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Wesley Zeng

Allison Bocchino

Writing 2

8 June 2020

Metacognition Reflection

Entering college, I was not worried about the potential dangers of “college writing”. I

never thought I was a talented writer, but after a very educational English class during my senior

year of high school, I came into college confident that I would not fail my writing classes. After

taking this class, however, I learned how to further define my writing knowledge by learning

more about genres, rhetoric, and writing styles.

In Writing 2, I learned what a genre really is. Understanding how there are many

different types of genres was something I was unaware of. I also learned about the different ways

to evaluate writing. I had previously believed every piece of writing had a purpose; that’s an

obvious fact, or else why would someone write about it. I never thought about the reasoning

behind why people wrote though. The chapter, “How to Read Like a Writer,” really helped guide

me toward this discovery.1 It explains how to RLW, or read like a writer, in which instead of

reading for just information, we should be reading while thinking about why the writer decided

to explain their information with these words in this style rather than another. By learning and

understanding this fact, I have begun reading other articles and required readings differently

now. This has helped me create a good habit of analyzing readings which as a result has helped

me better understand them. Because of this fact, I have also started to more carefully choose how

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​Bunn, Mike. “How to Read Like a Writer.”​, (​Parlor Press, 2011) ​1
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to phrase and form my sentences. One problem I had throughout my writing career was always

writing run-on sentences. After reading these assigned chapters, I became more conscious on

how I wrote, and began forming my own writing style that I really enjoy. I am able to

confidently play with the length of my sentences now, and form ones of all lengths. I did struggle

with the first writing project, as I found it really difficult to be discussing such a limited topic on

comparing and contrasting the differences between two research papers. From this, I learned how

to really dissect each and every point rather than just breezing over the general idea. Another

concept I struggled with was defining genres and fallacies. It is just a topic I need more practice

and exposure too.

My approach to revising has also changed because of this course. Through the multiple

peer edits required, I was able to really hone in on specific aspects of papers rather than judging

the overall product. As I was an editor for my newspaper in high school, I subconsciously had a

process of editing papers which involved looking at the overall message and how well the paper

did to deliver it. However, with the first peer review requiring we only look at certain

characteristics within the essays and nothing else, I was put into a new position I was unfamiliar

with. Though it was slow at first, I quickly understood how this benefitted me as a writer, and

learned how to edit essays more carefully from this experience. The other assignment that has

helped with my revision skills was deconstructing WP 1. I thought that my essay was pretty well

developed and contained the necessary information. Though this was mostly true, after

highlighting everything, I was able to see exactly what each sentence did to help the paper

overall. This was extremely beneficial, as I was able to visualize everything. I saw that I had

sentences that theoretically had no purpose other than to bridge ideas. I also had many sentences
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that could have been rephrased so that it would fit the categories more compellingly rather than

only having half the sentence considered as “evidence” or “analysis”. Breaking down essays like

this has now become a strategy that I really enjoy.

Looking towards self reflection, I have been able to evolve in both writing and analysis of

it. One personal writing style I have maintained is my ability to overlap topics and claims within

the same paragraph. This is showcased by my first body paragraph, in which I was able to

address multiple questions within the same paragraph. I also did this without explicitly

acknowledging any of them. Despite my ability to do so, it is not always beneficial, as that is

seen in my previous writing projects. Writing in this style may sometimes throw off readers from

the main points of my argument, which is also why I polished my writing style to accommodate

for only writing about one topic per paragraph. This is shown with the previous paragraph.

Nonetheless, I think this writing style is the most enjoyable for myself as it feels like I am able to

story tell about my points rather than writing for the reason to justify my claim. I learned this

thinking process after reading, “Reading Games,” by Karen Rosenberg, in which she talks about

the ability to think of reading as a conversation rather than just information for us to consume.2

Similar to Bunn’s chapter, both of them talk about how to read in different ways to better

understand the text. This was the biggest take I learned from this class in terms of the

comprehension and analysis of texts. These lessons are something I will bring to the rest of my

life as I am assigned more required readings or find online articles that have their own agendas.

The writing project revisions were the most introspective aspect of this class. I was able

to get feedback from my grader as well as a friend before looking at it again myself. WP 1 was

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​ Karen Rosenberg, “Reading Games: ​Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources​”, (​Parlor Press, 2011) 2​ 12
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definitely the one I struggled more on, and I was able to see these through my revisions. I edited

every paragraph except the conclusion, first by changing my thesis. Afterwards, I cut down a lot

of my first two paragraphs, combining the more important pieces to form a more cohesive

paragraph that was able to compare the two disciplines. This was an issue because I intended my

first two paragraphs to introduce the two disciplines and their characteristics. However, after

reviewing my paper I realized that the entire paper would introduce each chacteristic as I

compared them. I revised my third and fourth paragraph by rewording some sentences and

adding more comparison. I also rewrote each topic sentence, as the point of the paragraphs was

not clear enough, so that the paragraphs would connect back and enhance the paper as a whole.

Finally, I added evidence into my fifth paragraph just to strengthen it overall. In my second

writing project, I focused on more local changes. Though not mentioned in my revision matrix, I

changed some words so that the sentence would become more powerful and offer a better flow. I

also included more examples in my paper to further help elaborate on my points. Feedback on

these word choices helped me notice the style and angle I was going with which allowed me to

continue building on it, while feedback on my content sparked a chain reaction of other edits.

From the feedback, I was able to see more revisions than the one mentioned, and was able to

benefit from the edits. I really enjoy my second writing project and look to improve on my

organization skills as well as my ability to write in a more detailed manner rather than an

overarching style.

Creating this portfolio has allowed me to reflect on my style of writing, writing abilities,

and my understanding of writing. As a writer, I have grown to become more precise with my

word choice and give more personality in my style of writing rather than just following the
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rubric. I think these changes are also some of my strongest qualities in writing now, along with

my ability to string different ideas together with cohesion. These skills will be used throughout

my life as I continue writing essays in my other classes. I have already applied some skills

learned in this class such as how to effectively research and read through dense texts in my

communication class. The revision processes are something I will also continue to use

throughout my life as a way to look at my papers thourgh a different perspective. Through

Writing 2, I have been able to learn innovative ways to read and write texts.
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Works Cited

Bunn, Mike. “How to Read Like a Writer.” In ​Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing,​70-86.

Parlor Press, 2011.

Rosenberg, Karen. “Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources.” In ​Writing

Spaces: Readings on Writing​, 2:210–20. Parlor Press, 2011.