Each week in 300 words

metacognition

When I was in 3rd grade we used to do this exercise called "Metacognition" (which she told us meant "thinking about thinking") and we would write whatever came to mind. I loved this activity because even though I think I totally misinterpreted the whole purpose, I got to investigate something else I had a passion for - word association. Most people would just write a story and let it flow or talk about something that happened to them, but I preferred to just list words as they came to mind. I would go from pencils to Jesus to windowblinds in 10 seconds flat. In a way, it also kind of clues us in to how conversations flow and subjects meld together. I love those moments when a conversation has been just fantastic because you keep evolving the topics and it keeps growing and pushing and it's a fascinating and self-propelling dialogue. Before you know it you're thinking "what were we talking about originally? We got completely sidetracked." But I love those moments because it lives the conversation a vitality it wouldn't have had if the topic stayed static. I mean, you can only talk about one particular item for so long.
In honor of 3rd grade, I'm going to take 60 seconds and write whatever word comes to mind. It's likely to be a lot quicker than it was 10+ years ago, primarily because I'll be typing instead of writing with pencil, and I'm not sure the exercise will be able to work because my hands sometimes go faster than my brain (which has been sluggish as of late). But we'll see.

Car, steering wheel, traffic, lights, camera, action, movies, stars, sky, supernova, wxxi programming, tv, commercials, donations, salvation army, giving, season, christmas, tree, fir, josie's tree farm, 62 acres, horses, stable, stella, phi sigma pi, advising, telemarketing, phones, caller id, cell phones, hong kong, justin, clara, yip, dog, kitten, babysitting, money, adolescence.

That was just as fun as I remember it. I strongly advise you try this. It really gives you insight on your own word/topic associations.

posted by Debbie @ 5:17 PM