Blog #11: Metacognition

Culminating Writers Profile
1. Discuss how your expectations about your writing style and needs have both changed and remained the same since this class has started.
I don't believe my expectations about my writing style since beginning this class has changed too much. However, I am very excited to be given more freedom to break out from the structured style we have always been taught, and to take risks with my wrtiting.
2. What do you see as your strengths as a writer and how have you reinforced them?
My strengths in my writing are that I am very detailed and I have an expansive vocabulary that I am sure to include when it is appropriate. I am sure to address what is needed and I am very meticulous. I have reinforced my writing style with practice and critique.
3. What do you still see as your writing weaknesses and what have you done to strengthen those areas?
A writing weakness of mine sometimes includes using the appropriate punctuation: i.e. distinguishing when I should use a semi-colon versus a period. I think I could strengthen this by re-reading and also having others read my paper so that I can gradually learn with critique what I need to change.


Evaluating Your Writing Process
1. If you had the time to write one more draft of this essay, how would you improve it?
If I had time to write one more draft of this essay, I probably would honestly change my whole topic. I thought it was well-written, but I don't feel like I connected with my topic in a way that the reader could connect to as well. Perhaps if I had picked a topic that I could connect more emotionally to my paper, my readers could too.
2. As you received peer feedback and revised your essay, what did you find the easiest element to improve in your essay?
The easiest element to revise in my essay was adding more detail about chivalry from a woman's point of view rather than just the man's point of view.
3. In contrast, discuss the biggest problem you had in writing and revising this essay.
The hardest thing to change in my essay were all the "to be" verbs because I had already written the whole essay so it was hard to change certain parts without rewriting whole sections.

Evaluating Your Successes
1. Discuss your most successful large-scale revision in this essay.
My most large-scale revision in this essay would probably be adding in full sections of detail that I had not included before, such as more detail on what I believed to be the woman's role in chivalry.
2. Discuss your success in combining descriptive, narrative, and illustrative elements into this Definition Essay.
I think I was successful in combining descriptive, narrative, and illustrative elements into tis definition essay. I included a lot of imagery throughout my essay and I used a few personal anecdotes to help tie in my idea.
3. Discuss your best success when considering your audience.
I think in terms of my audience, I was successful in using sophisticated language that ties in directly with my topic of chivalry, and my personal stories help the reader to understand my topic with a relatable example.

Being Honest with Self
1. What most intimidated you about this writing process and how did you combat this intimidation?
I wasn't really "intimidated" in writing this essay because writing comes naturally to me, and it wasn't a huge task. However, it was difficult to narrow down a topic with a prompt that was so vague, but I used brainstorming techniques and just tried to stay focused.
2. What ideas or methods from texts we studied influenced you to try a new strategy within your writing process?
I don't know if I specifically used something from the texts we studied in my writing, however that is not to say I didn't subconsciously use them. I tried using the different rhetorical devices, and even incorporated personal stories, allusions, and imagery.
3. What ideas or methods did you pick up on from reading student essay examples that you tried in your own writing process?
I think I more used the student essay examples as a model for my own, and to determine if I was writing the essay "correctly" considering how vague the prompt was in the first place.
4. What idea for improving your essay did you learn from a peer?
During the peer-edit, someone helped me discover how many "to-be" verbs I used, and I must admit, it was difficult to go through and change all of them without changing entire paragraphs in my essay.
5. Where do you see yourself as a writer now, in both strengths and weaknesses, after completing this writing assignment?
I think as a writer, I have established my own writing style over the past few years, and after this essay I would really like to take a leap and start taking more risks with my writing, such as breaking away from structure and the norm in terms of school essays.