The week of your AP Lit Exam has arrived! Good luck to you all :) I have a feeling you are all going to blow this test away. And now, my 2nd Progress Update Model Text: My ProgressInch-wise, I've grown my green sweater from 7 inches to 12 inches. That's an additional five inches, which of course is less apparent progress than last week. However, because of the increases, I think I actually knitted more stitches than last week, or at least a comparable amount, judging by the small amount of yarn left in my second skein. I'll probably finish my second skein of yarn tomorrow. It's also definitely starting to look like sweater. You can see the neckline and each of the arm holes. Week 1 vs Week 2 ProgressI'm happy with progress. I've finished all the black magic witchery of increases that turns a string of yarn into a seamless garment, and now I'm just knitting the body, by far the largest section of the sweater. It's also the simplest section of the sweater. For the next week at least (and probably for the next two weeks) it'll just be knit stitch after knit stitch after knit stitch after knit stitch. Since all the fancy needlework is behind me for now, I can zone out even more as I knit. This is a great section to knit as I watch shows in the evening with my husband. We've been rewatching Avatar the Last Airbender together for like the 20th time or so. As you know, one of my intrinsic motivations for knitting a sweater was to feel that mindful calm that comes with the repeated motions of knitting. It's all been working: I've been feeling both the calm from the repetition (serotonin) and the joy of seeing something grow (dopamine). Now, you might very well ask, if you get so much joy out of knitting, why haven't you been doing it this whole time, Ms. Newton? I stopped knitting back in the beginning of the semester because I hit a roadblock of sorts. Allow me to explain... Lessons and ObstaclesBack during the winter apocalypse, I learned that my dogs Birdie and Bracken loved romping in the snow. Bracken and Birdie both outgrew their dog coats, but Bracken's coat fits Birdie now. Poor Bracken was jacketless. I decided I would knit him a coat out of this mustard-colored roving yarn from Canada. I finished it a few weeks after I started it, but I my cast-off was too tight to fit around Bracken. I put the whole project in a pile and just decided to fix it later. I didn't want to start a new project, because I had an unfinished dog coat, and I didn't want to finish the dog coat because I didn't know how. And this was my obstacle. But, as you know, we're all starting projects together, so I started an entirely new thing: my green sweater. And somehow, somewhere in all the pleasant mind-wandering I've been doing as I've knitted my green sweater, I started figuring out ways to undo the mistake and try again. The next time I tried, the cast-off was still too tight. So I put it aside again and kept knitting the green sweater. Eventually, almost by accident I had yet another idea. AND IT WORKED. So the take-away lesson here for me is a reminder that one of the strongest strategies for overcoming creative obstacles is to start a new project and let my subconscious simmer away until solutions materialize. I like how the first solution didn't work. Then I shelved the thing again, and in my mind said something like, "Well, I'll get back to this in another five months or so," but I had another idea almost immediately. Brains are weird.
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AuthorI'm a Houston high school teacher. Welcome to my adapted, socially-distanced, quarantined AP English Literature and Composition classroom. Archives
May 2021
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