Metaphysical - An IUF Essay Sample

'Metaphysical' - An IUF Essay SampleI've recently had the privilege of working with a school to create an essay sample that uses a metaphor related to metaphysics. To clarify, this is not a theoretical topic. This is a real example from an actual student's class in high school. As a result, I wanted to give you some details about how this essay was written and what the lessons learned were.The assignment started out by having the students to read and respond to an essay on the nature of science written by someone who cited author's authority for a point they were making. They then worked on creating a paper related to the point of the article. In this example, the students were asked to re-create a scientific study using metaphor to illustrate an observation that helped them to make a point they were trying to make. The final paper contained all of the material from the original paper except that they had added their own metaphor. In other words, it is the same exact lesson.First, th e students were to read the article they were working on. Then they were to take notes on the article in class and were then asked to take those notes and rewrite them in a new metaphor related to the article they were reading. The final result, which I highly recommend, was an essay that used a metaphor and included an introduction, a conclusion, a discussion, and a short paragraph that did not mention the original metaphor.The fact that students had to create their own metaphors was key in two ways. One, the point of the assignment was for students to use their own expertise and creative energy to create a new metaphor. Second, it allowed students to learn about metaphor. Metaphors are very important to learning about society. Even if you already know about your own area of expertise, you can still make valuable connections to other areas of knowledge.So the original article was a scientific study on metaphysics. It was about the relationship between science and metaphor. While re ading the article, a student who had read it before calling out that she didn't really understand what was going on.After reading the article again, she explained that she didn't understand the author's authority or meaning. She could have done better in class by remembering that there was a difference between inspiration and literal interpretation. The student read and wrote a passage that included a metaphorical reading of a theory that everyone could understand and then came back to her original metaphor to add her own contribution. This writer created a new metaphor that was associated with the original paper.Another student read and responded to an essay that she knew did not use the original article. She worked hard in class and included a large amount of new information. Her first paragraph, which I would like to call her Blue Poem, was a poem of insight, and her second paragraph was a poem of the tragic. Her final paragraph was an example of the last things you learn when yo u are born.This lesson is an example of metaphor being used to enhance lesson comprehension. This is a lesson that I encourage students to use as a component of their preparation for AP US History.