Tony Huang

Mr. Wilson
Writing 2
22 March 2017

Dear Mr. Wilson,

I honestly hate writing, but even though I still do, I found it to be a little more interesting

because of how it was taught. I never really experienced a writing class that involved you having

metacognitive reflection of your own work. This really forced me to think about my actions, why

I did them, and how I thought it was effective. This type of work got the ball rolling of applying

these same thoughts in the process of writing my next essay. After our first reflection, I thought

of these same questions when drafting the second writing project. Before this class, I never really

thought about these things and thought more simple things like, Am I answering the prompt. I

did not think of effectiveness of my arguments or how evidence can be effectively used to prove

something. In this class, I also finally learned that the generic introduction that was basically an

overview learned in high school was not the best way of writing an introduction. A summary

does not grab the readers attention or make them care enough to read your paper, but the

problem model will. I learned that you have to make your reader want to read your paper because

you are saying something interesting and the reader could learn something by reading my paper.

I also learned that the thesis is supposed to be debatable and does not actually have to answer the

prompt. I learned that genres could be applied to virtually anything and that every single word an

author uses has a rhetorical purpose. I never realized the amount of thought that a writer needed

to put in to achieve their rhetorical purpose. This realization makes me really impressed with

writers that make it seem so easy. Another thing that I have learned in this class is the importance

of revision. The process of first and second order thinking actually makes complete sense

because when I try to write things coherently as I am writing the essay, thoughts get lost in the
process and ruins the direction that I was going. Prior to this class, my rough draft was usually

pretty much the same as my final draft. I reread my rough draft and said, Well, thats pretty

good, and resubmitted it as a final draft without much editing. During the course, Ive come to

realize that your rough draft is never as good as you think and that you should always revise it.

The revision step was probably the most important step for my projects because its where I

changed the most things and really made my arguments as strong as they were. Lastly, I want to

thank you Mr. Wilson for making a writing class not dreadful for me and actually helping me

take something away from this, which I did not expect to do going into this class. Hopefully I

can apply this metacognitive analysis of my writing to even my actions that are outside of

writing.

When I read my original WP1, the first thing I noticed was my weak analysis. I listed

things and described the functions behind the mechanisms, but I didnt tie it back to the genres

and why the genres do that. I did a better job of that in WP2, so I applied what I did there to my

revised WP1. In this revision, I point out the convention, discuss the function, and connect it

back to the purpose of the genre, and how all of that shapes the genre. I also saw an

overwhelming amount of evidence followed by a short analysis. It should be flipped around

because I should expect my audience to know common things, but not know the things I am

trying to analyze, which is the point of my paper. When reading your comments, the thing I agree

with the most is your comment about my introduction. I tried to use the problem model, but

when I originally typed my introduction, it felt like an odd problem to have, so this time, with the

new, more specific audience, I attempted to tackle the problem model with more practicality

because I have a clearer goal. I also referenced the two genres in my introduction, which I did

not originally do. My thesis was an argument that by reading my paper, the struggling student
would understand genre, convention, and rhetoric. Due to the smaller page limit, I really had to

pick which pieces of evidence were most important in proving my argument. I felt that I chose

the right pieces and the page limit forced me to have a stronger, more concise analyses.

The biggest issue of my WP3 was probably my use of evidence. I was not specific with

my citation, with both my translation and the article. This made my analysis weak and it was

harder to see really how I attempted to translate my piece. By adding citation, it is obvious what

is taken from the article and how I implemented it into my translation, which makes argument

stronger. The citation made it easier to pinpoint my analysis on specific parts of the

article/translation, which makes it easier on the reader to see the connections I made when during

my translation. It also made the organization of the whole paper neater, with citation of the

article, followed by analysis and evidence from my translation of how I followed through. A

thing that was mentioned in class after we turned in our WP3s was that we did not have to argue

that our translations were successful. This was relieving to me because I felt that mine was

actually not and this made it easier to say what I learned by doing this project.

I will take the whole writing process with me as I have future writing projects outside of

this class. I feel like the system of first and second order thinking is very effective in getting your

thoughts across and then also forming it in a way for your reader to understand. I will thinking

about every action I make, inside and outside of writing, and see if it effectively contributes to

my rhetorical purpose. Now when I read and write, I will think about the intended audience and

how that actually affects the way the writing is executed. I will make sure to reflect on my own

work to see if I truly understand what I am doing and the purpose of doing it. Metacognitive

reflection will keep me in check and hopefully I will continue to improve my writing because I

have much more to improve on. Thank you again Mr. Wilson.
Sincerely,

Tony Huang