Joey Abely

November 28, 2018

Dr. Drown  

English – 122

Habits of Joey Abely’s Mind

          High school English class was a mess; teachers teach students to actively read and annotate an article by underlining half of the material, write in five paragraph essays, and never write in the first person. All of these were cemented into my head, a mindless memorization of going through the same process and same habits every day at noon when I had the class and when I got home to do homework. I was always sceptical about these methods as they were not feasible. I remember one time in highschool I was given an article to mark up in class and then write a short essay on. I started by annotating the text with the basic relevant information to answer the prompt, but the teacher quickly saw the minimal amount of underlining I did and demanded me to underline more. When it came time to write the essay my paper looked like it had been painted by Picasso; it was underlined everywhere and since my insisted in using different colors it was multicolored. I could not even focus on the words anymore it was ruined! When I entered my English 122 course this semester I suspected that I would learn about the exact same habits but those expectations were not accurate at all. Now we are encouraged to only annotate relevant information, ditch the five paragraph essay theme, and write in the first person. I honestly thought it was a joke when my professor said these things to my class but look where I am now; in college writing a final paper in nothing other than the first person! My habits did not work well at all as I was so used to doing everything backwards. I had to unlearn almost everything to be successful in this course and in my further writing endeavors.

          One of the only things that I was able to use was introducing a quote, stating the quote, and then explaining it, but that was only a minimal part of this class. Leaving the old rules behind and using the new seven habits of the creative mind was definitely a learning curve but I am now more confident in my english abilities than I ever was before. Habits of the Creative Mind is given most of the credit for my adaptations and success in this English-122 class. The authors Richard E. Miller and Ann Jurecic came up with seven habits of the creative mind, “ When you commit yourself to practicing these habits-curiosity, attentiveness, openness, flexibility, reflectiveness, and persistence-you will also be committing yourself to making a habit of creativity,…” (Miller and Jurecic). These words could not be any more true, I have already found myself doing much better after practicing these habits for four short months!

          Earlier in the semester my professor gave us a writing assignment to do about whether it was just or unjust to kill and eat animals. We were given an article called An Animal’s Place, written by Michael Pollan that challenges the writing of another writer named Peter Singer. The article written by Pollan challenges all the ideas given by Singer in his writing about whether it is fair for us to kill animals and eat them. We were given a homework assignment, to start constructing an essay, the following day after reading and marking up the article. The assignment wanted us to consider certain aspects in the article, What should be the criteria for determining whether it’s ethical to kill and eat animals?, Singer’s speciesism/racism analogy, the relative weight of human suffering and animal suffering, whether human beings have a responsibility to treat animals well, whether the happiness or welfare of animals matters, the implications of Pollan’s definition of “domestication”, should we define what’s good for animals as what’s good for the individual animal versus what’s good for the species, how useful is philosophy in thinking about these questions?, are there limits to philosophy?, singer’s response to Pollan’s email, animal rights versus animal welfare, how effective Pollan’s “glass walls”/”looking” solution would be to improve animal welfare. After seeing the list of aspects to consider I was extremely confused in fact the most confused I have ever been on any assignment given to me in my school career. I did not know where to start at all; I stared at a blinking cursor on a blank document for probably thirty minutes straight but then after going back to the assignment on the website for the hundredth time I decided to crack Habits of the Creative Mind because I needed something to help me going. I skimmed the glossary and finally made my way to a page that gave me all the help and motivation to start writing, “Pollan makes his own view on meat eating clear from the very first sentence of ‘“An Animal’s Place”’: “The first time I opened Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation, I was dining alone at the Palm, trying to enjoy a rib-eye steak cooked medium-rare.”. After reading that quote I realised that all I have to do is come up with what side of the argument I am on, state it, and keep reinforcing it with quotations and outside sources no matter how ridiculous the claim is, because that is when I realize that this article was based off an outside source of another piece of writing; so why not try to make my own texts to text connections while writing? I was on a role, my writing skills were growing by the minute. I was making text to text connections and generating new ideas based off of what other authors were saying on the subject. I was integrating new ideas and everything seemed to be going well until after receiving the looked over product back from the professor I was missing some pretty major things. I needed to help the reader understand why and how this article is relevant and I needed to reword most of the signal phrases and phrases. Throughout doing these skills I learned on how to use signal phrases better with my writing lab professor Ms. Grumbling, and I also learned new skills about making connections between writings and how to integrate them into my own. The new knowledge that I have learned is showing up all the time now, not only in my english 122 class but in all of my classes.

          Over the course of this semester in my english 122 class I have made a countless number of errors in my writings, but over time I have learned to adapt my habits to make my writing even stronger. I also learned to never give up when writing and in the worst case scenario put all the words down on the paper so it makes it easier to choose from when revising and editing. To be successful in next semester’s course is crucial for my career as a student here at the University of New England. In order to be successful I will have to be more organized, read through given materials more thoroughly, and seek extra help when needed. I will also need to better my habits in the readings and my writing by slowing down, asking questions when I am confused, and by utilizing the tools we are given more (books, reading materials, and in class worksheets). After re-evaluating the Engaged Learner Rubric I have come to the conclusion that I will need to change some of my ways about being engaged. First off, I will have to make sure every time I participate in a class discussion the information I share has to be relevant and appropriate. I also need to be more engaged when going off into pairs and small groups so that way I will not distract others or myself from doing the assignment at hand. But after focusing on what I need to change I also have to remember my strengths and practice them as well. My strengths in this course have really helped my ability to complete assignments and understand new knowledge being given to me. One of my strengths has been to break off of old habits and try the new ones out; this is crucial for this course because without being open to trying new techniques or habits then you will not be able to improve any aspect of your writing. Another one of my strengths includes my ability to annotate efficiently and accurately. I know when to spend the time reading on certain paragraphs and when not to, and I am also good at writing down all my thoughts, effectively, on the paper to keep track of my train of thought because I have learned throughout this first semester that it is always good to keep your reactions noted so if you need to you can make a connection with an author’s reaction or an outside sources’ reaction. I did that fairly well in an earlier essay when I wrote, “… As soon as I read that line I immediately agreed with the argument Pollan has been building for the last twelve pages”. In conclusion I will need to improve on many strengths and weaknesses in next semester’s course to stay strong as a reader and a writer.