the perfect quotation to support your argument, only to discover later on, as your text develops, that your focus has changed and the quotation no longer works”. I found this to be interesting because I honestly thought I was the only one to do this while finding a quote or writing a paper.

Journal 8

Something that I found interesting was on page 30, “lacking confidence, perhaps, in their own ideas, these writers so overload their texts with summaries of others’ ideas that their own voices get lost.” I found this interesting because if your writing something and you don’t know what’s going on then there is no way to put the “summary” in your own words. That was something that I always did. I had an idea but I would explain it too much and get lost in my own words. On page 35 the book talks about how your “They say” and “I say” need to be well matched. I took this as you can’t through in a random quote from somewhere and then try to explain or summarize the quote if you don’t understand the quote yourself. “They say” and “I say” need to be linked together and they cannot be opposite of each other. In the end the quote and summary need to help support each other.

Journal 9

When I first began to begin my endless conversation into Pollan’s piece “An Animal’s Place”. I began with picking the passage that was most interesting to me. As I continued writing, coming up with ideas were kind of easy. I picked the three topics that were most interesting to me. My paper starting with having eye-contact with an animal, which lead into the lack of soul an animal has, and then lead into how some people do raise their animals with care.

I began to organize my thoughts into paragraphs. When I first had the idea to use eye-contact with an animal has my first paragraph I thought this was the most important topic that could be carried out throughout my paper. I began each paragraph with a connection to Pollan’s piece. I later found out that I need to add more connections to Pollan’s piece without my paper to backup my information and to have that endless conversation.

When I went to my tutoring session on Tuesday with Professor Drown we talked about how I was missing key paragraphs between paragraph one and two and paragraph two and three. We also talked about how I could add an ending to my paper that talks about how I now think about the topic of eating meat. Between each paragraph I need to go back and add information about transitioning into a new paragraph and how they connect with each other.

Throughout this whole essay it has made me rethink my thoughts that I have been writing. Even though I do enjoy the taste of meat it is sad to kill these smart animals when they have done nothing to us. I never realized that writing a paper like this can make you rethink so much about what I person has said and their view on different things.

I have to rewrite some of my paragraphs and add information that I first forgot about. When I reread my essay with Professor Drown, I found mistakes that I did not realize at first. When I was writing the essay I thought it sounded good without no matters. After walking away for a night I realized that I have grammar mistakes and needed to add more for the readers to understand.

Journal 10

When I first started this project I had no idea what I was going to write and say in the essay and how it was going to be formatted. After having in class decisions, I was still concerned about the assignment. I knew I had tutoring the next day so when I went to see Professor Drowne he helped me with how to format my essay and how it was going to look like. What should be stated and where I wanted to start from. Doing the three different drafted helped me personally because we as a class were given a word limit which helped me space out my thoughts. When we had time to work on the essay in class it was helpful because we could ask questions and have more time to put our thoughts together. When I went to see Professor Drowne for the last time before handing in my essay he helped me on the information that I forgot or left out. We talked about how all paragraphs had to tie together. At the end of the project I thought it went well and hopefully I do receive a good grade.

Journal 11

Something I found interesting was that the chapter was key ways to determine who is talking and how they are talking about the topic. This has always been a struggle for me when reading new things and understanding who was saying what. I have grown to be better at it and following stories but this helped me even more. Something I also found interesting was on page 71, they said “furthermore, if you consistently avoid the first person in your writing, you probably have trouble making the key move addressed in this chapter..” I thought this was interesting because we have always been taught to not us “I” because it is “wrong”. Something I found helpful was that the book gives you explains of each scenario.

Journal 13

Interviews are used to understand others. Your first interview will feel clumsy and awkward but then will later gain experience. All interviews should be planned ahead of time with questions but do not over prepare because then the conversation will be awkward and no longer sound like a conversation.

Chose a time and place
Draft questions
Bring things you will need: computer, paper and pencil
If the person is stumped ask them whether you should rephrase the question
Don’t be embarrassed to ask more questions
Listen to what the interviewee says and how they say it
Your interview should feel like a conversation

Journal 14

What do you like about this article?

Something I like about this article is the person that interviewed Terry Gross, KK Ottesen, was very precise with the questions he asked. This questions were not basic boring questions. KK Ottesen had in depth questions that gave explains of what he was trying to get at. The questions were also interesting and Terry Gross always had a good response to the question that was asked.

What did you learn about Terry Gross?

Something that I found interesting and learned about Terry Gross while reading the interview was that she could get at an intimate level with the people she was interviewing because “always thought of myself as smaller than life…I had certain pleasure of being invisible” (Gross). I found this actually shocking. This was shocking because Terry Gross is a famous radio host and I never thought someone who talks on a radio everyday and can ask personally question would ever look at herself like that.

What questions would you ask Terry Gross?
1. Do you ever regret asking a certain question after the person starts to answer it?
2. If you could tell us one thing about yourself that no one would know what would you say about yourself?

Journal 15

Dweck’s Ted Talk spoke about how there is a new path into the future of learning. This theory of grading kids work on “Not Yet” compared to a failing grade can be a confidence boost. In a study they focused on the way a child applies themself during learning.“On the left, you see the fixed-mindset students. There’s hardly any activity. They run into error” (1). As a high school student I can say when I can into a problem I soon gave up and did not want to move forward with me work. Coming into English 122 and learning that we used a scale of ok, good, excellent. This made me want to do more of my work and apply myself to the class. English 122 is also very different from high school which is something I enjoy. Doing a journal reflection after every class has also helped me understand the concept of “Not Yet” insteading a failing grade.

Dweck talked about how kids that received bad grades continued to receive bad grades because have a F on the page was not a confidence boost. “In this study, students who were not taught this growth mindset continued to show declining grades over this difficult school transition, but those who were taught this lesson showed a sharp rebound in their grades” (2). This was me in middle school, I received okay grades and then continued to get okay grades because I didn’t think it was worth to get good grades. I talked about this in my Artifact 1 and now I know I would like to get better grades. The theory of “Not Yet” is a confidence boost to me.

Edited Version

Looking at my Post Conference Report has made me realize I have a growth mindset because I talk about how my failure have grown into something different. Dweck’s Ted Talk spoke about how there is a new path into the future of learning. This theory of grading kids work on “Not Yet” compared to a failing grade can be a confidence boost. Dweck reports that “scientists measured the electrical activity from the brain as students found error”. Brain scans shows that students with a fixed-mindset get stuck in the thought of error, which means they stop trying. But, brain scans show that students with the growth a mindset push forward to try their hardest. These students with a growth mindset have engaged deeply in their work and they process error. Even though I do not have my own brain scans, my work shows that I have a growth mindset. In my Post Conference Report ….. As a high school student I can say when I can into a problem I soon gave up and did not want to move forward with me work. Coming into English 122 and learning that we used a scale of ok, good, excellent. This made me want to do more of my work and apply myself to the class. English 122 is also very different from high school which is something I enjoy. Doing a journal reflection after every class has also helped me understand the concept of “Not Yet” instead of a failing grade.

Journal 16

A moment in my semester when my coach, Professor Drown, and I worked together to help me see my writing in a different way was in my journals. This happened during my last journal #15. Going into my tutoring class I thought there was nothing that could be changed. I was wrong. Professor Drown gave me different ideas on how to improve my claim sentence. We went over that if someone else was reading my journals they would not know that the left and right side meant. I had to change up multiple sentences for it to be understood by different people. Professor Drown also taught me that I have to state that I do not have a brain scan but from my work you can see I have a growth mindset.

Another moment in the semester where my coach, Professor Miller, helped me improve my work was during our Conference and the check out sheets we get at the end of the week. Even though Professor Miller and I were not face-to-face during this improvement, it was very helpful. When class first began I was afraid to talk and share my ideas. When Professor Drown started the check out sheets and I had to circle my participation for the week. I soon realized I had to participate more during class. During the Conference this was also touched upon. Something I do like is that when I am not participating Professor Miler will ask me for my thoughts and that will push me to talk more.

Another moment in my semester when both of my coaches helped me was during the PLT drafts. During the project Professor Miller gave us time to meet with him and other students in the class to have peer review time. This was helpful because I got to use my classmates ideas to help me improve my writing piece. Something that was really helpful was Professor Drown had me put a horizontal line in between all of my paragraphs and in the note section write a summary of what each paragraph was about. This helped me development my paragraphs and understand that my paragraphs have to flow together.

Journal 17

Amy Cuddy says by changing your posture for two minutes can change the way your life unfolds. So how you are sitting can change the way your life unfolds. Like hunching over, crossing your legs, maybe even wrapping your ankles…these things make you smaller than you actually are. How does changing your posture affect the way your life unfolds?
Why is body language have such a big impact on communicating? We can think about a handshake or a lake a handshake. Amy Cuddy talks about smiling and laughing. How body language shows us communicating to each other.
How can we understand how people communicate or retract by looking at schools? Amy Cuddy talks about how most things are related to gender but if your only looking a school setting. How do you know this information is true.

Journal 18

At the beginning of the semester when I first entered English 122, Professor Drown and Miller were talking about how we would no longer be using the high school format of the five paragraph essay. We would be using first person and would learn new ways to write essays and develop our old habits. This first scared me and I kinda faked the idea of knowing how do this. I thought I would struggle with the concept and never learn how to develop my old writing. When beginning my first essay I did struggle on how the essay was written but Professor Drown helped me through it during tutoring. Professor Miller also helped in class when questions were being asked.

Another time when I was faking it in order to succeed was when I was younger and I struggled with reading. I was a such a lower level than everyone else throughout school and I struggle with pronouncing words. I hated reading out loud because I stutter and I still do. I tried to get away without reading but soon my teachers realized I needed extra help. After receiving extra help I was able to improve my reading.

Journal 19

If I was asked these same questions during an interview, I would not have a problem answering honestly. But answering these questions accurately could be challenging. During an interview I feel like I would sugarcoat the answers because I wouldn’t want to use the wrong wording. By using the wrong wording I guess it could be considered not being honest. During interviews I feel like the person you are interviewing thinks you rather heard what you want to hear, not what they are actually thinking. Especially if you do not know the person that is interviewing.

The main person that helped me prepare for college would be the person I look up too. My close friend, Brianna. She graduated college this year and is now going into graduate school. She helped me going into college because as an only child I had no idea what college was going to be like. She would answer all my questions when I had them. She gave me advice on how to study and every little bite of advice that I could ask for. She was the one to tell me to have a connection with Professors and never be afraid to ask for help. She told me what it could be like sharing a room and preparing for my exams. She also told me that college kids are much more chill than high school and most drama will disappear.

Journal 20

One of my texts that I think aligns accurately with my experience as a college students in this first semester would be my journals. Since the beginning of the semester we have been working on our journals everyday. I believe these journals show my growth as a college students. When I first began these journals at the beginning of the semester they were just homework. Nothing too important that I was worried about. As the semester went on I learned that the journals were more than just homework, they were an anchor to most projects and helped me think through most of my work. When I figured this out I began to try harder on my journals and started taking the time to edit mistakes. In Journal 15, I had to talk about two connections I made between Dweck’s Ted Talk and my experience this semester. I had to have a claim, quotes and then sentences explaining Dweck’s Ted Talk and my experiences. At first I thought I did well writing journal 15. I found myself wrong when my coach, Professor Drown, looked over my work. He explained to me that not everyone is going to understand what I am talking about because not everyone has watched this Ted Talk. I learned that I had to restate my sentences and understand what part of the quote is most important to what I’m trying to say. Professor Drown also explained to me that I would have to explain myself more during this journal to show what I was trying to get at.

Journal 22

Doing our final peer review has helped a great deal with my final writing piece in English 122. Alex and Kristen both did a great job explaining to me what I needed to approve upon and what I was doing well. Alex and Kristen feedback was helpful because when I go to make corrections I know exactly what needs to be changed and how I should go back that. Their comments showed me that I felt I few things out of my essay and I need to build upon that for the reader to understand what I am talking about.

When I was giving feedback to Alex and Kristen I was thinking about what was the best way to help them expand their writing. Alex had plenty of quotes throughout his essay but I told him for the endless conversation to be able to work he would have to add in more personal experiences so the reader knows what it was like for you. For Kristen I believed that she developed a solid background talking about Gwande but her quotes and personal experiences needed to tie more together. Instead of a random quote throw into an essay. When talking about what he wrote to each other was actually different to ask questions because the comments that were put on google docs were in depth and exampled what was going on.