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Elsie Milan

Professor Bocchino

Writing 2

14 March 2024

“Metacognitive Reflection”

Throughout this quarter, I have learned many new things about writing, genre

conventions, and academic disciplines, impacting my approach to writing. Each week’s reading

was able to teach me something different, from learning how to define genres or how to make an

argument, the excerpts we read and discussed taught me things I didn’t normally think about

when it came to writing. Instead of taking a typical approach to writing an essay or paper, we

went through the process step-by-step, with the project builders being our foundation for our

writing projects. Peer review was also utilized to aid the class through the writing process, with

my classmates reading each other's work and providing comments and suggestions that would

benefit us in the long run. My experience with Writing 2 during this quarter was shaped by the

help that was provided to me by my classmates and Professor Bocchino herself.

Before entering this class, I thought back on my experience in Writing 1 last fall quarter. I

remember enjoying it, as the professor found a way to make our work very personal, which made

everything from writing journals to putting presentations together more enjoyable. When I asked

people about their experiences with Writing 2, their reactions to my question initially made me

nervous, with many people stating that they disliked or even “hated” the class because of how

much work they had to do, or that it was simply “hard”. However, I knew that peoples’

experiences were not universal, and I had to take these reactions with a grain of salt. Even if

students had had a difficult time in their class for Writing 2, that didn’t mean I was going to have
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the same problems. I would say that my approach to thinking, reading, and writing has evolved

greatly throughout this course. I found myself, especially while working on the two writing

projects, going back through the readings, or any sort of activity that we had done in class during

the week, to help me if I was struggling. Even the little things, such as re-learning what

plagiarism is and what it can look like in writing or relearning how to do a citation properly,

really helped my confidence in terms of my writing skills, and I found myself stopping

second-guessing myself when it came to quoting or paraphrasing in my writing projects.

A lot of the things we learned about during Writing 2 are things that I have never thought

about before. In terms of genres, I had never thought about using the term other than to describe

something such as a book, or maybe even a movie. However, learning about genres in terms of

writing helped me during this class a lot, especially when considering the second writing project

that had us translating a text from one genre to another. As Bickmore states in “General in the

Wild,” “...a genre is an act of language…that behaves in typical or characteristic ways, which we

can observe in repeated or persistent situations”1 (Bickmore). Therefore, when working on an

assignment such as WP #1 and having to read a journal article with research being conducted

was a bit easier, knowing that pieces that contain and revolve around research will have

background information, findings, and data, and are organized by sections and/or subsections. In

terms of rhetoric, I thought that Boyd’s “Murder! Rhetorically Speaking” reading was insightful

when I was originally starting to write WP #2. Because I was translating a journal article into a

children’s poem, I had to think about how I wanted to express my genre translation properly. I

tried out the “five simple facts” exercise for this writing project, and I thought that it helped me

immensely. Although I only was able to utilize 3 of the 5 facts, I still thought that it was helpful,

and will try to utilize it when I write in the future.

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Bickmore, “General in the Wild”
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I think that my writing style is a mix of casual and formal writing. I try to make my

essays or papers imitate the way I speak, but I also make sure that I keep some level of formality

as is required for academic writing. I always want to make sure that I am using proper grammar

and spelling correctly, which are always important, but I know that if I attempt to sound too

serious or formal, I find my writing to not flow well. During this course, I have also been able to

write in the first person point of view as well, which is very different for me since I usually don’t

write in that style. I am typically required to write in the third-person, but even when I don’t have

to, I still stick to it. I think I struggle sometimes with writing in first-person due to the fact that it

is discouraged in middle school and high school, with teachers usually saying that it’s “wrong”.

Overall, I tried keeping this style of casual mixed with formal writing in my work instead of

picking one over the other. I think that at the beginning of the quarter, my writing may have

leaned too much into the casual direction, so I aimed to be more formal. Now though, I try to

have a healthy balance of both, as I think that my writing sounds awkward and disjointed if I try

to be too formal.

There were many changes that I made to my writing projects in my portfolio, with most

of them occurring in WP #1. My main issue with the first writing project was that it lacked

analysis. I showed that I knew my article well, but by providing so much background

information, it became more of a summary of my journal articles. In short, I needed to find a way

to provide context to my articles, but also analyze it so that I could make the comparisons

between the both of them. There were also miscellaneous changes I made, such as adding a topic

sentence to the first body paragraph of the project. Instead of starting off with “In the

introduction of ‘Physical education’ in early childhood education: Implications for primary

school curricula, authors Kirsten Petrie and Jeanette Clarkin-Phillips focus on physical education
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from a “broader perspective”2 (Petrie-Clarikin-Phillips, 503) as children learn about physical

education in different settings,” I focused on creating an actual topic sentence and came up with

“Kirsten Petrie and Jeanette Clarkin Phillips discuss and focus their article on the topic of

physical education for young children provided through early childhood education centers.” I

still liked the original sentence that I used to begin my paragraph, so I re-worked it, with the

following being “In the introduction of ‘Physical Education’ in Early Childhood Education:

Implications for primary school curricula, the authors focus on physical education from a

“broader perspective” (Petrie-Clarikin-Phillips, 503) as children learn about physical education

in different settings.” In WP #2, I took into account the fact that I was largely inspired by Dr.

Seuss for my genre translation. So while my poem had been perfect in terms of organization of

stanzas and vocabulary that children could understand, I lacked the element of art and drawings.

So, I decided that in addition to changing a few of my poem lines, that I would include drawings

so that my translation would look similar to a book that was published by Dr. Seuss.

I think the thing I mainly improved on was being analytical,especially in terms of the first

writing project. I think that because I was analyzing a proper research article for the first time, I

was afraid that I would somehow be “wrong’ about my analysis, and instead defaulted to writing

summaries about my articles. I also think that I struggled with the overall organization of the

project, not really knowing where to write about my comparisons and where they should be

included. I think I also greatly improved on this, and tried to have a balance between giving

background information of my articles, along with incorporating quotes from the readings that

would compliment the comparisons between my two articles. For feedback, I particularly

enjoyed having reader response workshops. Not only was it enjoyable to read my peers’ projects,

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Petrie and Clarkin-Phillips, “Physical Education’ in Early Childhood Education: Implications
for primary school curricula,“ 503
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but it made me happy when I received feedback, especially when it was positive. That’s not to

say that things that weren’t so positive weren’t helpful though, as I also appreciated when my

classmates offered constructive criticism and suggestions so my submission draft would be even

better. For example, Tammy Lim wrote “I think you can expand more on the genre conventions,

but great start in that!” for my WP #2 reader response workshop. This is a great example of

constructive feedback, as it offers suggestions on how to improve but remains encouraging at the

same time.

I think that by keeping up with the readings, I was able to apply a lot of what I learned in

class to the writing projects. What helped me the most throughout this course was writing draft

after draft after draft, even when we only actually needed to turn in a “first draft for reader

response” Straub even mentions this in “Really Responding,” stating that a writer shouldn’t

“...try to deal with everything all at once if it’s a first, rough draft”3 (Straub 138). Instead of just

relying on the reader response draft, and then immediately trying to write my submission draft.

Instead, I would have my reader response draft open in one window, then have a new black

document in another. I would start fixing things or writing things from scratch for my submission

draft, and any time I got stuck, I would create a new paragraph and start over again until I had a

paragraph that I was satisfied with. While I did know about topics such as plagiarism and

citations, it was nice of Professor Bocchino to have us review them and even have us engage in

activities that were relevant to said topics. I think it was a great way of also reiterating the

expectations of college-level writing, as there were things that I did not know (e.g. some

professors consider incorrect citations to be plagiarism). Overall, I believe that I took away a lot

more information and tips than I thought I would have. Initially, I was a bit afraid coming into

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Straub, “Really Responding,” 138
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Writing 2, but it’s safe to say that I had an amazing experience in this class and I hope everyone

had a great time as well.

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References

Bishop, Wendy, ed. 1999. The Subject is Writing: Essays by Teachers and Students. N.p.:

Boynton/Cook.

Lowe, Charles, and Pavel Zemliansky, eds. 2010. Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. N.p.:

Parlor Press.

Mantyla, Nikki. n.d. “GENRE in the WILD: Understanding Genre Within Rhetorical

(Eco)systems – Open English @ SLCC.” Pressbooks Create. Accessed March 18, 2024.

https://pressbooks.pub/openenglishatslcc/chapter/genre-in-the-wild-understanding-genre-

within-rhetorical-ecosystems/.

Petrie, Kirsten, and Jeanette Clarkin-Phillips. n.d. “Physical Education’ in Early Childhood

Education: Implications for primary school curricula,.”