Mete cognitive Reflection

Hannah Cooper

Personal Journalism 339 –W 9:00am

Summer Quarter 2015

Personal Journalism has taught me many new ways of thinking about writing in a lot of ways. This course has shaped my perspective on writing by increasing my skills in creative writing and more formal, as well as learning from other students through our class blog posts and concepts from our class.

One component of this personal journalism course I especially enjoyed was the process of writing in our journals itself. I generally like to write but don’t always make the time for it unless there is a deadline. However, this course gave me the desire to make time because for one, there was freedom with guidelines. In other words some written content was only read by a small audience which was less pressure. Second, I felt I could write down even small details that stood out to me without having a specific format, as far as the personal journal goes. The concepts from class and readings provoked a lot of thought.

One concept that stood out to that we discussed in class was identifying patterns in our writing. Some of the patterns that I noticed in my own writing in this time frame was, I used words that associated a feeling (genuine, love, relax) are some of the words. I went to the beach or other nature spots to write, that’s where I found most inspiration. However, sometimes it was hard to begin writing sometimes. I swear, I would think of something I wanted to write down at the most random times and then when I sat down, I would draw a blank. One of the tips you talked about in class Z, was to just set a time for yourself to write, and don’t stop until that time is up. I found this helpful because I didn’t feel so much pressure to write a master piece in the first two lines ‘haha.’ I usually didn’t write straight 30 minutes, but I’d spend a time frame of about two or whatever hours and take breaks in between writing sessions. The first five minutes of the writing sessions, I practiced the first order thinking qualities and thoughts that I would jot down. These thoughts would be random and sometimes the spelling would be incorrect or super just--- out there. Then I would be ‘warmed up’ and actually write with more a purpose in mind or theme.

At times I would write multiple pages with different topics, and other times just a page or rant.  I found it impossible to write in my own house, expect on the patio. The personal journal is easily transported and accessible anywhere, which worked well for me. I could leave my house and still have the opportunity to write and escape. A personal journal is my own. Someone could read the journal, but they can’t change those words on the paper. That fact is sort of scary, but at the same time liberating. On a computer for example, content and text can be deleted by a quick button.

The journal provoked questions I thought of. For instances if I looked back at a week old journal entry I would ask myself why did I feel that way? Was it the feeling temporary? What did I focus on? Why?

A process means there are steps and growth along the way, the journal helped me in the writing process through routine and practice of the art of writing itself. Each week it was interesting to identify patterns or ‘unpatterns.’ Either way, I discovered there are reasons for mostly everything and its’ important to ask questions like why?

 Writing things down helped with my memory and paying more attention to specific small details that I may not have kept note in my mind. When I went back and read my journal entries when organizing my final journal project, it brought me back to the moment when I was writing and the feelings I had at that time. It was a way to reflect and see if there was any progression made, or if the feeling I had then was temporary or still lingering.

Creating and maintaining the blog was super cool too-----!!!. It definitely peaks my interest—style---blog---writing---I eventually want to add more to my blog and start another one. It got me more comfortable formatting blog posts, and familiar with that writing style.
As far as the blog responses go, it was a little more difficult to get in that habit, but it is super important to engage with your audience for a couple of reasons. One, is I love getting read back on what people liked/disliked because it helped coordinate my next blog post. If the audience responds more to one blog post than another, I would take that into consideration and able to adjust and be more cognitive of the content I’m writing about.

Communication as we have learned is a two-way process, meaning it is extremely important to read feedback from who ever are reading and respond to them. I find it very helpful when people reply back because it lets me know there is someone ‘behind the computer,’ which makes it feel more personal.  The feedback provokes thought and allows me to go back and reflect like I mentioned earlier. Someone may respond to a post I made and ask a question that I had not thought of prior which helps me really dip deep as to the message I was trying to convey and if that message got understood.

One of the assignments from class where we had to analysis another person’s journal opened up my perspective on the process of writing. For one, I was looking for an article to write about which is part the beginning process, and I personally find articles I wasn’t planning on coming across but really spoke to me! It was neat to read other people’s personal thoughts because it made we realize we are all a little crazy.

Art and Distance section was interesting also because after I felt freer to write the content not so essay-like with more hidden meanings. I think I meant home after the art analysis class and wrote and poem and was like, “Oh yeah that’s art.” Haha. Like an art piece, a piece of writing can have many meanings and symbols. I find that particularly interesting about both (art and writing pieces).

I am definitely going to continue keeping a handwritten journal. Its’ helped me in a lot of ways especially with being more aware to detail. Writing down my thoughts is like therapy, I always feel better and more accomplished after. I have found that most feelings or emotions are temporary in terms of a reaction towards a situation. For example, one bad day at work doesn’t mean the next day will have the same outcome. In fact it has a greater chance of being better because I was able to acknowledge the feeling by writing it down and then figuring out a solution to make the next time a better experience! Of course not all of my journal entries were rants; many were writing down the little things that made me feel good like a new recipe I want to try or documenting moments that stood out to me.

To sum it all up, I want to highlight a few--- for me was our class discussions and blog posts, the art analysis, the journal project, listening to music during class during our free writes, and readings from the book Project Happiness, which all provided me with a desire well to, ‘never to stop thinking about thinking and writing.’

Sincerely,

Hannah Cooper