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Final Metacognitive Reflection

Sam Carpenter

04/17/2024

Allison Bochillini

From one of the very first readings in this class, “How to Read Like a Writer”1 by Mike

Punn, my perspective on reading and writing changed completely. I began to understand how

complex reading and writing truly are and how there are intentions behind everything writers do.

As class lessons continued, my perspective continued to evolve, which I would describe as

breaking down the fourth wall of writing and reading. I began to understand the importance of

recognizing the author’s intention and what it does to help develop and define the writing.

I also began to appreciate the wide variety of writing genres, the different messages they convey,

and the scholarly communities they help create. I also realized prior to this class that I only had

surface-level knowledge about rhetoric, and it was more complex than I believed. I feel that a

critical transition in my reading and writing took place when I began to examine the author’s

craft and intention in writing, which will be reflected throughout my revisions of both Writing

Project 1 and 2.

Prior to this class, I lacked well-thought-out intention in my writing, and when I valued

this, I began to see much more developed writing and also being able to examine reading much

better. A Lot of this shift in perspective was brought about through trial and error with the

various project builders, reader response drafts, and readings. One reading I found extremely

helpful was “Murder Rhetorically Speaking”2 by Janet Boyd. Boyd imprinted on me the various

1
Mike Bunn . “How to Read Like a Writer” in Writing Spaces:Reading on Writing, Volume 2,
ed. Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky(Parlos Press and respective authors, 2011)
2
Janet Boyd, “Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking)” in Writing Spaces:Reading on Writing, Volume 2,
ed. Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky(Parlos Press and respective authors, 2011)
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complexities within writing and how much depth and detail is behind something as simple as

your selection of words.Furthermore, she taught me the process of how she defines “getting in

touch with your inner detective,” which connects back to my point about taking into account the

intentions behind writing and what these intentions do for the writing.

Prior to this class, I felt that I lacked a personal writing style, and just went with what I

thought would sound best. However, after this class, I have identified my personal writing style

as very analytical, with the addition of my creativity to add my own personal twist. While

writing, I constantly look to find the connection to whatever thesis I have chosen to explore,

which creates a lot of analysis throughout my writing assignments. To add more individuality to

my writing, I have been implementing, when permitted, my personal thoughts on what specific

aspects of the work I’m exploring do to the message of the work as a whole. It has been

interesting to see how impactful small details impact the work as a whole.

I feel that what I have learned throughout this class and my various realizations

about reading and writing were effectively reflected in my portfolio. Regarding Writing Project

1, I had the right idea, and my intentions were correct. However, I do not believe my portrayal

fully accomplished the expectations. Throughout my Writing Project 1 revision, I made various

changes that addressed the comments but also went beyond them. Revising beyond the feedback

took a process of self-reflection on my writing and extensive brainstorming. One of the first

specific revisions I made to my Writing Project 1 that was inspired by the feedback not just

stating the author’s choices but answering why they made these choices and what they do to the

writing. An example of this in my writing was, “The scientific studies represent how the

psychology article uses scientific evidence, rather than references to history like the historical

article to remain relevant to the academic discipline of psychology.” It took a lot of reflection
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and revising to realize the specific intentions behind the differences in evidence and other

conventions. However, I feel that I have accomplished it, and it is reflected throughout both my

writing projects.

Furthermore, specific changes were seen through adding more clarity to my writing and

making sure my writing made sense not only to me but also to everyone reading it. An example

is seen in my body paragraph on organizational structure. I clarified exactly what the differences

in organizational structure for these two disciplines do to the overall articles. I feel that this is

best featured with “These specific types of structures help to both carry continuity throughout the

article and construct the academic discipline being used in the articles. The structure indicates to

the audience about academic discipline being applied and shapes the scholarly community of the

academic discipline”. Other changes I took from the feedback were reorganizing my thesis,

eliminating redundancy, and fixing grammatical/citation errors. Although these were

surface-level changes, they made a massive difference in the overall presentation of my writing

project.

However, I really want to focus on what changes I made that went beyond the feedback I

was given. These changes can be seen through things like taking out weaker points of my project

that did not fit in. An example of this is seen in eliminating introductions as a subclaims of of my

body paragraph on organizational structure and replacing it with the the abstract of the articles. I

made this switch because the abstract more effectively demonstrates the different conventions

between these disciplines and how these conventions affect and tell us about the academic

article. Another addition was adding a second figure in my differences of evidence body

paragraph. Before this, I referenced graphs in both articles but only included one figure, which

threw off the structure and coherence of my paper. Lastly, something helpful was the positive
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feedback that was given on my writing projects, specifically on the tone/jargon section. I used

this positive feedback to fix and develop my other body paragraphs, describe the differences in

evidence, and tell the reader about the differences in academic discipline. Overall, in my Writing

Project 1, I fixed both surface-level and more profound revisions that took more self-reflection

and brainstorming.

Regarding my writing project 2, revisions were more difficult, especially when going

beyond the feedback I was given. However, I feel that I effectively revised this writing project

while also not changing the direction of my project. The revisions I made to my genre translation

were minimal but significantly impacted the overall message and presentation. The first

significant revision I made to the translation was deleting the bottom section I included, which

was implemented to add more context to the academic article. However, after feedback and

self-reflection made me realize I had completely thrown off the tabloid, and the translation would

be much more effective without it.

Furthermore, regarding the context of the tabloid, I added a specific year, “2004,” to

further capture the conventions of the history article, which contained many historical references.

Regarding my metacognitive reflection for Writing Project 2, I felt that I did a good job meeting

all of the requirements. However, there are definitely areas that need more coherence and clarity.

I decided to reshape my analysis on the conventions of the academic article in the first

paragraph. Before it was all over the place and lacked coherence, this reorganization was seen in

areas like “Throughout the article, there is distinct jargon and tone, historical references, and

graphs that employ the academic discipline of history and convey the distinct style of this

discipline.” Other revisions focused on ensuring I followed the Chicago footnotes style citations

and taking into account the different works used in my project. I had a wide variety of works
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ranging from academic articles to magazines, all requiring different types of citation formats.

Furthermore, one of the main challenges I faced throughout my revisions was how minimal my

writing had to be with the tabloid. My first attempt to add more context to the article and cite my

sources was to conceal it through a disclaimer. However, as I mentioned previously, it looked out

of place and did not fit a tabloid’s conventions. I also realized that my desire to cite the sources

in the tabloid did not fit in with the conventions of a tabloid, which threw the translation off even

more. After going back and forth for a while and through many attempts to maximize my writing

as much as possible, I realized whatever hurt the overall translation and presentation. This was

when I concluded that awkwardly placing a paragraph of writing would not fully capture the

conventions of the tabloid. I decided to leave this awkward paragraph out and recognize that

although my writing was minimal, it did a good job of capturing the main points of the academic

paper and staying within the genre conventions of a tabloid. The importance of staying within

genre conventions of discipline was shown to me through Dan Melzer’s work on

“Understanding Discourse Communities,”3 in which he states, “One of the most common ways

discourse communities share information and meet their goals is through genres.” His teachings

influenced me to prioritize the genre conventions of the tabloid and overall create a better

translation. However, I would still like to improve on fully capturing the main points of the

academic article. Although I have not stated all of my revisions, I feel that I have conveyed most

of the surface-level and more complex changes I have made to both my Writing Project 1 and 2.

Overall, the work in this portfolio reflects a wide array of changes in my writing. I feel

that this quarter I have reached a new level of writing in which I don’t just know what is going

on in writing but why. My strongest feature is analysis and being able to connect points to the

3
Dan, Melzer “Understanding Discourse Communities,” in Writing Spaces:Reading on Writing, Volume 3, ed.
Dana Driscal,Mary Stewart, and Matthew Vettor (Parlos Press and respective authors, 2020)
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overall thesis. This newfound skill of being able to analyze the author’s intentions is something I

will be able to bring with me to all future writing projects, not just in English but in history and

even science papers. I still struggle with clarity, but I will continue to work on it, and I have

already seen a significant improvement through this class. Overall, through this class, I have

acquired many new skills and tips like analysis, “reading like a writer,” and many more that will

aid many in future writing endeavors.

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Works Cited

Bunn, Mike. “How to Read Like a Writer” in Writing Spaces:Reading on Writing, Volume 2,
Edited by Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky. Parlos Press and respective authors, 2011.

Boyd,Janet, “Murder! (Rhetorically Speaking)” in Writing Spaces:Reading on Writing, Volume

2, Editor Charles Lowe and Pavel Zemliansky.Parlos Press and respective authors, 2011.

Melzer, Dan “Understanding Discourse Communities,” in Writing Spaces:Reading on Writing,

Volume 3, Editors Dana Driscal,Mary Stewart, and Matthew Vettor. Parlos Press and respective
authors, 2020.