Dennis Baljak Pater

Metacognitive Reflection Paper

When I first started this writing class I did not know what to expect. It was literally
the first class that I took at Antioch University, which was an institution known to
educate their student in a more liberal way than other schools in the area of Santa
Barbara where the liberal education approach enables for much group activity and
verbal communication. My previous experience from the three writing classes that
Ive taken at Santa Barbara City College was very repetitive and non-challenging. It
seemed like every single class would only talk about the foundations of writing such
as how to write an introduction, thesis statement, body paragraph and conclusion.
Since my first class at Antioch turned out to be an academic writing class, which I
had bad experience from, I wasnt too thrilled about taking this class. However, due
to the new educational approach, an enthusiastic teacher and new learning material,
it turned out to be the best writing class Ive taken so far.

There are many things that made this writing class different from the ones Ive
taken before. The class atmosphere was very relaxed and comfortable to begin with.
There was always room for humor and spontaneous comments which seemed to
blend in well with the serious and educational part of the class. Because this class
was smaller and involved more group activity than the writing classes Ive been in

before, it also made it easier to get familiar with my classmates which turned out to
be a relief when talking in front of the class.

Normally writing classes dont interest me, and its easy for me to loose focus and
unintentionally slip in to an unwanted daydream. In this class however, our teacher
Zack would always show up with a very positive attitude and due to his apparent
enthusiasm of teaching and writing, he made it harder for you to loose focus and
wonder off in a daydream. Even if you accidently do so, Zack would notice and have
you snap back to reality before you get off track. Dont get me wrong though, this
class is the most interesting writing class I have ever taken. What made it more
appealing than the SBCC classes was that the knowledge we acquired from this
class, we had to apply in a real life scenario as part of the assignments were to email
and interview real people and collect primary source writing artifacts. This made it
seem more important for some reason. Even though it was just meant for practice, it
was real.

Instead of just repeating the foundations of writing, actually got to learn something
new in this class. Not only did I learn how academic writing could be applied to real
life scenarios, but I also got to know writing on a deeper level than before where I
learned how to correctly use dashes and hyphens which I have done in my final
paper. I was also introduced to the foundations of persuasion where I got to expand
my vocabulary by becoming familiar with terms such as pathos, logos and ethos.
The most important things that I learned in this class , which will make writing for

me much easier in the future, was how to free write and the tell them method. I
have learned that this is the best way for me personally to get started with a paper.
These are some of those things that I will never forget about from this class, and for
that Im highly thankful. Thank you for a great experience Zack, youre the man!