HOW CAN I IMPROVE MY WRITING???

BY TABITHA FROEHLICH

Scholars advice on how metacognition can improve your writing.

Writing is an incredibly complex process that takes time and practice inorder to
become great at it. For some people it comes naturally, but for others it can be

very challenging and frustrating. I fall into the latter category. I felt as though my

writing had not

improved much

since freshman

year of high school,

and I am currently

a Junior in college.

I struggled with

this during writing

assignments in my

classes, and in

college there are

many writing

assignments. I felt distraught because it did not just naturally come to me, and all

the practice I had did not seem to have much effect on my writing. That was until

I found out what metacognition was. Metacognition is the awareness and

understanding of one’s own thought process, it forces you to think inward and ask

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yourself why you are doing what you are doing. Why did you choose a certain word,

why did an author write his sentence in that way, what is the goal of your writing?

In order to spread the word about how effective metacognition is in improving

writing skills, I compiled some of the best advice from academic scholars who

studied metacognition, its application and its effects.

What is Metacognition?
Metacognition is about knowing what you are doing and why you are doing it. If you

can recognize your strengths and weaknesses then you are already one-step closer

to being able to think in a

metacognitive lens. While it

seems like a big word and a

difficult concept to

understand, the general idea

behind it is rather simple.

Scholars Tomasz Jankowski

and Pawel Holas discuss how

metacognition is really just a

model of mindfulness. They

created a model to describe

the mindful process of

information. This model is

based off of 4 hypotheses:

(1) metacognition is multilevel

information processing in a

mindfulness state, (2) mindful

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meta-level is always conscious while other meta-levels of cognition may occur

implicitly,(3) mindfulness practiced intentionally leads to reduction of dissociations

between meta and objective cognition, (4) specificity of the mindful meta-level is

due to cooperation between meta knowledge promoting a state of mindfulness.

Metacognition, mindfulness, and writing all go hand in hand.

Scholars Dana Lynn Driscoll and Roger Powell view metacognitions as a broad

theory that consists of monitoring and control. They say in order to practice

metacognition well you must actively evaluate what the task is asking of them and

take action to answer the task in the most effective and understanding way

possible. This helps create long term understanding and development for writing

since you are actively focusing on what and why you are writing.

Apply Metacognition to your Writing

When applying metacognition to your own writing there are three simple skills you

should focus on: self-regulation, self-monitoring, and self-evaluation. Look inward.

Scholars Jared Featherstone, Rudy Barrett, and Maya Chandler agree with the

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relationship between metacognition and mindfulness, but they view it more as

supporting each other as opposed to the terms being interchangeable.

Metacognition is seen as more of a subset of mindfulness in their eyes. It is used

in science with mindfulness, but you can practice mindfulness without practicing

metacognition. Mindfulness, metacognition, and writing can all be used to help each

other. Being aware of thoughts, feelings, and process allows you to be in touch with

your writing. Forcing you to be mindful of the choices you make. Metacognition

makes you look back on

experiences, choices

that were made, and

the mental processes

that it took to engage.

When reading

anything, literally

anything (an academic

article to a diner’s

menu), pay attention to

the style of writing and how it is done. Try to find different quirks authors have.

Find what you like and implement it into your own writing, or discover what you

dislike and actively avoid writing in that style.When writing an essay, an article, a

book, a blog or anything else that requires you to string words into a sentence,

really focus on what you are writing. On why you are writing. Focus on the

significance of each word and the meaning of each sentence. By doing this you will

not only find your style of writing, but realize that over time it gets easier.

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Conclusion
When applying these previously discussed models into my own writing, I initially

found it extremely difficult, but after experimenting with it I actually found it

very helpful. In particular focusing on Scholars Tomasz Jankowski and Pawel Holas’

model I found that relating metacognition to mindfulness really helped me. At first

I had no idea what their model meant and how to apply their theories into practice.

Once I broke it down into simpler terms, I realized that the general ideas they

were focusing on were not that complex to understand. Their main idea was to

focus on what you are saying and why. Now after each sentence I am able to

reflect upon what I have written and understand why I have written it. I recognize

that the meta-mind and the cognitive mind go hand-in-hand. WHen you exercise

one, you exercise the other. In actively recognizing and practicing this I think it

has helped me improve and become more confident in my writing.

Overall, writing is difficult, but with some helpful tips and tricks it can become

easier for anyone. Writing is supposed to be a creative and engaging activity, so

look at it that way!! Have fun with it.​Try new styles of writing, be risky! The more

you practice metacognition the easier it will become and the more you will enjoy

writing. Looking deep inside yourself and asking yourself why you are writing is the

most important foundation to metacognition. Forcing yourself to view writing in

this lens will improve your writing dramatically. Personally, I have found

metacognition to make writing so much easier and my quality of writing has

increased. I definitely still have a long way to go before I am truly happy with my

writing, but it is a day by day, step by step, sentence by sentence, word by word

process.

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References
Driscoll, Dana Lynn; Roger Powell. (2016). States, traits, and dispositions: The

impact of emotion on writing development and writing transfer across college

courses and beyond [Special Issue: Emotion]. Composition Forum 34.

https://compositionforum.com/issue/34/states-traits.php

Efklides, Anastasia. (2006). Metacognition and affect: What can metacognitive

experiences tell us about the learning process. Educational Research Review 01.1,

3-14. http://www.pedagogy.ir/images/stories/media/metacognition-and-affect.pdf

Featherstone, Jared; Rodolfo Barrett; Maya Chandler. (2019, January 15). The

Mindful Tutor. In Johnson, Karen G.; Ted Roggenbuck (Eds.), How We Teach

Writing Tutors: A WLN Digital Edited Collection.

https://wlnjournal.org/digitaleditedcollection1/Featherstoneetal.html

Jankowski, Tomasz, and Pawel Holas. "Metacognitive Model of Mindfulness."

Consciousness and Cognition, vol. 28, Aug. 2014, pp. 64–80. ScienceDirect,
doi:10.1016/j.concog.2014.06.005.

-Tabitha Froehlich