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.