Metacognition: The Year

So hard to believe that this year is almost over... i can't possibly remember everything we've done this year, but I can definitely name a few things I didn't like about this year:
- Writing my own short story
- The first vocab test
- King Lear Reading Quizzes
- Reading Heart of Darkness
- Watching Michael K mess things up... I just feel really bad for the guy.
- Only being able to talk when we are jumping for "brass rings" rather than being allowed to have an organic, flowing discussion.

However, the brass ring problem is relatively new. So we did have most of the year for absolutely wonderful discussions... and to be honest, for every thing I didn't like I could probably name two things i did:
- All the vocab tests after the first one
- Reading "The Kite Runner"
- Seeing "Amadeus" (the bus rides were pretty awesome, too)
- When the homework is to get 45 extra minutes of sleep
- Same Scene, Different Setting
- Finishing the Poem
- Thinking about Sophie's World
- Reading Short Stories
- Reading "Jane Eyre"
- Reading "Michael K"
- Watching "Once"
- Planning a Service Project
What I really like is that neither list looks like a normal list of things one does in an ENglish class. My entire elementary school and junior high English education consisted of reading. When I was young it was short stories that were written for that level of reading. In junior high we had the same routine: Read a novel, take a multiple choice test on what happened, and write an in-class essay (usually on the themes of the book). Yeah, for three years. The only movie-watching we did was the film version of the novel we just read, and it only happened as a time-filler if we were ahead of the other class. No analytical thinking. No form-is-content. THis class was so interesting for me because we discussed all kinds of literature: poems, short stories, short novels, long novels, plays, and even movies. Everything has importamce, too. WHy a story was told in a certain form. WHY a write use this word or put a colon instead of a comma here. Things I never would have even considered looking twice at are significant pieces of evidence. I also really like that movies aren't just pictures flashing in front of your face and killing brain cells like my parents tell me. It's another form of storytelling, or ART, like literature. THere are levels of meaning or emotion that only film can capture. Like the Vermeer reference at the end of ONCE... no way literature could capture that. ANd Tsotsi vs. Michael K. Both characters are solitary. They're vaults. You see what they do and you can't see why. But it's shown in different ways. in general, this year's class has taught me how to see in different ways and think in different ways. More little things provoke big thoughts in me. I've become more awake and more aware of meaning.