Day Seven

Situation: Group activity in graduate course

Metacognitive Strategies: The planning for the activity had been done by the professor. She gave us a list of questions that would lead us to diagram a plot. We were to treat a book on educational philosophy as if it was a play or movie.

I found the task to be extremely difficult.

Task-Based Strategies: I used background knowledge of plays and movies to make connections to the text, but that only frustrated me. One of the tasks was to make a list of characters and then cast people or entities in those roles. I could have attached more than one name to several of those roles.

I made inferences concerning the plot which I saw as the author's educational philosophy. However, deciding on conflict resolution and denouement would have called for making predictions since the conflict hadn't been resolved, nor was there any falling action. The professor had said she wanted our decisions grounded in the text, but I couldn't see those elements nor find any quotes to support them.

My group mates seemed to floundering too, but they wanted to sail on (implusivity) while I just wanted a safe haven and maybe even a cool refreshment to aid my thinking (reflectivity). I cooperated with my colleagues as best I could. However, my self-talk was negative and defeatist.