A Reflection on Metacognitive Thinking

After writing this blog and going over the entries from mine as well as Teressa's blog, I think I've learned quite a bit about my thought processes and how I can help my future students become better readers by tapping into their own thought processes.

The first thing that I enjoyed about this project was the fact that both Teressa and I found difficulty in the dialogue of our books.  I think this helped us relate to each other better because we found solace in the fact that we were both having trouble with the languages of the characters.  I think about us as students; what if we were high schoolers in a classroom reading one of these books?  The fact that we were able to talk to each other about our difficulties could be very beneficial.  Students should participate in a social reading of literature.  It may help them talk about their frustrations and find insight into the books through their friends and peers.

As I continue with this thought, I think about when Teressa and I both approached a part of Their Eyes Were Watching God with different perspectives, mine from an English major and hers from a history major.  We were both able to see the book in a new way through the words and thoughts of each other.  Students will be able to find new ways to look at literature if they communicate their ideas with their other students in their class.  Peer work with literature should definitely be incorporated more into classrooms and I will make sure I do this when I am a teacher.

The one thing that I think I learned from this blog is my "Think Aloud" process.  I guess I always did a Think Aloud (in my head) but I never realized its benefit until I realized I was actually doing it.  This process helped me out especially in Their Eyes Were Watching God when I was trying to decipher Hurston's writing.  By talking out my thoughts, I was able to put the pieces of the writing together to figure out exactly what was going on in that part of the story.

Overall, I enjoyed writing about my thoughts on literature and responding to Teressa's blog.  I think it helped me to become a better critical reader and I will be sure to incorporate some of the strategies that I learned into my future classroom.

A Lesson in Innocence and Adulthood

"Janie's first dream was dead, so she became a woman."

Chapter 3 is very short but I think it is an important transition in Janie's life.  Hurston starts the chapter by constantly implying Janie's innocence:

"Yes, she would love Logan after they were married.  She could see no way for it to come about, but Nanny and the old folks had said it, so it must be so.  Husbands and wives always loved each other, and that was what marriage meant.  It was just so.  Janie felt glad of the thought, for then it wouldn't seem so destructive and mouldy.  She wouldn't be lonely anymore."

Readers can see the childlike approach Janie has toward her very adult problem of being married and trying to love the person who she is wed to.  However, by the end of the chapter, she realizes that she will never love her husband, and her childhood dream of being in love with the person you marry is crushed.

From an English major's perspective, I think Hurston makes this such an abrupt chapter because Janie's transformation into an adult seems so quick.  Even her Nanny's death is glossed over.  Janie speaks to Nanny about not loving Logan and "a month later she was dead."  The whirlwind of Janie's change into a woman and her loss of innocence after seeing the world as lonely and unloving is represented in Hurston's fast-paced chapter.

I think the last paragraph of the chapter really shows how Janie's childhood ends and her adulthood begins.  Hurston uses "rebirth" imagery to show this change.  She writes, "She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun up.  It was wonderful to see it take form with the sun and emerge from the gray dust of its making."  Hurston is making it clear to readers that there will be a new Janie that emerges and though it seems dismal at the moment because Janie realizes that there is no love in her marriage, the imagery in these sentences is hopeful.  This makes me think back to the tree imagery that is constantly used (and it is used in this chapter as well).  Janie has lost her youth and is forced into becoming a woman, but I sense some hope in Janie's life through Hurston's writing.