Ting Pan

Writing 2 / MW 3PM
06/03/2015
Metacognitive Reflection
Time flies so fast and it's almost the end of Writing 2 journey. This unique experience is
really valuable. By learning a lot of helpful stuff, I think I have improved my writing, thinking
and revising abilities.
Overall, Writing 2 was a tough course for me. Compared with Linguistic classes I took
before, this course had more rigorous requirements in writing. Not only I had to ensure the
grammar and spelling are correct, I also needed to pay attention to the rhetorical features and
conventions of the genre I chose. This was a challenge for me because I had never thought
about such things before. Also, we had a compact schedule - there were a lot of course readings
and writing assignments. It meant that I had to spend at least one whole day for these
assignments every week, including reading related articles, doing research, writing and revising.
Even if Writing 2 was not so easy, course readings were really helpful for my writing
projects. These course reading were all related to our writing projects. Reading them before
writing helped me to think what to write. For instance, when I worked on WP2, I hardly
understand moves. However, How to Read Like a Writer, written by Mike Bunn was a
good article to help me think about moves and also offered a different but effective way of
reading. There were lots of useful information in this article, such as identifying the choices
the author made and considering the purpose/intended audience. Therefore, course readings
helped me think.

The sample WPs were also quite helpful for me to build my own project. During this term,
we analyzed one sample for each WP. As Bunn states in How to Read Like a Writer, this is
a chance for us to identify some of the choices the author made so that we can better understand
how such choices might arise in our won writing (Bunn 72). We could also look at the writerly
techniques in the samples in order to decide if we might want to adopt similar techniques in
our writing. For example, I had difficulty understanding the requirements of WP2. The
Vietnam article helped me recognize important decisions I might face and techniques I might
want to use when working on my own writing. Such sample WPs were opportunities to let me
see how the author constructed his or her article and think about whether I want to make some
of those same choices in my own writing, and what the consequences might be for my audience
if I do. Therefore, sample readings taught me how to write in some ways.
I got many useful tips from this course. Copy/Paste a tough sentence 3 times; Use __
when you are stuck; Re-read before submitting; Write what you know; Know what you
write were all practical tips for my writing. I found that read your work aloud when
editing/revising was the most important strategy. It was effective for self-editing. When I read
a text silently, I was unable to notice missing words, unnecessary words, missing word endings,
and errors that could lead readers to think I was careless or unintelligent. Reading aloud gave
me a chance to hear errors like these as well as stylistic problems. For instance, as my articulate
my words, I noticed that I repeated certain terms or ideas, or that incorrect punctuation made a
sentence confusing. Such tips were quite beneficial for me to improve my essays.
Also, peer review was a good way to revise the draft pieces. Finding the mistakes by
myself is very hard. But it generally seems easier to find errors or problems for audience.

Therefore, finding another pair of eyes is a good way to edit our works. Peer reviewers caught
catch errors I missed and provided feedbacks about confusing word choice or sentence structure.
For example, in my draft of WP3, I made many grammar mistakes. My group members were
helpful to point to them to make my paper better. Therefore, I think peer review was excellent
form of revising.
Then, this course is about genre, and I think it is an important thing to learn. Genre is a
big and necessary element that we have to learn. Understanding the genre, the task, and the
expectations for writing can improve our works. Whatever we write, we need to decide the
genre by desired audience, purpose and context. Writing a letter, a resume, a science report, or
a proposal are different because each of them contain its own elements and has unique
conventions. Learning about the features of different genres also helps us make word or tone
choices. When I translated the scholar piece into story books for children in WP3, I realized
the importance of genre it offers guides for writers and makes the work approach to its
target audiences. By taking this course, I also become familiar with many different genres by
analyzing them. We have dissected some genres rhetorical features and conventions, which
helps us understand different genres. For instance, when working on WP1, we were required
to inspect genre generators. I knew little about memes and comic strips. However, this PB
gave me a chance to learn about these new things.
In addition, I have some suggestions for this course. Firstly, I think we need more time to
revise. We just have about one day to edit our draft. If there are more time, I believe that we
can do better in our WPs. Also, I recommend the tutors in CLAS for future students. I promise
that many students can get helpful advice from them. I think it is always better to have others

point out the potential problems but not actually change the text. The tutors usually talk through
the problems instead of just correcting them and point out any place in the text where the ideas
are unclear because of word choice, phrasing, punctuation, spelling, or other mechanics. If we
know the specific error patterns we have made, tutors can also look especially for those
problems.
As a summary, during this Writing 2 journey, we learned about genre and have so much
helpful and interesting stuff, such as course readings, sample WPs, tips and peer review, which
effectively improve my writing, thinking and revising abilities. I believe that future students of
this course will also feel Writing 2 is a valuable experience in their college life.

Work Cited
Bunn Mike. How to Read Like a Writer. Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. West
Lafayette, IN: Parlor, 2010. N. pag. Print.