I learned this week that sometimes, you just have to press on. Things will go wrong, things will be out of place, and people will try to bring you down. You might think that writing an 8 page paper in 2 hours may seem far fetched, but if it is something that needs to be said... you'll amaze yourself. I wrote an exploratory essay last night that covered the topic of racism. As a future English teacher, I understand the importance of racism. My issue I had was what my teacher voiced to us and what she expects us to achieve in our classroom. I had a strong urge to just agree with her views and say "yes ma'am" so I could get that A, but I couldn't do it. I voiced my own opinion, and I even had a little fun making jabs at her in response to it. Moral of the story? Sometimes you just need find the strength in your own voice and stand for what you believe, even if it will cost you in the future.
There are a few important concepts that we learned in Mr. S' class which may have gone unnoticed until we talked about our experiences together. The biggest, or most influential, concept that I learned this week would have to be the use of a big question to guide my reading. Often, when I was in high school, I would find myself reading through pages and pages of a book only to realize that I hadn't been immersed in the text. I couldn't remember anything that I had read. Most of the time, this problem stemmed from a lack of purpose for my reading. If I don't have a personal investment in the text, like something to find out, or a question to answer, reading can feel pointless which leads to being distracted easily. Since our big questions were developed by us, we have a personal investment in the story--we chose the question, and we have a desire to answer it. If not, then we should try asking a different question.
Something that helps answer our question, and helps to keep our reading on track, at least for me, is annotating texts and taking notes. Mr. S taught us this week about the practice of "pic notes" which involves snapping pictures of important pages which can be referenced later. This concept is awesome because it allows us to note important pages in our text without stopping for too long and bringing ourselves out of the text. One of the goals of having an essential question is to become more invested and immersed in our reading, so using a note-taking strategy that allows that to be more of a reality is awesome. This week in class and out, I have relearned something that is incredibly important in life. This may sound philosophical to some, but time is a sensitive thing. The minute we are born into this world, we are dying. As Gandalf said in Lord of the Rings, "Its not how much you have, but what you do with the time that is given to you." I started to think of how much time I spend on my phone and how much time classes take. I also think about how much time I spend with my friends and significant others. I was talked to by one of my professors because I am starting to fall behind in class. She reminded me that you have to manage your time better... and she was dead on. I took my book with me to a concert I was required to go to, and ended up reading almost 70 pages in an hour and a half. It goes to show that if you manage your time wisely, you will achieve so much more in life and feel so much better about your future. |
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February 2017
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