Metacognition - Jane Eyre Writing Project

This project... was unique. The thing that is closest to this project was the first semester final, in which we had to create a dialogue of sorts between characters from different books we’ve read.

This was obviously different. For starters, instead of being able to pick and choose from various characters, we were given an author, a character written by said author and a student who has read the book. This is obviously less flexible as we are unable to choose characters in such a way that allows us to best create an interesting dialogue. This isn’t to say we were unable to create thought-provoking things in the Jane Eyre Project, we simply given less ways to reach that interesting dialogue.

Another difference that was rather important is that one of the participants had written the other. It was an interesting thing to approach. Surely the main character has ideas very similar to that of the author? It was a challenge of distinguishing between thoughts of the character and the context of these thoughts within the plot and setting, which then allowed us to access the thoughts of the author. We found they both had similar ideas, yet had found different ways of characterizing them. The author, being a real person, was much more cynical regarding love, though she agreed on what it was.

But how do we go about creating such a dialogue? Interestingly enough, our final dialogue was actually the result of a four hour dialogue amongst ourselves. Although none of consistently represented a certain participant, the ideas from our actual discussion were extrapolated into the writing project (though phrased much more eloquently). In this way, I believe the presence of two other group members largely made up for the lack of choice regarding discussion participants.