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Kolby Smith

Ms.E.Parrish

English 2010

18 May 2017

Habits of Mind
As I come to write my final Habit of Mind page, it is clear to me that I have grown and

truly know the importance of metacognition. At the beginning of the year I thought I learned how

to think, but my grades stayed in the neutral area of mostly Bs and Cs. Then our second area of

grading came and I see that some grades did slip but others stayed strong. I feel the reason for

this being that seen what they truly mean.

Once knowing the truth my values have changed as well. I can safely say that I see how

important the habits of flexibility, persistence, engagement, and being self-reflective can be. I

learned to be flexible in English 2010 because in English 1010 we had only needed to do papers.

The moment I started to make presentations, I could see how flexible I needed to be. Being

persistent was one skill that comes with time. Much like a muscle, I needed to work on

persistence. Being able to look at the same presentation time and time again trying to find

something knew to fix, takes a enormous amount of persistence. Going hand in hand with

persistence, engagement was another area that gains in time. I see that I succeed more and get

better grades when I fully engage myself into my work. Being able to gain interest into

something that may not be interesting leads to a subskill of engagement. Feigning interest into

things takes great amounts of engagement to accomplish but is well worth it. Finally I learned

the value of being self reflective. I see myself reflecting on things outside of writing essays. I

would reflect on my growth in a choir class, working with music theory, or history. True
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metacognition is achieved from self reflection and that is why it would be my most valuable

skill.

Kolby is a well rounded student. I see him going far in furthering his education. Kolby

participates well in conversations and guessing even if he may be wrong. Being wrong is the best

teacher. Kolby realizes this and that is what makes him so fun to have in class. Sometimes his

wildest and craziest ideas have some room for a really effective essay or increasingly interesting

project. Kolby I wish you luck with your education and can't wait to see what you become! For

now good luck and thank you for being was one of my students. Sincerely Mr.Smith.