Tyler Ettner

Zack De Piero
Writing 2
15 March, 2016
Metacognitive Reflection
One key concept Ive learned over the course of my Writing 2 journey is to understand
the frame and context for ideas or writing pieces. When looking back at my own academic
history, I find that I was always encouraged to take my studies seriously and derive personal
enjoyment in the pursuit of knowledge. Being raised by educators really helped me to see the
value of academic work across disciplines and contexts. However, I never fully grasped the
importance of writing as a life skill that could be analyzed and improved upon until I took this
class. I feel as though my high school and college experiences thus far have required me to write
in a variety of genres, but lacked any sort of skill development in the actual writing process. I
wish that I had taken this course long ago, and learned how to go about the writing process
mindfully with a focus on reflection and self-improvement. The academic system seems to have
to backwards in this respect, as writing and self-expression are a fundamental first step towards
the development of ideas and inspiration for work of all types. Regardless of timing, this course
truly lead me through a journey of self-improvement and discovery within the writing process
through the course readings and class discussions.
Perhaps the most critical concept that this class has introduced me to involves the idea of
first and second-order thinking. I know that I keep harping on and on about this idea in all of my
thlogs and reflections to no end, but it is for good reason as I believe that it has not only
revolutionized the way I go about writing, but it has changed my actual mental thought processes

as well. I believe that this has helped me to change what I used to perceive as my greatest
weakness into a strength that has really improved my life. Previous to leaning about the two
kinds of thinking, I would become easily distracted while trying to focus in something, with an
immense amount of random ideas and thoughts popping into my head. I used to find this quite
detrimental to my productivity, and attempt to drown out these ideas and re-focus on the work at
hand. However, once I learned about the difference between first and second order thinking in
class, I realized that this type of creative thinking could be of immense value. Rather than drown
out my ideas and ignore their significance, I now take immediate action to put them into writing
through computer software. Keeping a running record of all my ideas allows me to build upon
them and develop some killer material over time by adding thoughts or connections whenever
they come up. By putting down my first-order thoughts into writing without taking time to edit
or think them through to any great degree in the short-term frees up processing power for my
mind and allows me to maintain focus on whatever I am supposed to be working on in the
moment.
The next big idea that really influenced my academic and personal lifestyle is that of
transfer. I was scrambling to find a good topic for my third writing project at first, but was
entranced by Elizabeth Wardles work What is Transfer?, deciding to really explore this topic in
greater depth for my writing piece. While I constructed my genre transformations I quickly came
to realize that the concept of transfer applies to a high variety of skills and processes even
outside of the context of writing. While the article focuses on transferring writing skills across
disciplines, I found that the true significance in the idea is of a higher-order, and can carry over
skills into my lifestyle as a whole. A great example of this ties back to the idea of first-order
thinking, which is a fundamental writing skill that can be utilized in a non-academic setting as

well. For example, I often find myself with a minor case of insomnia due to the high amount of
mental stimulation from all the studying and cramming during finals week. One night I laid
awake for quite some time, thinking of completely random ideas about all areas of my life, and
had some phenomenal ideas which I wanted to explore further. However, by harnessing the
power of this first-order thinking and recording these thoughts into my trusty Evernote app on
my phone, I was able to rest-easy and fall asleep without fear of forgetting about them. The next
morning I awoke to a note filled with some great business and lifestyle ideas which I look
forward to exploring once I am done putting these finals down! This illustrates the idea of
transferring a writing skill learned in class into another context of my life to see real benefit.
While I have always had somewhat of a hyperactive mind with a high volume of ideas
and thoughts, I have developed planning techniques during this quarter which have really helped
me to harness this power in the writing process. Going further with the idea of first-order
thinking, Ive found that pre-planning my essays by accumulating my thoughts and conserving
my momentum without editing in the moment has provided me a way to collect the voluminous
amount of ideas I want to express in my piece. Later, I go back and organize all of these thoughts
into categories and form a structure which eventually manifests itself in my essay. However, I
often have hard time transitioning from the planning stage into putting my ideas into an essay
format. The article titled Shitty First Drafts really helped me to get over the type of analysis
paralysis that would often cause me to procrastinate on my work for fear of not putting together
a carpe diem on my first try. By putting my thoughts into writing right away, there is no longer a
daunting empty page staring me down, and instead some quality content that will come together
into a coherent writing piece once I take the time to go back and revise my work.

While I value the preliminary pre-planning and mind-dump process which leads to
development of ideas for a piece of writing, this class really drove home the concept of mindful
revision and self-reflection. Throughout my journey as a writer I realized that I dont take
enough time to go back over my work and make critical revisions. This course really illuminated
a variety of ways which I could do just that, including reverse outlining, sentence isolation, and
strategic high-liting. While I had always found the task of revision quite time-consuming and
frankly ineffective, these techniques changed the way I went about the process and spurred me
into action with some solid ways to make real improvements to my paper. This concept was key
from the very start, as the high-liting activity drastically improved my WP1 between the Shitty
First Draft and my final submission. Specifically, I found that a lot of my paragraphs relied too
heavily on evidence and lacked critical analysis to support my main ideas. Using different colors
to identify the presence of and balance between the critical components of my writing like
evidence and analysis has proved to be a brilliant way to revise my work. This technique is quite
effective due to the clear visual representation of the inner-working of a writing piece, and it
enabled me to better identify extra fluff that I could remove as well as strike a balance between
hard evidence and my unique evaluation/analysis.
In addition to the high-order skills discussed, this class also did a brilliant job of helping
me to get to the nitty-gritty of my technical writing prowess through all of the daily process
tips and minor ideas explained in class. This included the use of dashes, forming lists, framing
quotations, sentence length, and much more. While these ideas are a relatively small part of the
big picture, improvements in my use of these tools has surely had a cumulative effect on my
writing by enabling me to express my ideas more effectively. By utilizing minute techniques
such as these, I could more clearly illustrate my main points and fulfill the purpose of my writing

pieces. A great example of this is my newfound love for the use of italics in my writing, in order
to emphasize certain key concepts and terms which I want to stand out to the reader. As can be
seen by this reflection itself, I use italics in strategic situations and believe that they have really
given me a great way to visually stress the importance of key issues in a more striking way.
Taking the Writing 2 course from the perspective of a journey through the process of selfdevelopment as a writer has really helped me to frame what Ive learned into the bigger picture
and tie together all of the concepts and techniques that Ive learned. Take, for example, the
understanding of genre and its conventions. At the start of the class, I didnt really have any idea
of what genre was, but I started developing a keen awareness for it with the activities leading up
to writing my WP1. Once I could identify different genres in a variety of contexts, I was able to
progress to gaining a deeper understanding of specific conventions which define them. This
really hit home by the time I reached WP2, and was solidified throughout the rest of the course
as well. By this point I am seeing genre conventions everywhere!
I find that I see the world in a slightly different, more analytical way since developing
this awareness of genre and rhetorical conventions. One example of this would be my Greek
Mythology class, in which we read a variety of traditional works and analyze their meaning.
When I read an ancient poem or epic story now I cant help but notice the authors numerous
moves and rhetorical tactics. While reading Sophocles, I noticed that he uses themes of heroic
ideology and establishes pathos in the struggle of classical heroes such as Odysseus or Hercules.
I realize that this must play a large part in the timelessness of these works and their integral part
in our society even to this day. I never would have been able to draw this conclusion without first
understanding the idea of pathos itself, or the way in which the genre of classical myth appeals to
audiences across space and time.

Looking back upon my experiences over this quarter of Writing 2, I can surely say that I
have undergone a transformation in my writing and thinking processes. While I came into the
class hoping to improve my lower-order writing technique, it became so much more than that as I
learned about key techniques and principles which have reverberated through multiple parts of
my life. While I found incredible value in concepts relating to first-order thinking and skills
transfer, I believe that nearly everything we went over in class had a positive effect on my
development as a rhetor (yes, even the paraphrasing activity was helpful!). I hope to continue to
apply the concepts that I have learned across disciplines and various writing contexts as I
continue my academic and professional career, and further hone this skills over the course of my
life. I am so truly thankful for the opportunity to learn and grow in this way, and cant wait to see
where the writing journey takes me from here!