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Zack DePiero
English 015
6 December 2018
Metacognitive Reflection
On August 20th 2018, I began my very first semester of college and on August 21st at
12:05pm, my first year English class began. From the very beginning it was clear to me that this
course would not be like my others. From the syllabus to the first free-writing prompt, “What
makes a country music song...a country music song?” to our first assigned reading, “Spaces for
Writing”, it was clear that not only would we be retaining a lot of information in a short couple
of months, but we would also be approaching the topics in an unconventional way. The very first
day had already impacted my thinking and writing and continued to strengthen throughout the
One of the very first things I learned is that writing doesn’t have to be controlled, you
don’t have to have everything figured out as soon as you begin writing. This is where first order
and second order thinking comes in. Whereas second order thinking requires logic, control, and
reason, first order thinking is creative and has no direction. Most people think they need to be
second order thinkers when writing an academic piece when in reality it is actually more
beneficial for the person and their work if they begin with an open and creative mind.
Not only does the way you think affect your writing, but also what you choose to add into
your piece will affect how easy it will be to form something. That is why in this course we
created a list of higher and lower order concerns to tell us what is important and what is not so
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important. Higher order concerns will include an argument, thesis, quotes, and evidence. These
are things that should be included in almost every writing piece; however, concerns such as
counter-arguments, rebuttals, and transitions, are not a crucial part of all essays and do not
In one assigned reading, “So What? Who Cares? Saying Why it Matters.” Gerald Graff,
an English professor at the University of Illinois, states, “the ‘so what?’ question asks you to link
your argument to some larger matter that readers already deem important” (97). So why is
talking about country music important? Why must we worry about first and second order
thinking and higher and lower order concerns? All of this ties into our study of genre- similarities
in form, style, and subject matter. As I stated in my WP1, “Genre is everywhere and in
Not only did we learn about genre, but we also learned some very important concepts
that tie into the formation of our first writing project. It is important to recognize the author’s
purpose for writing something as well as the intended and unintended audience. Other important
terms to understand are conventions- how something is usually done, affordances- what
something does well, and constraints- what something can not do that it should. Not only did we
have time in class to look up and define these terms, but they were also re-introduced in each
assigned reading.
In “Murder! Rhetorically Speaking.” a term such as jargon is described as, “used by those
in a particular profession or group to facilitate clear and precise communication” (89). By saying
this we begin to realize there is a certain way you speak and certain words you use in every
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situation. This also connects to our study of rhetoric which is what allows you to write
Not only did the assigned readings help me to understand the vocabulary of the course, it
also helped me to better understand that although there are rules in writing, you do not always
have to follow them. When reading, “What is Academic Writing?” there are many “myths” about
writing that were busted. I learned that there does not always need to be an incessant focus on
grammar and that it is okay if you make a mistake every once in a while. I also learned that when
writing an essay, it is not necessary to have just five paragraphs. Five paragraphs is just a
suggestion when writing a basic paper; moreover, it is a lot easier to break down thoughts if there
are several paragraphs in a writing piece. Lastly, it became clear to me that although it my be
nice to rush to get an assignment or essay finished, that draft is not going to be the last. There is
always room for revisions in any piece of writing because there is always something that can be
made better.
Although it might seem as though nothing can be changed once you have finally finished
a piece of writing, once you receive feedback from your teacher and/or peers you begin to realize
things you may have missed in the beginning. Giving and getting feedback throughout this
course and my other courses, gives me the opportunity to get help from a fresh set of eyes.
Feedback included in my revision matrix was not only from my teacher, it also came from my
peers and a lot of it came from myself. Once I began seeing some mistakes, I began to see them
all.
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All of this combined information has allowed me to think of “writing” in a different way.
As my English professor says, “writing is a process.” You are not always going to be able to
knock out a four-page paper in two hours and expect it to be perfect. Not only is a solid argument
and evidence to support it important, it is also critical that each paragraph flows from the other
and supports your argument. You can’t just put information down on a piece of paper and expect
In highschool I made myself aware of what teachers look for in an essay and I made sure
to include that information. However, there was never any structure to my essays because
although they were well written and sounded good, the ideas jumped back and forth. This course
showed me that there are so many little things you miss when you try to rush. When I was in
highschool I made a habit of annotating everything I read; however, it wasn’t until I had this
class that I would write the page numbers next to the quotes.
I think one of the reasons why it was so easy to grasp the concepts in this course is
because there was never a time we learned something and didn’t talk about it again, everything
we learned recurred throughout the whole course. In addition, being able to discuss concepts as a
class, having an assigned reading on top of it, and working on PB’s and WP’s also had a big
impact on how I learned. From PB1A about coupons to WP3 about social exclusion, this course
was a buildup. In our writing we went from sounding like monotonous high school students to
This course taught me how to search scholarly journal articles, how to create an
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annotated bibliography, how to cite sources properly, and how to formally write an email. While
completing all of these assignments I never really understood what I would need this information
for; however, it soon became clear to me that not only would understanding the material benefit
One of the biggest tips that I will definitely take with me is reverse outlining. Being able
to take my essay, break it down into paragraphs, then break it down even further into the main
point of each, taught me to re-see my work. Was I supporting my argument in each paragraph?
Did I stay on topic? Did I incorporate course material? It does not seem like it in the beginning
but once I finished the reverse outline I saw where my essay was and I got an idea of where I
wanted it to be.
In conclusion, this course has taught me many things from rhetoric to genre to creating
arguments. I had always thought before that I was a pretty good writer but as the course
progressed I realized there was so much I did not know about writing. From the end of August to
the beginning of December I went from being a not-so-good writer to a mediocre writer. If not
for this course I probably would not have encountered the tools and knowledge to write as well
as I do now. This course taught me more than I ever realized and I’m glad I had the opportunity