Independent Memoir Assignment: Metacognitive

Tzivia Halperin
AP Lit
Mr. Gallagher
October 14, 2008

Metacognitive

When the option was given to go to the Mass Poetry Festival and write a review in place of two more suggested projects, I knew I would go this route. In a busy high school schedule, this was certainly more appealing and since also I enjoy poetry, this option was win-win for me. However, it was still required that we pass in a project on Friday and for that aspect I chose to do a book cover. The book cover coalesced writing and drawing and thus I opted to do that, especially since I already had an idea. The cover I chose to do had two images that are more than anything symbolic. In the right hand corner is a crown while on the left side is a skeleton. Much of Sedaris’ book discusses image and his perception of his own image. The crown represents Sedaris’ delusions about himself especially in terms of his high opinion, while the skeleton represents a stripping down of his airs. Like Sedaris’ own attempts to understand himself, the crown and the skeleton represent the two distinct polarities of his image- the delusions and the reality.

The greatest difficulty of this project actually lay in gaining the information for and then writing the Mass Poetry review. In taking notes during the readers, it detracted a great deal from my enjoyment and understanding of the actual poetry. Thus, I could write about the way the poets spoke, quote them a few times, but I failed to truly capture the meaning of their poetry. It was lost to me as I sat furiously scribbling notes. Further, the names of the local poets were only mentioned orally and not actually written down therefore hindering my reviewing process. If I missed the name, I lacked that detail- and if I didn’t miss the name, I surely could have misspelled them. The factual information, rather than the objective was what most hurt the review.

In terms of the book cover, I feared that it may have been too plain, as I created it on white paper. Personally, I liked the aesthetics of the piece but in seeing some of the other projects, mine certainly looks less colorful than others. After I had already drawn the cover, penned it, and colored it, I realized regrettably that perhaps I should have considered putting the crown on the skeleton. The covers wouldn’t necessarily convey the same message of transition, but it would show the dichotomy between his delusions and his true self-image. Of course, I didn’t consider this until after I had finished and by that point, it was moot.

The resulting book cover met all the guidelines and resembled a book cover in that I added a bar code and a mock review. The strength lay in the time I put into constructing it to resemble a real book cover. In terms of the review, the detail of my notes allowed me to become very specific in the actual review. I could quote, note some names, names of poems, in addition to a number of other prevalent details. The specificity of the review was what made it especially successful.