In my midterm reflection I mentioned a connection I made between an assigned reading for Honors Seminar and my Modern dance class.

Before the first class we had to read and annotate David Foster Wallaces More Intelligent Life. In this commencement speech Wallace talks about awareness and considering other people instead of being completely absorbed in yourself and thinking you have the worse situation in the world. This really impacted me. I really care about people and try to put others needs before mine. After that I really tried to look at other people as I walked pass them on campus. I tried to imagine their lives and I would smile at them and pray for them. My modern dance teacher, Kim Jones is inspiration every day. She is always giving us life advice and encouraging us. The first day she told us how she abhors cell phones. She lectured us about our health and encouraged us put our cell phones away and look up. I mentioned the article to Kim and emailed it her. The article also wanted us to put our cell phones down to and be aware that the world doesn't revolve around ourselves. Now, at the end of the semester, I can connect that experience to something that is happening now. Wendall was in my writing group for the Inquiry Project. His topic was similar. I helped him with his multigenre project by acting in his video. His Cellphone Games video was about the exact same thing, putting your cell phone down and interacting with other people. My inquiry project was about stress, and how having a relationship with God is the best and only way to completely handle anxiety. For my altered book for Honors Seminar I created two pages about my beliefs. My relationship with God is the most important part of my life and influences everything I do, but in these two projects it was clearly stated. In my altered book there is a quote from Lecrae. It says Im not a Christian because Im strong and have it all together. Im a Christian because Im weak and admit I need a savior. Creating my altered book was one of the first things I did in Honors Seminar. In my inquiry project weeks later I wrote, Being a Christian is not about maintaining a perfect lifestyle, it is about admitting you are weak and need a savior. When I wrote it in my inquiry paper I was focusing on my audience. When I wrote the quote in my altered book I was also considering my audience, which was different. I wanted to convey to both audiences the same idea. Rachel West and I went to see Ken Bain speak. He wrote the book we studied this semester, so it was such a unique experience to get to hear him speak. Like the Doc Hendley presentation he basically summarized his book. At the start of the semester after reading his book I really wanted to be a deep learning. After hearing him speak and reflecting on the past semester I feel like I am a strategic learner. My outlook and focus of the learners changed. While he spoke he mentioned how B.F. Skinner studied intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. He related this to education and grades. Students struggle with motivation when they feel like they have loss control of their education. We examined motivation in English. I also studied B.F. Skinner in my General Psychology class.