Journey Log 6 triciajordan16-warrior-Journey Log 6-creativity&metacognition

This past week I have really struggled with beginning to write the research paper on monsters, mine being the Headless Horseman. Having always been taught the five paragraph essay, I struggled to break from that. I also struggled with organization of the paper. I also struggled to find time to write it. Lot's of struggling and failing going on here this last week.

Finding My Creativity

This week I have a ton of midterms plus the rough draft for this paper due. I also went home to New York real quick for a family matter, therefore I knew I would not have a ton of time. Realizing this I decided to use my layover time between flights to write this paper. That in itself was a failure because I was pretty distracted and ended up taking two hours to write only 500 words. Part of that failure was my lack of creativity. I had such a hard time looking past a basic (and boring) compare and contrast essay on the two versions of the Headless Horseman. Finally I thought to look back on my notes that I took during our meeting last week and I decided to do further research on the contextual happenings at the times of both stories. I found some really interesting things in doing that research, and I think it will extend my paper and make it much more interesting and in depth to read. However for this rough draft I have only included the comparison and contrast because I wanted to use the original research first.

Reflecting on My Thinking

To be honest I did not know what meta cognition meant prior to this journey log, and I did not even want to use it. I didn't want to use it partially because I didn't quite understand it, but I had to include it because I'm a warrior and have to use two habits of mind and this was the final unused word. So I did a little bit of research on meta cognition. Looking back on how I first wanted to organize this research paper, it was pretty boring and closed minded. I think that's why I was so resistant and frankly not happy about the whole assignment in the beginning. Now that I have begun to look deeper and into more interesting concepts of the monster, such as why the Headless Horseman is so prevalent that there is a current television show on it, the writing of the paper has become more bearable. Like I said before I spent over two hours writing only 500 words, and feeling defeated afterwards. Once I changed my mindset and organized the paper in a more cultural way I was able to write more and in a shorter time. I think this also leads from my need to be more creative into my need to be more open as well. Openness is a concept I've struggled with throughout this class in particular, but it is definitely getting better as the semester goes on.

Overall this monster research paper has pushed me to look into a topic I was never really interested in and make it into something I can potentially enjoy. I have had to learn to be more creative with a topic I knew nothing about, and didn't know how to research or organize it. At certain steps along the way I have had to stop and reevaluate my thinking process, particularly when things aren't going well or the way I had planned. This rethinking process helped center my thoughts and all around produce something that when it's finished, I know I can be proud of.

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