Metacognition: The Poetic Walls

The steps of our poetic process that we took in English helped exponentially for me specifically. If I was left to just write a poem I wouldn't even know where to start. Mr. Allen did a great job guiding us through the steps to writing a poem and held our hand the entire way through. In the end I am proud of my poem but am sure that it would not be nearly the masterpiece it is if not for the dozens of steps, re-dos, and conferences with Mr. Allen. The really sad part is that even with all that guidance I kept hitting the poetic wall and really could not go further.

The first wall I hit was probably the second step. I foolishly disregarded my hollow moments and the resultant was bad. It had the skeleton of something poetic but lacked the meaty muscle of the content. I had to backtrack and swerve around this first wall by going back to step one and bringing with me the beautiful imagery and scene that I had earlier depicted. This helped a lot. The winter forest image gave me something to wrap my mind around and suddenly my poem began to start to form around it. The images of animals, snowfall, trees, and myself became clearer and more transparent to me. Suddenly, writing the poem wasn't some sort of challenge anymore it was letting my mind flow freely. If i were to dissect the thinking process at this point in my poem's life I would say that it had potential but it would have been doomed to fail because most of it was still cliche, unoriginal thinking. One advantage that I did have though was that I was able to identify the faults of my poem. I knew that primarily I had to make a bigger impact on the imagery, and focus a single image better. I drew inspiration from the poem about the fish and used the same techniques in a descriptive manner to help me.

The next wall I hit was much bigger and harder. Like a brick wall reinforced with steel piping and concrete. I had depleted my poetic reservoir and used up all the tricks up my sleeve. But of course to ruin my day, Mr. Allen wanted even more from me. It was ridiculous. I sat staring blankly at my poem waiting for some spark of inspiration that never came. I was defeated because in my head I thought that my poem was as good as it was ever going to be. I was wrong; and if I quit there I never would have known how much my poem could truly become. I took a break from my poem and actually took a walk into the forest behind my house. I made real world observations that I could then transfer directly into my poem. I found a decrepit, old, yet beautiful tree and I instantly knew that I had to include it in my poem. When I got back home I looked through my English notebook to find some of the different poetic techniques. Refreshed and refocused I took a second crack at my poem and found new ideas and descriptions flowing out of me. I revamped my poem; buffing it out with all new ideas and poetic tools. A good hour or so later I knew I was done. My metacognitive realization at the end of this whole experience is that poem is everywhere. In this blog entry alone I notice the aesthetic appeal. The flow of words, repitition, variation, lists and such. It is actually really irritating and now I am actually worried for what irksome quirks I will pick up whilst writing my short story...

Get Organized: A tribute to Aristotle

Our surroundings are an integral part of our identity and affect everything about us even down to the way we think. It is human nature to try and tame our surroundings whether its conquering a new frontier or organizing a bedroom. Obviously I chose to attempt the latter (mostly because I have yet to amass my army) but also because my room could using a little sprucing up...or a lot of sprucing up.

A warzone, aftermath of  a nuclear meltdown, or a scene from after a 9.0 earthquake. These are the images that would flood your head when you open the door to my room. I hyperbolize a little bit of course but my room was one of those things that could definitely use a makeover. Before continuing one should note that its a lifestyle choice to have a disaster for a room and though others may perceive it as dysfunctional I have no problem with it. My room is a dystopia. I know exactly where everything is located and can navigate through my room in the dark but it is the messiest thing ever. After spending a good few hours over the last few days I believe my room is now habitable by people other than just myself. I was proud of my work and thought about how in class we engage in a lot of metacognitive examinations of the self but now I get the chance to examine a job that I personally completed.

I'll be honest, like I always try to be in these blogs, I wasn't entirely satisfied with the job I have done. I still have that sixth sense of knowing where everything is but now I feel like the job will never be done. Sure my room may seem organized for the moment but to keep it this way requires constant maintenance and reorganization every time things get a little messy. See what you've done Mr. Allen? You've created turmoil in my mind over something as trivial as the status of my room. Now I am pondering whether it is worth the constant cleaning to have a neat room. Before I began my project I felt like cleaning my room because I could blog about it and because I knew it would please my parents. Then while in the midst of my project all I could really think about was that I have way too many clothes. Now that I have completed my project I wonder if it will ever truly be done and whether or not I had just wasted my time. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it was not a waste of time and I hope that Aristotle can back me up on this point. From this experience I have probably gained more than I have lost. I have a cleaner room, happier parents, and something to blog about. The only thing I really lost was a couple hours and God knows I've wasted more time on dumber things.

Veering back from my tangent I suppose I should discuss the matter of actual organization. I think organizational skills are extremely valuable and having things in order is beneficial in almost anything and everything. Of course I cannot always practice what I preach because often I am disorganized and messy. I suppose it is a constant war to stay organized but the benefits are sweet. All in all, this was a weird experiment and I'm still not entirely sure of its purpose. All I know is that it got me to think about my working process and work ethic in a metacognitive lens and I guess that is pretty cool.

Metacognition: What Makes You Tick

Thinking about our thinking. Now that is intense. Breaking it down a little though I think that focusing on a single aspect of metacognition will help us understand what it is really about. I think that our frames of thinking or narratives are a driving force in how we think and that it has implications on both the micro and macro scale.

To me personally I think that addressing the concepts of narrative thinking and frames has helped me grow as a thinker in a lot of ways. For one my writing has become exponentially better than say five years ago. I am not even talking about the mechanical aspects of writing but just the expression part. I am able to sum up my thoughts about anything from Orlando to the global demographics circa 1450-1750 in a much shorter time than before. I am able to express my voice more clearly and get across my point much more efficiently in my essays and writing. This honestly applies to more than just personal writing though where I am able to express my opinions. It applies to historical and literature context as well. In a metacognitive state I know what is the most efficient way for me to absorb information say about the slave trade because I understand how I think and what frames I like to think under. Extending this idea about the slave trade at first glance it may seem overwhelming but it becomes much more manageable when I break it down into smaller parts like political, economic, and religious effects. Now going past even writing I think that because of my understanding of my own narrative I am able to better understand others'. This propagates in depth debate and discussion within our Academy class that I think is virtually unobtainable in any other setting. Not only have we been introduced to our own frames of thinking but for an extended time we have been exposed to the narratives of about thirty others. In this way we have a much better understanding about what issues some of us may find touchy or what issues enrage some of us. This surely helps us reach an overall better level of group thinking.

Now if we could just take the dynamics of the Academy class and apply it to a grander scale...well there would practically be world peace but aside from that our political dialogue would become much less cluttered. In a political context our narratives are the ideals that we hold most dear to us. National security, gay rights, immigration, or abortion are all just some a few of the topic matters that are worth dissecting. When we watch the debate on Tuesday it will be fun to see how Dana and Avi address the issues. This is because the two of them are more than well equipped with knowledge but they will try to employ tactical diversion, appeal to morals, and ethical remarks  to try and persuade the audience to their side. Basically to sum it up they are going to be thinking about their thinking while thinking about someone else's thinking too ( in this case Romney and Obama). Normally, I would think that a debate like this between high schoolers would end tragically but because we are all aware of the driving forces of thought in the debate I am pretty sure it is going to be sick.

Now for some closing thoughts I would like to return to me. On a quick side note I just realized how self centered these blogs actually are; but strangely it is in a good way. Now back on track I would like to talk about my own metacognitive state. In this blog I have dissected a lot of the aspects of frames of thinking and narratives but I also realize that I have much more to learn. As a high schooler I am finally beginning to cement my beliefs but my thinking and rationale is still extremely suspect to change. Also I think that if I wish to grow as an intelligent person that I need to spend more time understanding the driving forces that other people have in their lives. Overall I think my mental growth in the first quarter of this year alone is pretty outstanding. The largest recognizable contributor to this has to be the fact that in the Academy we are forced to face ourselves. This is honestly one of the coolest and scariest things ever because it is honestly reflecting your thoughts inwards and discovering what makes you tick and how your thinking process works.

Blogging Around: Sam and Sebas

Sorry about the blue but for some reason when I copied and pasted the text did not show up too good. This was the best solution I could think of, if it is hard to read please let me know and I will change it.

Sam's last blog entry about Facebook really got me thinking about the various implications that social networking has on our lives and I briefly explored my feelings toward it.

Okay let me preface everything by noting that I may have already posted a response to this but I think I deleted it so I will try to retype my response (rant) from memory.

Facebook is a guilty pleasure. I think we can all agree on that fact. Even now among the 13 pages I have open; Facebook is one of them. On a personal level I utilize Facebook a lot and there a lot of pros and cons attached to it. On the pros side I will never have to write down Academy homework again and there is no risk of me forgetting because I have Andy covering my back. Of course in the scenario that Andy is kidnapped or worse our lives become the plot of the TV show Revolution then I am screwed. More pros are that I have at least a dozen on call at any time to help me with whatever it is that I am too lazy to do myself. On the cons side it is worth noting that Facebook is a constant distraction to both myself and probably most teens. Sra. Cosgrove also brought up an interesting point about Facebook in class and about how there used to be a time when all your actions were not tracked. However now there is really no way to escape the constant stream of updates, statuses, and whatevers that follow you around. We have gotten to the point where anyone, anywhere, at anytime and basically cyber stalk you (lets not even pretend privacy exists on the internet). I think that that is a scary thought at the very least.

Going on to the second part of Korsky's post I think on the global or macro scale Facebook is a very powerful tool. It can organize revolutions and usurp nations, that is the awesome power wielded by Facebook. The even scarier thing is that any one of us can hold that very same power. There is no need to reiterate Korsky's statements but I agree with him that as of recently Facebook's global influence has increased dramatically. He also brought up a point I had never thought of before. As I looked through my own profile I realized that I "followed" posts from celebrities to shoe companies. All of them just vying for attention and using the free publicity of Facebook. There is a profound socio-economic effect that Facebook has on us all and the mere fact that we know what Facebook is means that we subscribe to its all mightiness. I mean seriously...if robots ever rise up against the human race I am half expecting them to use Facebook to track us down and systematically eradicate us.

Moving back to a more relevant stand point I have a slightly different view of Facebook than Korsky. In poems we have read and in class we have all make mockeries and satirical references to Facebook when in reality it has the power to cripple nations, proliferate ideas, has a population of over 600,000,000, and its owner is a billionaire. I would say that that is a pretty darn impressive resume. Now many may think that Facebook is the spawn of Satan but I think it is too early to tell. In a couple thousand years historians may look back and say the Facebook Revolution was as bad as the Agricultural Revolution for humanity but for now it is too early to tell. All that I am sure of when it comes to Facebook is that for better or for worse it is here to stay.

As for Sebas his blog entry about the educational system also got me thinking about how inconvenient it really is to face some of the hard facts. I explore my personal feelings about our school systems in my comments to that blog.

Sebas, I like your thinking. I agree that school systems are the type of things that constantly need to be innovated and updated.I personally would hate longer school days. The fact is that it would have to trade off time wise with after-school activities, clubs, sports, and just down time in general. Time is definitely of the essence and both GBN and GBS offer so many different opportunities that longer school days would subtract from the overall experience.

When looking for solutions I think they all have to be uniquely crafted to fit the school and community. Our teachers at the Glenbrook school are arguably some of the best in the state, if not the country. However, I see your point come across more clearly when you examine schools in impoverished areas and even inner city schools. The matter at hand is that we need quality over quantity. Teachers should teach because they truly wish to enrich and educate the lives of kids. As for your specific accounts of good teachers, I have to agree. In the Academy we have some of the finest teachers our two schools have to offer. In English we are able to tackle complex, in depth, topics successfully because the teacher is able to keep the entire class engaged and focused. Yet at the same time there is a certain level of interest and participation that I feel a student should reciprocate to a teacher. A teacher can lecture, play games, and even yell at the class but if his or her class chooses not to listen to him or her then it is their loss.

The conclusion of my rant in response to your rant is that I feel the only way to create a successful educational environment is through competent teaching as well as engaged learning. The responsibility starts primarily with the teacher especially in the younger grades but by the time you get into high school I believe it is about a 50/50 split of responsibility to teach and learn. By the time kids go to college I think you may have to learn a lot on you own without a teacher to guide you. I may have gone out on a tangent towards the end of this response but I am just putting in my two cents about the educational system. (Of course all my thoughts are subjectively biased since I can only speak from my personal educational experiences with school and the Academy).

iMedia: Arrow

A really annoying thing that happens to me with school is that whenever I learn something new or cool I find myself unintentionally applying it to all aspects of my life. We learned about all the tools that poets have at their disposal which was all pretty sweet but that made me think about how people form interests. Or better yet how advertisers catch your interests. I recently saw a commercial for an upcoming TV series and I thought about how even if the premise was absolutely horrible; trailers often highlight the best parts about shows and movies to make them seem awesome. In its own way, advertising is an art.

The commercial I saw was for a show called Arrow. I didn't know much when I first saw the trailer other than that it was based off the DC comic book hero Green Arrow. I personally love Green Arrow as a comic book character but I honestly didn't think that he could hold his own television show. Add in the fact that CW (the network that will be airing Arrow) had just finished off their block buster series Smallville and suddenly the whole situation smelled of desperation. If you are not familiar with Smallville it was a 10 season show that was the origin story of Superman. Now you ask any red blooded American and they can instantly tell you who Superman is; but Green Arrow is a bit more obscure and I doubt many would know much about him. This is the main reason I think the show will not be successful but as for this blog I want to focus a little bit on the trailer itself.

The trailer starts right off the back with Oliver Queen. He was a ridiculously wealthy boy but a boating incident left him stranded on an island for five years. After his rescue Queen decides he wants to clean up the filth from his home city and dawns the identity of the Green Arrow. Note: Green Arrow is not batman. Green Arrow is not batman lite. He just happens to be a young billionaire masked crusader. Now that we have cleared that up we can focus on the trailer which attempts to promote the show in a couple ways. First the music through out it attempts to get you pumped and the trailer starts with an action sequence and an explosion in the first fifteen seconds. The color green is also subtly and sporadically used to get the audience to connect with the character of the Green Arrow. The trailer also showed no hesitance in using multiple action sequences. The deliberate usage of all these factors to promote a single show is pretty astonishing to me and just like any other piece of art I think there are many ways to craft it.

Diverging away from the trailer itself I have to give my personal opinion. I will probably watch Arrow but will be very disappointed in CW if they attempt to just make it into their next cash cow. The reason Smallville worked so well was because the characters had great development, the writers took their time and effort with every episode, and it humanized Superman to the point at which the audience could relate. If the network tries to sell some cheap, low quality super hero show I guarantee that it will be gone just as soon as it came.

Best of the Day: Mockingbirds are Bad-ass

Today we discussed some of the fundamentals about poetry and I received a glimpse into all the various tools that a poet has at his disposal. I've never had anything personally against poetry but seeing that whiteboard made me nervous. Honestly poetry is really intimidating as is and knowing that I would have to write my own poem only made it worse. Yes, there are many fantastic poets and even countless many more poems in the world but I always end up thinking, "how could I ever create anything that good"?

I truly believed that anything I created for class would be terrible but at the end of class today I was kind of okay with it. After seeing that TED talk I realized how much fun poetry can be because it is a simple way of expression. The poet in the video was obviously skilled but he used so many of the tools written on the board with ease that it honestly comforted me a little. To name just a few, I recall him utilizing changing tempos, allusions, juxtapositions, non sequiturs, and that is just what I remember off the top of my head. His speech got pretty excited to write a poem because I know I will be given plenty of time to play with the craft and if I got that much enjoyment out of listening to a poem I can only imagine how the poet felt creating it.

English so far has been being a pretty good segue into poetry and the two videos that we saw today got my thoughts racing. The TED talk got me pumped to write my poem and then the second video made me realize that life is a little like a living poem. There are patterns, sequences, moments, and things that all portray beauty just like a poem. As I sit before my laptop typing away; my brain began flashing memories of moments from the day. The feeling of an electric toothbrush vibrating across my teeth. The moment I took my first step outside only to be greeted by a harsh cold breeze. The moment while I was daydreaming in class and realized that it was Monday. The very next moment when I realized that it is Tuesday and that I am an idiot. The feeling of having to tie your laces three times in a single day. The feeling of jumping into your comfy bed. These seemingly random events are all real moments from my day. If I had never watched the Moments video I definitely would view a list of events like that completely irrelevant to poetry but now I realize that some of those moments are what shape beautiful poems.

This also leads me to another revelation I had after English class today. Before the Moments video I felt that I could never be a good poet because I didn't have anything to write about. I am a fifteen year old boy living a fairly posh lifestyle whose biggest concern of the day was losing his poetry book. I know nothing of love, or loss, or fear, or tragedy because I've never experienced these things in a grand way. However, after class today I took away one very important lesson. I could try and write a poem about love and fail or write a  poem about what I know and have it be awesome. I think I'd choose the latter just because I ultimately want to produce something that I can be proud to show off. I learned a lot today. I learned that A. mockingbirds are bad-ass B. that A. actually has a poetic structuring that we like to hear C. that a great way to make ice cream seem nasty is to put a picture of poo before it and finally D. that anyone can be a poet and that poetry is everywhere. 

Best of the Week: Gender and Sex

I have to say that personally I believe you have a good discussion when it is on the verge of collapsing into a debate. We definitely had that this week when we were talking about gender and sex. I  learned a lot from our class experience including the fact that sex and gender are not synonymous of one another. One defines who you are biologically and the other can define who you are mentally. Yet ultimately the two words are still used to try and capture a person's identity.

A person's identity is in my opinion one of his or her most valuable possessions. I used to think your physical state and mental state would always correlate perfectly. Meaning that if you were a boy you would think like a boy and if you were a girl you would think like a girl. Just to get one thing out of the way I always knew there were gay, lesbian, and bisexual youths but I contributed that to what your sexual preference is; not to how you think. Now, other than that our class discussion brought up some interesting points on how you can be a boy with a girl-brain or a girl with a boy-brain. Or even better you can be a person who can access both types of brains. In my opinion that is pretty darn cool because it enables you to become a more critical and diverse thinker. 

Being a high schooler I know that too often people shelter who they are and hide their real "identity". For instance, Mr. Allen's talk to us about the native american author/speaker got my thinking about how I like a lot of "gay" things. I do not mean to use the term so crudely but in fact I do like a lot of girly things such as poetry. Yet just because I think with my girl-brain that does not mean that I am any less of a guy than someone else. Now as I go back to my original thought I wonder what terms define a person's identity. 

Up until after our discussion I always identified myself as a boy but now I feel that it is not that simple. If it is true that I have traits of a girl and think like a girl shouldn't my identity reflect part of that? Or is my identity merely me sex? To help myself I looked up identity and got, " the condition or character as to who a person or what a thing is". Honestly this did not help me very much. However, in the end based off our discussion in class as well as my own personal pondering I have reached a conclusion. A person's identity should be, in my opinion, a culmination of both their sex and gender, as both of these play an immensely important role. 

Captured Thought: True Patriotism

The USA is the greatest nation in the world. This mentality is the one carried by many in our country. The United States likely have the most patriotic citizens but only recently have I thought about what it means to be a true patriot. This thought was sparked by our discussions in class about how the United States healthcare system could emulate and learn from other models.

Before Healing of America and before our discussions in class I was rather ignorant to our healthcare concerns. All I knew was that we had a flawed system and that it was widely discussed in politics. Surprisingly, I never even thought about the healthcare models of other countries. I naturally assumed that as screwed up as our healthcare system was that other countries were much worse off than us. I am actually quite ashamed to admit this because as an Academite I like to believe that I am a global citizen but in truth my raging red-white-and blue nationality blinded me from what other countries had to offer us. My "Ah ha!" moment occurred when we were assigned to smaller groups to discuss a specific country's healthcare model. In my group we did Germany and I remember thinking about how T.R. Reid's goal is ultimately to aid the United States by bringing knowledge back about what policies and ideas other countries successfully implemented and what he thought would and would not work.

This was the moment I decided that T.R. Reid was a true patriot. In my eyes I see patriotism as wanting to better your country and accepting that it is not perfect. I think a lot of people today do the latter today but in a completely unproductive way. People complain everyday about flaws in the United State's policies but too often these people are overall uneducated or never actually try to make a change. Another type of people we have in the United States are those who are so stuck in the mindset that the United States is always right and that other countries are so inferior that they could never have anything to offer us. In a way I believe that I too was stuck in this mindset for a long time. It was not until I began moving away from it that I realized that being a true patriot took several steps. First being to accept that no country is perfect. The second is to see that there is always room for improvement. The third step is to think of you personally can help improve your country. Finally the fourth step and personally my favorite is to go out and do it. Based on these steps I think T.R. Reid is a true patriot and I hope that one day my actions will be able to impact my country or even the world.