Metacognitive writing is writing in which the writer is aware of their wording and aware of the processes they are taking to write the work. They take steps to ensure everything they state is relevant and the importance is conveyed.  The writer reviews reflect and self-analyzes their work. Sandra L. Giles explained in “Reflective Writing and the Revision Process: What Were You Thinking?”, that it’s critical how the writer’s intentions towards the audience and how we must reflect on our work to ensure that we are conveying the message we want to say. As a result, we drastically improve our work and develop our skills further.

In my experience as a writer, I could not fully understand what reflective writing was. The writing was a confusing abstract for me and the closest experience I can remember was when doing a research paper(few good pieces I could produce as a writer)  I had to make connections to how my research is significant and how it is important for readers to be aware. This helped me ensure that a strong message is sent to the reader so they understand the importance of my work. I couldn’t understand what I was doing and I wasn’t meeting the criteria early on in the writing kept demotivating me to improve. I just couldn’t understand but in time I started to realize and reflect on my work and it helped open new doors to what I can accomplish as a writer.

My writing process used to be just making one draft and improving it. Now my process is dumping all information I want to include and information I have in my head first on the first draft. The draft is not a full draft but multiple concept drafts in one.  Then I take the materials and connect them, and remove some material to maintain relevance. Then I rewrite the essay to develop a serious draft.  This is similar to Anne Lamott who wrote the “Shitty First Drafts”. I wish I read this article years ago and I could have been a better writer and more confident in my skills.  This writing method I took practice a year ago and I hope to make better writing pieces and add more skills into my “life toolbox”.

Reflective writing or metacognitive writing means being able to revise and examine any activity that asks you to think deeply about the choices you’ve made in your writing. This helps us think about our intentions and the purpose of why we use a certain strategy in our writing. By reflective writing, we can create long-term goals in which we want to work on her writing skills but also, acknowledging what we’ve learned from the activity that we’re reflecting on. It can also help us with our academic skills and it can seek a better method for us to use in our future writings. I use reflective writing as a source of analysis when I finish an essay. Every time I have an assignment due I lean towards my thought process of writing the essay and try to understand the gaps that I’m missing to boost my writing. I revise my essay and try to see the connections that I’ve made and any errors to correct. I do believe that reflective writing has helped me improve on the skills I choose to use while writing. My writing process is to first understand what the assignment is asking me to do and then start brainstorming for ideas of what I’m going to write. Sometimes I lean onto my journal which I keep any mistakes that I’ve done on my past assignments and try to not repeat the same mistakes. I then try to focus on answering any questions that the assignment asks instead of going out of the box writing something irrelevant. Sometimes I can get a little unfocused but I realize that it helps me show a little bit of my personality into the writing. If the assignment requires any research, I go ahead and read any information to add to my essays. This current assignment, helps me bring a little bit of my personality into the writing because were talking about the discourse community that we belong to and it’s something that I’m passionate about. I try staying in order which is what they teach you in first grade when you first learn how to write an essay. I go by starting with the introduction, body paragraphs, and then ending with the conclusion. For this particular assignment, I had a brainstorm more than usual about the word I chose which was faith, and my past experiences that associate with faith. Overall, reflective writing has changed the way I view my writing.

Writing a first draft can be mind wrecking and time consuming especially when you are trying to please your intended audience. When writing our metacognitive process we want to be able to control our capabilities with the learning process and that the time spent and the writing process is effective. Metacognitive writing is making sure you are achieving your goals especially when writing your first draft and being aware of the topic and your thought process. My experience with reflective writing is to be able to go back and reflect on my thought process and how equipped I am when writing my thought on paper and then going back to reflect on my writing was nerve wrecking. I want my paper to be perfect for the audience and my experience when writing my first draft is bad for me. After reading “My Shitty First Draft,” I learned that my paper does not have to be perfect at the first attempt and that I am not alone when when reflecting on my writing. According to Anne Lamott in “Shitty First Draft” the first draft is more about the process then the writing piece. I like that she states “The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going see it and you can shape it later”.  That to me was so powerful because I learned to free write, write what I want and then reflect on what I wrote.  She also stated to use the world around you and “Write what you want to read” as I experience this all the time I felt as if Anne Lamott was speaking to me directly.  My writing process was to write and reflect on a metacognitive way, and my thoughts about satisfying the intended audience.  I focused mostly on satisfying the reader without going back and reflecting exactly what I wanted the audience to learn about my discourse community and phrase and focused on how I would introduce it to them. Also my experience in revising and targeting my first draft is flowing a lot better than my first draft.

1. Reflective or metacognitive writing is an essential part of writing instruction and can be used for a variety of writing, such as composition, creative nonfiction, or fiction writing. It helps to formulate the writer’s purpose, figure out the relationship between the audience and the writer, identify possible problems in the writing process and set goals for revision, and make decisions about language and style, etc. Overall, it helps writers gain more insight and control over the composition and revision process, allowing writers to reflect on their strengths and challenges as they write. 
2. Once I finished writing a reflection on an essay assignment, I would have a clearer understanding of my shortcomings and figured out again why I should consider the audience. I think that the essay is not only supported by the purpose, but the audience is also a crucial point, as the audience determines the language used in the sentence. Therefore, I feel that reflective writing has helped me because it has shown me where I need to improve more and where I can keep it up.
3. Before I start writing, I make a list of what I know about the topic and the information about it, and what kind of ideas I want to have in my writing, or what kind of suggestions I want to make. I think this helps me to have a clear idea of what I want to have when I start writing and gives me a general idea because when I do start writing and get into it, I get disorganized and will write everything in without a plan and I might end up forgetting some vital or information that I think I should mention most in my writing. Before writing the major essay assignment, I had a tough time figuring out which communities I had a lot of connections with, and which communities had words or phrases that I often used that stuck with me and had a big impact on me. So, I made a list of the people who have been with me the longest. As I listed these people one by one, my thoughts became simple and clear, and I quickly came up with words that meant a lot to me and have always been there for me. I also used the word to list some events that happened in my life. When I started writing, I could choose to write about the events that stood out in my list that illustrated the meaning of the word more visually and realistically and then add the introductory and closing information to make it more informative and organized. 

 

Metacognitive writing is writing in which the writer is aware of their wording and aware of the processes they are taking to write the work. They take steps to ensure everything they state is relevant and the importance is conveyed. The writer reviews reflect and self-analyzes their work. Sandra L. Giles explained in “Reflective Writing and the Revision Process: What Were You Thinking?”, that it’s critical how the writer’s intentions towards the audience and how we must reflect on our work to ensure that we are conveying the message we want to say. As a result, we drastically improve our work and develop our skills further.
In my experience as a writer, I could not fully understand what reflective writing was. The writing was a confusing abstract for me and the closest experience I can remember was when doing a research paper(few good pieces I could produce as a writer) I had to make connections to how my research is significant and how it is important for readers to be aware. This helped me ensure that a strong message is sent to the reader so they understand the importance of my work. I couldn’t understand what I was doing and I wasn’t meeting the criteria early on in the writing kept demotivating me to improve. I just couldn’t understand but in time I started to realize and reflect on my work and it helped open new doors to what I can accomplish as a writer.
My writing process used to be just making one draft and improving it. Now my process is dumping all information I want to include and information I have in my head first on the first draft. The draft is not a full draft but multiple concept drafts in one. Then I take the materials and connect them, and remove some material to maintain relevance. Then I rewrite the essay to develop a serious draft. This is similar to Anne Lamott who wrote the “Shitty First Drafts”. I wish I read this article years ago and I could have been a better writer and more confident in my skills. This writing method I took practice a year ago and I hope to make better writing pieces and add more skills into my “life toolbox”.

The discourse community I will be targeting is African Americans. The phrase I will be using is culture. I want to discuss how other people are constantly trying to steal our culture in a society that doesn’t accept us. This community made me realize there is beauty in being black.

My understanding of what a discourse is, is a community or niche you belong to. I think that there can be a large variety of discourse communities you belong to. In my case, I’d say music taste, culture, faith, etcetera, have a huge influence on the communities I am a part of. The most important one to me is the one related to my faith, which I’ve decided to speak about in this project. I’m a Jehovah’s Witness and many people may have heard of the Witnesses, but from secondary sources. Such sources are not always accurate. One phrase I’d like to talk about is “neutrality.” We are over 8 million witnesses, but in some countries, our freedom of religion is not allowed to be exercised. This is a battle and the term neutrality becomes relevant, because we not only say we are a neutral people, but we practice that. So, what do I mean by neutrality? That is what I’d like to discuss in this unit.

The discourse community that I am going to write about is about fitness. The word I chose to use is “Gains.” Since the pandemic, I haven’t been able to go to the gym as much as I would like to. I decided to write about the fitness community because I enjoy working out.

The phrase I will be using is wallflower.The discourse community I will be targeting is my old Book Club. I want to discuss how I found a part of myself in a community that made me feel accepted and normal. A community that made me realize there is beauty in literature.

For my discourse community i will be talking about my experiences in volleyball and how i adjusted into my team just like how Dan Melzer adjusted into his music group. The word i will be using for my discourse community is “Team” because in my discourse community teams are very important and you cant do anything on your own. In volleyball trusting your team and playing as a group is very important.