Habits of mind

Curiosity

Before I started to read "What is Toxic Masculinity?", I was curious about toxic masculinity and why masculinity is toxic. In the beginning, I thought that toxic masculinity might be some bad male behavior, such as violence, swearing, etc. However, the definition of "Toxic Masculinity" that Salam defines is different from what I thought, which refers that "boys can't express emotion openly, and they have to be 'tough all the time, and anything other that makes them 'feminine' or weak" (Salam).

Openness

For assignments in week one and week two, such as "Exploratory Writing: on Social Construction" and "Exploratory Writing: Killing Us Softly 4 & Looking into the Magic Mirror", we are required to make a connection with our life, like providing another example of Social Construction and advertisements we saw or analyzing the gender role with Disney film characters. That assignment opens my mind and imagination.

Engagement

For each writing assignment, I reply to two or three classmates of my class, which can learn others' perspectives and develop my peer review ability. Here is one of my reply to my classmates.

Creativity

I believe that four annotation assignments improve my creativity. Before, I only knew how to do annotation for an article, but now I know how to annotate for a lecture and a movie. I could select some ideas in the lecture and film to generate my perspective. Those kinds of assignments enhanced my ability to express my thoughts.

Persistence

Because I really like Disney movies, I am interested in doing any Disney articles or movie analysis. That's why I consider that I sustain interests in and attention to short and long-term projects.

Flexibility

Although I have only made annotations of articles before, and I am not familiar with annotation in the form of video, I have learned how to make annotation after completing the assignment of "Jean Kilbourne, Killing Us softly". To do video annotation, write down the time stamp and quote ideas from the speaker.

Responsibility

I reckon I have responsibility for myself now, but I haven't developed the ability to be responsible for others since I haven't done the team project yet. What will not change is that I will still be accountable to others. I will not impact the progress of the group project, and well done with my part.

Metacognition (reflection)

I reckon that every week blog is an excellent way to help me reflect what I've learned and what else do I need to improve. First-week blog, I reflect on what I know on a previous writing course, and this week, through the assignments I have learned and done, I will see what abilities I have developed and what capabilities I still lack.