Blog #1

Annotate Geary’s transcript and upload an image of your annotations. Compare your first experience with Geary with your second experience. Did you notice something new while reading? Did you build new text-to-self or text-to-world connections? Highlight a moment in your “conversation” with Geary that stands out to you. Please explain why. 

One of the most surprising things about annotating Geary’s transcript after watching the video was how easy it was to remember how Geary delivered his message in the TED talk. It was as if I was listening to Geary talk as I read over the text. However, I also found it much easier to dissect exactly what Geary was saying about metaphors. He is tricky with his language, and often used metaphors in his descriptions. Picking up on the small details was much easier while looking at the text and reading at my own pace. For example, Geary closes his talk using a snow globe metaphor. I missed this detail my first time hearing the TED talk, proof that what Geary says about metaphors being hidden is true.

I definitely was able to connect more easily to the text when I had it in front of me. It allowed me to read over sentences and find the hidden meaning. Geary purposefully confuses the listener by using metaphors to explain metaphors. As a reader rather than a listener, identifying these instances is much easier to do. The connection I had most strongly with Geary’s explanation of metaphors was his explanation of how we use metaphors to explain abstract things. Instead of using detailed language, we rely on the connotations associated with other words through the use of metaphors. This fact is so true, but I wouldn’t have been able to identify it myself.