Metacognition Two: Jane Eyre Writing Assignment

Following our reading of Charlotte Brontë's 1848 classic Jane Eyre, we were assigned a writing assignment asking us to take the roles of a publisher, Charlotte herself, and a curious Academy student. The end result, we felt, was one worth handing in. Now, I shall analyze the process of its creation and how my thinking developed throughout the project.

First off, the basics: I worked with Bill Angel, we met once for two hours in person and then did the rest through online collaboration. Our work was pretty evenly divided, and I didn't ever feel that I was doing more or less than Bill was.

In terms of time on the project, the beginning was certainly the slowest and most difficult part for me. Actually fleshing out a real-world application of Jane Eyre required a lot of thinking and brainstorming. As a result, the story is not as polished in the final product as I would have liked it to be. It's very fragmented, and obviously doesn't flow as well as it should. This annoyed me while writing, but the way that the assignment was designed somewhat hampered our ability to craft a nice story.

I assume the tale itself was not as important as the process, though, and I felt that our actual work went well. Collaboration was no problem, and for the most part we agreed on the story. I had a hard time finding quotes at points, even though my book is marked up pretty heavily.

My thinking revolved around a few topics, for the most part. First of all, I don't think that the transitioning of themes from a book into the real world is a new thing for us. With the King Lear acting project, we did something very similar. I see the benefit from moving stories forward through time: themes and morals that are so important are more easily accessible in a modern environment.

Also, I thought the characters worked pretty well for what we were trying to accomplish. To be honest, having the publisher around got annoying at times because I felt we had to have her barge in on Charlotte's discussions with the Academy student. Obviously, Brontë served as a catalyst for what we were trying to accomplish. That being said, I don't think she's completely necessary-- couldn't two Academy students in a discussion serve the same purpose?

Finally, it's important to note that I could feel actual results from creating our own story. The original text seemed more clear and resonant once we had created our own version, and I guess the project succeeded on that front. Whether our final product succeeded, though, is in your hands.

Metacognition: Jane Eyre

Alright, well, I set out to make a post as long as Jane Eyre to entertain you, as I know you have no other amusement. My wish did not come into fruition, though, as other stupid things like math homework called out to me. So, in a very much abridged form, I present you with some thoughts on this novel.

I'll just get this out of the way immediately: I was slightly intimidated (not, like, scared or anything) of Jane and her story before we began. Before we started this 'unit,' Jane Eyre was nothing more than an orange-covered hunk of paper in the bottom of my closet. The very bottom. The only remarks I had heard on the book were that Jason Chen himself had read the book at an early age and had found it completely boring. What a goof.

Then, as we began our unit, I was excepting another dive into the literary heart of darkness (do you like that one?). Yes, Joseph Conrad's book was very hard for me to read. So, I was sure that we were in for more complex, thick English language and a lethargic story.

The first few readings were, at least to me, a little difficult to pay attention to. I would read about Jane's cousins and then begin thinking about the Christmas ten Christmases ago, or I'd breeze through a paragraph wondering if anything major had happened (if Jane died, I wouldn't have known). I was, at the story's start, very excited by the scarcity of reading quizzes.

As the book progressed, and Jane's angst-filled childhood came to a close, I felt the book locking in a bit more. The narrative took interesting turns, and Jane's story started to, in the very slightest manner, capture my attention. In terms of language, my fears were met with a relative lack of difficulty and thoughts of Brontë writing the story knowing that I'd read it and didn't want it to be too complex. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's what she did.

In terms of Brontë and Jane being nineteenth-century (our now commonplace pseudo-adjective for her), the only notice I had of it was in setting and character interaction. Obviously, when she goes into depth on bonnets and other silly articles of clothing we can't really relate. Also, when Rochester and Jane converse, we see that he is in a position superior to hers. This hopefully isn't the case in most relationships in our culture, so I found this to be slightly irritating.

Far beyond and more in-depth than the language and character structure, however, are the themes of the novel. I find that, in the same way that Romeo and Juliet's are still applicable, Jane Eyre's come through and shine with modern meanings. Teacher talk: A great piece of literature will have ideas that can last forever, even if the characters or situation don't. So, to me, Jane Eyre and Rochester died some time in the late 1860s of cholera. St. John went out to sea in order to return to England, but was tragically lost on a island. ABC continues his narrative on Tuesday nights at 8:00pm.

In a final move to think about my thinking before I regress to writing stories, I guess I didn't connect with the story. The events in Jane's life didn't really matter that much to me, in terms of what I could get from them. But the themes that Brontë implanted in her characters resonated for me, and I think that's what matters. Culturally, we are very, very far away from where we were in the 19th century. On the basic human level, though, that's a very small window of time and very little has changed. Thus, we still love in the same way and we still hold emotions in a similar fashion. SparkNotes won't tell you that.

360 Degrees: Shaun White (Just kidding, Women's Rights)

Women's rights. I'm going to skip the summary because pretty much everyone knows what I'm talking about here. Yet there are myriad angles to look at, and the prompt calls for me to explore all of them. To brighten up this slightly exhausting task, I shall take on the voice of various historical entities. Then, I shall summarize and talk about what really matters in the end. Let us begin.

White Male, 1850: 'Women do not need rights, they need to continue working. In fact, if there are any women reading this currently, I shall tell them to work.'

Charlotte Brontë: 'My writing and wondrously long sentences will contribute to this cause- one that I find to be particularly interesting, and most important, for all females; we must be empowered; characters like Jane Eyre will show us the way, to true recognition of what society needs.'

Simone De Beauvoir: 'Sartre and I just had a talk, you see. Humans have an innate freedom, and women are not excluded from this. Mais, je ne parle pas anglais."

Modern-Day Female: "Rights have become normal to me. Wait, there was a time without women's rights? How come I don't get paid as much as the men at work?"

White Male, 2010: 'Women have all the rights they-hey, did you see the Blackhawks last night?'

Me: Alright, now that I've gotten some of the goofiness out (there are a few words of value up there, they're just sporadic and hard to find), I must declare that I do think this is a very serious and current issue.

Women were not granted rights, so to speak; rather, a certain group of women fought very hard and long to win rights. From a male standpoint, I wouldn't argue that there's any loss to what we're able to do. Perhaps some males fear the empowerment of women (I don't, but I grew up in the 1990s, not the 1900s).

We're at the point now where rights are pretty close to being even here. This probably can't be said about most of the world, however, and it seems some places are lagging behind in the kind of progressive thinking that brought us here. I mentioned Simone, but many other philosophers joined her: Mary Astell, Mary Wollstonecraft, and William Godwin were just a few.

From the perspective of art and philosophy, it appears natural that women eventually gained some rights. Art is always on the forefront of progression, philosophy is usually either further ahead or just behind. In some cases, philosophers were also scared of female power but often they greatly aided the cause.

In essence, women's rights had to happen here eventually. Stretching all the way back to the enlightenment we saw ideas of basic human rights. Early American doctrines often spoke of equal rights among [white males]. The logical progression to pay attention to the other 52% of the world and welcome females to the table. So, all perspectives tended to clash on the issue; I hope none do now because that's just silly.

The female rights movement was one of the single most important historical events in America. The addition of females to political and social ventures has surely changed them greatly. Whether you're Beauvoir, Brontë, or some silly 1850s guy, you've got to agree: we couldn't really do anything without them.

An Inconvenient Truth: Environmental Issues, Again (By Al Gore)

During my trip to Colorado this break, I was certainly struck by how awesome the world around us was. We went to Beaver Creek, an area surrounded by other mountains. The scenery is picturesque and the views are amazing.

And you won't hear about Colorado without mention of the 'mountain air.' It does seem to be true-- there's something better about being in the mountains. The ironic thing was that, throughout this trip, I noticed a large number of things that conflicted with Colorado's natural beauty.

First of all, I realized that while snowboarding is fun, we're only able to do it because someone came along and wrecked a bunch of trees in order to form trails. Also, the mountain's maintenance each year requires deforestation and surely the pushing away of animals.

Also, the amount of smokers and people who litter on the mountain is ridiculous. If the mountain air is so brilliant, why smoke out chemicals and carcinogens into it? And the litter is terrible at times; I've gone down runs filled with Candy bar wrappers, old ski equipment and other garbage. It's disturbing how some people thing the world is one big trash can.

To top off the environmental issues going around in my head, I woke up one day in the middle of the week and went out to the hotel room door. There, on the cover of a complimentary New York Times, was a headline stating that Obama had cleared close to 130 million acres around Alaska for oil drilling.

I haven't been to Alaska but most of my family has, and from what I've heard, it is one of the most amazing places on the planet. I understand from the article that Mr. Obama is being careful in choosing exactly where the drilling occurs, but this still angers me greatly. We've reached the point that our use of resources is truly out of hand. Now we must turn to tearing apart natural habitats in order to satisfy oil needs.

This is the center of the issue, in an Ishmael-like fashion: humans tend to think that their lives are more important than those of any other species. It's a want for instant gratification, I think. I may go through my whole life trashing the planet, but that's okay, because I won't be around to deal with it.

I dare you to carry this attitude into an episode of Discovery's new Life, essentially Planet Earth part two. Both series are, in my opinion, some of the most amazing things ever to hit television. Ignore Oprah's (annoying) narration and witness the animals around us; you won't believe some of the things that they're capable of.

Clearly I'm on the side of the nature activists here, but that doesn't mean I'm perfect. I have littered, I have destroyed nature, surely. I can see that side of it as well: we do need oil, we need resources, and we are always wanting more. With a stance strictly based on progression of humanity, deforestation and trashing of the planet are perfectly fine. That is, until we reach the point that we've destroyed ourselves.

This is an issue that I won't solve, and it doesn't look like Mr. Obama will either. It's going to exist for a very long time, as future people struggle to find the balance between animal and human. What we need to realize first, though, is that there isn't a huge difference between the two.

Dialectics: Courage and Progression

Progression is inevitable in our world; we are constantly pushing towards change and this trend will really never stop. There are many ways to define progress: in arts, sciences, human relations, economics, education, athletics, and just about anything else. Because we are studying Jane Eyre in English and things like World War II and Gandhi in History, I found it an appropriate time to speak on human progression.

The other side of this dialectic is courage. If we look back at history, we see that certain people had an immeasurable amount of it. These people, like Martin Luther King Jr. or Abraham Lincoln, were extremely brave and typically faced huge odds against them. They were able to persevere with some kind of burning passion for what they were doing.

The dialectic is interesting because all progression is courageous, but not all truly courageous people push for progression. Any time something progresses or changes, there must be a sort of courage involved. This stands true even for something small, like a family progressing by getting new jobs or a new house-- if courage isn't there, the move won't be made.

On the other hand, some people who are courageous unfortunately do not wish to progress. Some of history's biggest figures, like Adolf Hitler or Napoleon, had courage but did not use it to push for beneficial change. Instead, they turned around and searched for regression. In Hitler's case, he was brave enough to stand in front of a hurting nation and promise that he would make it all better. Then he acted terribly, with a disgusting measure of racial discrimination and a complete lack of humanity.

Courage is essentially a catalyst for our world's occurrences. It can lend itself to progression or regression, but in the hands of the right people it will certainly do good for our world. Progression itself is the key to how our world works; as soon as we stop changing everything will fall apart. This is why brave people like Charlotte Brontë have stories that still resonate now: they were able to change the world in great ways, and their influence was profound.

We can learn from this dialectic in many ways. It's important to know that true courage isn't unreachable, as long as you believe wholeheartedly in something. Martin Luther and Gandhi had a passion for their beliefs, to the point where it became a life's quest to achieve what they wanted. If we can find this passion, and a true sense of courage, then progression is bound to happen and we can change the world.

Blogging Around: February and March

Darrell had an interesting post on Obama and postmodernism, where he made a convincing argument that our president is influenced by postmodern thought. I commented:

Darrell, this is a cool post. I've never really thought of Obama as a postmodernist, but your realizations are pretty convincing. Also, the idea of physical postmodernism is interesting-- the background of a person may have a profound influence on who they are.

It's a good idea to analyze our world leaders like this because we need to know where they're coming from. If we don't know anything about their background or philosophy, then we're just following them blindly. If I had to guess, I would say that many of the world's leaders are influenced by postmodernism.

Lauren blogged about Food, Inc. and how it analyzes the way we run our food system. She also made comparisons to Ishmael. I commented:

Although I haven't seen this movie, I've heard a lot about it and it actually sounds interesting. I think it's cool that you related it back to Ishmael, and I see the parallels. The idea of us ruling over all other life and being able to manipulate it for our own good is a little disturbing.

As you said, the way we produce food does have some benefits. In the end, people get more food and it costs less to make. But I think at some point we have to set a limit as to how far we're taking all this.

Best of Week: Cathedral and Intimacy

This year in English we have, obviously, read many stories of all sorts. We've read Shakespeare, modern depictions of Afghanistan, and all in all a huge variety of literature. I find it awesome that, after all these things, we're finally touching on short stories. I find that short stories can be the most meaningful to read and possibly the most fun to write. They can have all of the meaning without an intimidating amount of length-- writing or reading long books can be, well, difficult.

So, our entry into the short story unit should naturally have begun with reading a short story. This week we read Raymond Carver's Cathedral and I found our discussions on it to be very interesting. The major topic that we brushed on was intimacy of all sorts present in the story. There's a whole lot of it going on, so it was somewhat of a difficult task to break it all down.

The class, I think, agreed that the most passionate form of intimacy lies between Robert, the blind man, and the narrator's wife. Between the narrator and his wife is a pretty big lack of intimacy: physical, emotional, religious, or Romantic, it's all lacking somewhat. A class example came on page 218, where the narrator's wife only mentions Robert's name and never the narrator's, though he anxiously awaits its mention. We all agreed that Carver had intentions for this, to demonstrate the void of intimacy between them. Lastly, I find it interesting that all the intimacy in the story is centered around the narrator's wife. Her ex-husband, Robert, and her current husband, all shared some form of intimacy with her.

Intimacy is present in pretty much every story every made; I can't name a single one without it. It is the thread that binds characters and people together, and without it there's really nothing for an author to work with. It's very important, especially in a short story, to establish ties between the characters whether they be physical, emotional, or social. As we write our own short stories, I think it's very important to take this all into consideration.

Without any intimacy, the entire world would just be meaningless and void of emotion. Carver's story does a great job establishing it, even with a somewhat drone and simple narrator. This goes to show that intimacy exists aside of the speaker, that like postmodern memory, it exists around us and we are part of it. Intimacy is not a choice, but rather is omnipresent and we must acknowledge this in our writing.

iMedia: Tommy Igoe on Drums

The following is a video from New York City's Birdland Jazz Club:

You might be thinking, great, a drum solo. What could possibly be artistic or meaningful about slamming wooden sticks into plastic heads and making loud noises?

The simple answer is that, if you find any other instrument artistic, then you can say the same about drums. A drum head is simply a string stretched out, in a way. So, melodies, harmonies, rhythm, soloing- they can all be done on drums.

I picked this specific solo mostly because of the man behind the kit. He Tommy Igoe, son of famous drummer Sonny Igoe, plays weekly at the Birdland club and also plays sessions for countless jazz musicians around the NYC area. Most importantly, though, he is perhaps the best professional teacher. It seems many professionals can't teach at all, but he can do it all.

So, before going off completely on a drum-related rant, it's important to actually relate this to something. A drum solo, in a way, is like language. It must still contain rhythm and a sort of structure, but creativity is allowed within that structure. Look at the end of the solo, when Igoe finishes and the entire band comes in perfectly. The root of the song is never lost, and that's a cool thing. Not only is he drumming fluidly and quickly, but the whole time he is counting and making sure to be ready.

This perfect drumming combination is just like a great author- on a simple layer is their basic structure, the form of paragraphing of their work. More complex is the fluid manner with which they use language. Music is just like writing, and really like any art form. People too often divide up art forms into different forms, but it's pretty obvious that all art is art. Sure, there is a technical difference between typing words and playing drums, but it's all in the ultimate search for artistic beauty.

Drums are the perfect example of an instrument in terms of structure, often being called the backbone of music or the driving force behind all of it. I'm not arguing that they're most important (but certainly the most fun to play), but they relate to language in many different ways.

What I'm ultimately getting at is that art is basically a simple structure, stacked on with creativity and improvisation of sorts. Professionals- writers, musicians, painters, photographers, etc.- always pay attention to that structure but never accept sticking to it completely. This is why we read classic works: to learn history and get a feel for the structure. Now, in our own writing, it is our job to push the boundaries of writing and think of new thoughts.

So, for our next unit, we should take a field trip to New York and see some music.

Connection: Heart of Darkness and The Hurt Locker

Heart of Darkness and The Hurt Locker. It's interesting to think that two different kinds of works of art (book and film), created over 110 years apart, can be connected. I'd say that's the true mark of a great classic book: if it can stand for 100s of years and still be relevant, the writing must be forward-thinking and well ahead of its time.

This was clearly the case with Conrad's novella, and as I watched Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker this past weekend, the connections were relatively easy to make. Just for anyone who hasn't seen the film, it's about an American IED (bomb) squad in Iraq and especially the man who suits up and defuses bombs. Without spoiling the end, it's important to note that he has a sort of addiction to his work with IEDs and battle.

The first, and most obvious connection between the two works is that the main character is seen as imperfect. There's no glorifying here, either in Marlow's horrible situation or in the bomb squad's missions. The Hurt Locker is really one of the only war movies I've ever seen that's not glorified with some overarching message. It's a very raw, personal film and that's the kind of story that Joseph Conrad gives us as well.

On a much deeper level than the plot is the inclusion of postmodern philosophy in both works. We've drawn many postmodern parallels to Heart of Darkness, such as the fragmented view of Kurtz throughout the story. In The Hurt Locker, though, we get a similar, very disconnected perspective on the whole story. Time in the film is almost random, events are spliced together in such a way that we don't understand the whole picture. We never hear orders from a higher official in the military or anyone giving orders to these men. In the same way that Conrad's story is one with a backdrop in the Congo, the Iraq war serves as a foundation for Bigelow's real plot.

Another huge postmodern element in each of these two works is the idea that "everything is a commodity." The implications of this statement are pretty obvious in Heart of Darkness, where all African resources are to Europeans "just another commodity," and human life itself can be pushed out of the way to achieve economic goals. The Hurt Locker, and war itself, work in a similar way: human life is just another tool to reach a goal, to be victorious or to gain something. On the postmodern scale, everything belongs to somebody and that's just what war is about; when everything is owned by somebody, we're simply talking about properties being exchanged between owners. Nothing else matters.

These two awesome works of art will likely remain classics for decades to come, and it's interesting to me that they inform each other even when they were so spread out in time, and about such different topics. It's almost like the connection itself brings about postmodernism- time is nothing but a fragmented staggering of different ideas. It seems that both works picked up on similar ideas, and this is important because we understand a little bit more about the Iraq War now- through Heart of Darkness' morals and through The Hurt Locker's sense of closeness to individual soldiers. War is a very postmodern affair in some ways, and given that we as a country spend time, money, and most importantly human lives on war, it is essential that we explore every aspect of it.

Metacognition: The First Semester

The first semester, where to begin?

Well, the first thing I'd like to put out is that classes have been (relatively) fun thus far. Also, I find that through each year of school, the first semester is usually the harder one to get through. So, if you don't give us any work throughout the second semester (and make something out of the "Academy SRT" on our schedules), you could really reinforce that claim.

On a more serious note, I really did learn a lot this semester. To be honest, before The Blue Sweater, I didn't even know what a social entrepreneur was. Now, I really like the idea of a synthesis of travel, business, and helping people, because I really do want to try and make a difference. I'd rather make some kind of mark than just waste oxygen for the next 60 or 70 years. Ouch, that was harsh.

The other stories we read were okay, to be honest. The Kite Runner was a good book, but not the best story I've ever read. I guess my thinking here was that the plot was a little too obvious, almost being sold to a read-for-entertainment audience.

King Lear told me once again that, for whatever reason, I'm just not a fan of Shakespeare. I respect his profound abilities to write and tell stories, I just haven't bought in on his all-around genius yet. Sure, he can write with more creativity than I, but if his writing isn't connecting with me, then does it mean anything? The project we did to cap off King Lear wasn't my favorite, either. I like the idea of creatively portraying stories, but I think we treated it a little too much like drama class. I might be the only one thinking this, but some of us aren't exactly born to act out plays and I'm not sure it's a great idea to assess that ability in English class.

Sophie's World was a little bit of a tough read for me. I didn't know a whole lot about all of the past philosophers, and while I was familiar with the big names, the sheer amount of text and the way it was written didn't appeal to me. The ending got way too crazy and it lost any meaning to me. I guess I was expecting a little more from it, thinking that Gaarder's genius was going to go farther than the psychedelic things that went on. My change in thinking from Sophie's World, though, was probably worth the murky read. I think I have more of a philosophical basis now, and a much better source of reason to base my thoughts on. If Gaarder didn't at delivering a story that I liked, he certainly did a good job telling me about philosophy.

After touching a little on the major things we did, I realized that there were a few major points where my thinking changed. The first was in The Blue Sweater- I realized that helping people is something I really want to do. The next came with King Lear- thinking about things creatively is really a good way to learn them. Finally, Sophie's World gave me a philosophical basis where I had no foundation before- something important to use in the future.

I find that I learn really well with the parallels to music. The day we listened to different styles of music in class from the Baroque and Renaissance periods was one of the best so far, I think. Music is something that I am very in touch with, so references to it help a lot. The one thing I am having trouble with is some of the in-depth 'commentary' on how to write. I feel that some of the rhythm analysis is just a little far-fetched. Beat by Beat was well-done, and taught me a lot about writing skills, but I feel that maybe I automatically do some of that.

I realize that I still don't talk much in class, but I also don't feel that I will change that in a major way soon. The only way I can attempt to articulate the reason is by saying that I guess I'm trying to conserve only the better ideas for putting out. I wouldn't say I'm lacking the ideas as much as I'm more critical of them than some people. Some of my classmates put pretty much anything out on the table (and that's okay), but I prefer to reserve most of my ideas for myself unless they can help someone else. Why should I force myself to say a certain number of things to say? It's kind of like apologizing to someone without being sincere- what's the point? I understand that it's something to work on, and I'm not denying the value of expressing your opinions. It's just not that simple, I think.

This may have sounded more like an angry rant at some points than Metacognition, but I'm really not angry at all with the first Semester. I don't like the way any of this works, to be honest- being at school from 7:00 AM til 5:30 PM and then going home to homework, drum practice and other obligations is never fun. But, to put complaining aside, I like the way this is all headed. I guess in the end I'm the one that signed myself up for all of this, and if it's all the interest of preparing myself for the future, then I'm all in. But sometimes I feel that we should slow down a little more and try to enjoy what's going on right now. Hang on a second, seriously- 78 days, 19 hours until spring break.