On pg 120, Abrams notes that story or songs "readily incorporate themselves into our felt experience". What is it that we think of when we see certain things? I am constantly mistaking perfect strangers for a dear friend, simply because my brain will connect a certain facial feature to that of someone I know well.
As Abrams brings up the concept of "animate terrain", we are prompted to consider two coinciding, yet self-contrasting ideas:
practical orientation versus conceptual orientation
While a person may think of something in a practical manner and see a rock as what it is-a rock, another person may see it for its potential. What does the rock contain? This rock could be crushed into a powder used for paint or used as a cornerstone for a home. These methods of thought are not always exclusive within a person, but are typically contradicting urges of thought. As the class engaged in discussion on this topic, I came to realize why I don't test well.
Cognitively, I can grasp any material that is introduced to me in an educational setting. However, when it comes time to recall and reapply the material, I take an approach that diverges from what is typically expected. While there is a straight-lace, A-to-B approach to a question or prompt, my brain frantically circles multiple possibilities of the implications as to what the question could be asking (or what a given word could mean). While there is a desired end (when it comes to learned content recollection), my means to get there is roundabout and unbiased when it comes to extracting a conclusion. Anything could work and everything has reason. Even with math problems, there are different manipulations with the numbers and infinite possibilities of methods to get there. A shallow understanding of science is a line, but even the most mathematical of disciplines contains an artistic array of possible outcomes.
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