Jonathan Huaracha 1

Allison Bocchino

Writing 2

March 15, 2021

Metacognitive Reflection

I have never thought of myself as a good writer, but I never considered myself a bad one

either. I was always average, never proficient enough to get accolades or praise for my writing,

yet never bad enough to fail, always just enough to pass. Before taking this course I did not have

much expectations of learning how to write beyond what I already could. Not because I thought I

already knew all there was to know about writing, but rather because I had succeeded so far with

my skills. I had resigned to not getting better out of complacency, and maybe even fear of having

to acknowledge that I could be a better writer. To my delight this course did just that, it made me

confront my misdoings in my writing by fully dissecting my papers and doing the portfolio. I can

say with confidence that my writing skills have improved and evolved and improved not only my

mechanics, but my research skills have greatly improved thanks to this course.

I have learned many things from this course, Writing 2. I was not sure what I was

expecting to learn before taking this class, I assumed it would be like any other GE course where

you just go through the motions and do what you are told without any real reflection. I was

sorely wrong in that regard, I learned many things about writing. One thing that I learned about

the study of genres was discourse communities. I learned about discourse communities through

the assigned readings, with “Understanding Discourse Communities,” being the main one that

really introduced me to the concept of discourse communities.1 While I did learn about discourse

communities from the reading, I think the best way I really learned about the concept of what

1 Melzer, Dan. “Understanding Discourse Communities.” Essay. In Writing Spaces: Readings

they are was from doing writing project 1. This worked for me because having to actually

explain and discuss the difference between two discourse communities and their conventions of

discussing a topic was helpful.

After taking this class I would define my personal writing style as analytical. When I

write I used to often over analyze the reading and take too much unnecessary information into

what I write regarding the reading or concept. Now to avoid this I make the conscious choice of

putting myself into the place of the reader for what I write to see if it is an easy and

understandable read. To do this I like to add a bit of descriptive words to help the reader digest

and enjoy what is being discussed.

The portfolio assignment for this course was maybe one of the more challenging and

difficult assignments that I have personally had to do at UCSB. I think it was a necessary

challenge for me to grow as a writer though and help develop fundamental skills that go beyond

writing courses. In my portfolio I would say I took the most time and effort into revising my

writing project 1. In regards to WP1 I had many issues that I needed to work on. Much of the

revising was the overall content, mechanics, and organization of the paper. For content in WP1 I

had to basically start over with the majority of the paper as in my first draft I did not really meet

the purpose of the assignment. I failed to compare two academic disciplines and their

communities, instead I essentially just summarized two articles from each discipline. For

mechanics in WP1 I had to redo the citation style that I had used as Allison Bocchino noted in

their feedback that I did not use Chicago-style. For organization it sort of goes hand in hand with

context. I had to reorganize my entire paper as I was not satisfied with how it was organized

before, and given that I added and removed a lot of content it would only be natural that the

organization changed too. In my writing project 2 paper I made revising to content and style. I
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made changes to content as Allison suggested by adding more to my thought process as I

translated my research article into a newspaper. For stylistic changes to my writing project 2 I

revised punctuation errors to fix quotation errors and help fix run-on sentences.

The ideas and types of feedback that were helpful to me when revising my writing projects were

those that helped me get closer to achieving the goal of the projects, with meaningful advice.

Feedback such as what Allison gave me really helped me re-examine my projects with much

more scrutiny and I think help me write a better revised version. What I liked and benefited from

the most about my work in this portfolio was the dissection of my writing. Dissecting my writing

for this portfolio was very helpful in making me learn how to do so correctly, and how to

improve my writing from my dissection in a productive way. One thing I would like to still

improve upon is my organization while writing. I think that sometimes while writing I have a lot

of ideas in my head that I can not properly articulate, which in turn makes my writing convoluted

and difficult to understand at times.

The work in this portfolio reflects what I have learned this quarter by showcasing my

knowledge of genres, disciplines, conventions, discourse communities, and a multitude of other

things. All of which culminate in this portfolio that I think has benefitted me as a writer. As a

writer I have learned how to be more reflective of my writing and try to resolve issues with it. I

would say my strongest feature of my writing now is acknowledging that I do make a lot of

mistakes, but overcoming and correcting them is what I do to be better.

I can apply what I have learned in Writing 2 to future writing, thinking, and researching

contexts by knowing how to properly read a text. This is another important skill I learned from

this course, after reading “How to Read Like a Writer,” I feel like I have improved on properly
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reading a text and knowing why an author made certain technical choices.2 Knowing how to read

research articles and knowing the hows and whys of it, helps me for writing research papers for

other classes at UCSB and hopefully for a career in environmental science. Being able to really

understand the purpose of a paper is vital in being able to perform well in any career from what

several guest speakers have said in my ENV S 190 seminar.

Given all of the concepts that I have learned in this course I would say the one that I

struggled with the most was really discourse communities, and one that I am still struggling with

is organization. For my organization I can say that while I still might struggle with it I think the

project builders really helped me organize what I wanted to achieve in the writing projects.

Having a solid game plan for what you want to write, and what ideas you want to convey really

is easier when you have a foundation of a concept map or something similar. Aside from that, a

strategy that I will start doing to my writing from now is dissecting whatever it is. A thorough

dissection of one’s writing can be really helpful as it allows you to catch any mistakes that you

have made and properly address them.

Overall, I can gladly say that I feel like I improved as a writer, reader, and student

overall. I can definitely see my improvement from learning a lot of new things that I was

unfamiliar with before taking this class. I will always remember many of the things I learned and

utilize them in the future to be the best writer I can be.

2 Bunn, Mike. “How to Read Like a Writer.” n Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing, vol. 2,
Parlor Press LLC, 2011. 85.
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Notes

1. Bunn, Mike. “How to Read Like a Writer.” Essay. In Writing Spaces: Readings

on Writing, vol. 2, Parlor Press LLC, 2011. 71-86.

2. Melzer, Dan. “Understanding Discourse Communities.” Essay. In Writing

Spaces: Readings on Writing 3, Vol. 3. Anderson, South Carolina: Parlor Press LLC, 2020. 99-

115.