Nick Carr

Zack De Piero

5 December, 2018

Metacognitive Essay

When I first started this semester I thought that this English course would be exactly like

any other English course I took in high school. Of course, not having any previous experience

with a college level writing class before, I was sorely mistaken. Never did I imagine that in the

first couple weeks of any class I would ever take in my life did I imagine thorough listenings of

country music or viewings of classic horror movie scenes. And what’s even more surprising to

me was that I actually found myself enjoying English. I know, right?! Crazy to think about. But

in every single English class in high school I was taught a rigid formula to writing essays and

papers. And unsurprisingly, that got a bit repetitive and boring after about year three.

But besides just enjoying the class, I actually found myself learning way more than I

thought I would. If I were to look back on my old high school essays you would see a clear

difference. Not to mention it would be pretty embarassing. So let’s do that! Let’s take a trip back

to eleventh grade english where I had to do a research paper on J.R.R Tolkien’s life. The thesis

statement reads “Tolkien’s ​The Lord of the Rings series was heavily influenced by his own life

through the early tutoring of his mother, the encouragement of his friends, and his love for

storytelling and nature.” I can already see the three body paragraphs and a conclusion that

restates the thesis with different words. Now let’s take a look at the beginning of the semester to

our first writing project. The thesis for that research paper is “And in looking at these covers it

becomes clear that they all share rhetorical features such as audience, purpose, and conventions,

but still have something different from one another that makes each one stand out and gives you
the big ideas behind the stories without having to read the whole comic itself.” Just look at those

big words like “conventions” and “rhetorical features.”

The reading that really helped me learn how to write a good essay was Elbow’s ​Teaching

Two Kinds of Thinking by Teaching Writing​. Being the advocate against English that I was, I

never re-read my work. I didn’t care enough. But Elbow’s thoughts about first order thinking and

second order thinking opened my mind to the idea. I think in some sense I did first order thinking

in my old writing. But I certainly did not use second order thinking. And even though they’re

two different ways of thinking they go together perfectly and just having those two seperate

mindsets while I’m writing made my writing much better.

I didn’t just learn how to make my writing better though. I learned way more about the

terms themselves. I didn’t just put those big words in my thesis because I was required to. It was

because I learned what makes a genre that specific genre. The first important step for me

learning what genre is was understanding how writers use rhetoric in their writing. Dirk defines

genre in ​Navigating Genres as nothing more than repeating rhetorical situations. But that didn’t

really help me. But later Dirk says “We treat texts that we encounter as rhetorical objects; we

choose between horror movies and chick flicks not only because we are familiar with their forms

but because we know what response they will elicit from us (nail-biting fear and dreamy sighs,

respectively).” That quick sentence really helped me understand what rhetoric is. Rhetoric goes

beyond the writing. It’s who the audience for that writing is and what the piece is trying to

achieve.

Next came conventions, and this took a bit longer for me to understand. It’s not as

specific as rhetoric was. It wasn’t until the second PB that it really clicked for me. Taking a look
at the different generators gave me a way to actually see the conventions of each one. And after

that the discussions we had in class met with the literal manifestation of a genre and it made way

more sense to me. From then on I understood that conventions are what make the genre itself

unique from other genres.

After that first WP we started talking about scholarly articles for the second WP. And to

be honest that almost made me as hesitant as I was at the beginning of the semester. For as much

fun as I was having with the class, I have seen those types of articles before and thought “I am

not gonna be able to read twenty pages about something I don’t even care about.” But once we

got started with WP two itself I could see it wasn’t going to be as bad as I initially thought. The

two reasons for this was because it was a presentation and I could choose the topic. As much as I

understood how my writing needed to change, I did not want to write another essay. Plus, I enjoy

doing presentations because I can make them as interesting as I want.

And with those two WPs under my belt I realized something that changed my outlook on

writing. When I started the course I was not looking forward to it. But while I was doing the first

WP I enjoyed talking about my topic choice of comic book covers. And once again, before the

second WP I dreaded reading the scholarly articles. But by the time I was laying out my

presentation I found myself having a good time doing research about my topic. I finally realized

that if I actually enjoy what I am writing about then I actually enjoy doing English work. And

while this revalation helps me have a different outlook on writing, I can only hope that future

writing courses that I take give me the same amount of freedom.

And finally came WP three. Of the three WPs that we did throughout the semester, this is

probably the one I enjoyed the least. The topic was still the same as WP two, but having to read
five scholarly articles to create a good enough summary got a little boring to me. Granted, it was

technically only three new ones but still. That being said I liked writing an email to the professor.

It was definitely a good way to merge all the things we had been working on in the past two

WPs.

Also, even though I did not enjoy making the annotated bibliography, I think I got the

most take away from this WP. Learning early on in my college career how important a good

outreach eamil is gives me a huge edge above other students my level. The annotated

bibliography was tedious in my opinion, but researching and looking into the background of

what you need is a very important concept for any major. And beyond that, knowing how to

write and format an essay that my superior will actually want to read is super important. I know

for a fact that I will be using those skills in the future, no matter where that future goes.

And now, at the end of the course, I think I can give my official insight on what “genre

awareness” means to me. After looking at and talking about countless examples of different

genres and what makes them unique, I can say that I know look at everything in a different way.

From the ingredients on the back of a bag of doritos to my brother’s math homework that I

constantly help him with. I see these things in a new light. There is something unique about

everything we see, everything we read, everything we write. And I think that is what genre

awareness is. Looking at something so common in our lives and thinking about what makes that

thing ​that ​thing.

Overall, I had a fantastic experience in this English 015 course. I came in with very low

expectations, but I could not have asked for a better introduction to college level writing and

English courses in general. Based off of every previous English course I took in high school I
was not looking forward to the work I was expecting. But after the first two weeks I could tell it

was going to be way different than any other course. It ended up changing my outlook on how to

write and what writing should be. It made me look at everything in terms of genre and why it is

what it is. But most importantly, it taught me tools and tips that I will use with me for the rest of

my college life and onward.

 Works Cited

Dirk, Kerry. “Navigating Genres.” ​Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing

Elbow, Peter. “Teaching Two Kinds of Thinking by Teaching Writing.” ​Embracing Contraries:

Explorations in Learning and Teaching

My Own Writings and Thoughts