Entry # 11 - METACOGNITIVE ANALYSIS

How do I feel about my writing performance?

Going through a metacognitive analysis proves to be a very juicy exercise at the end of a course. Every time we reflect on our developement we are revising what we have actually learnt. Sincerity and objectivity are vital concepts at this point and when we find that the weak points have been lowered, we obtain certainty and self-confidence. After being requested to undergo such an analysis, it is of great importance to revise both improvements and weak points as well, as one's  actual perfomance will be defined after the analysis of both aspects.

           As far as my personal development in writing is concerned, I feel that a significant improvement has been evidenced in both the outcomes and my self-assessment. Firstly, having worked with the specific vocabulary has helped me to approximate to the requested genre. Secondly, I was able to recognize my mistakes more easily and consequently, I could take advantage of the editing step and make this process more efficient. Finally, I recovered the pleasure for writing, which had been lost a couple of years ago. All these events made me feel more confident with the subject itself and my subsequent written productions.

When considering the weak points, there are still some obstacles I would like to surpass with ease in the future. My weakest point this term has been confusing terms of British origin with others from American origin. This produced my not maintaining both local and global coherence of the text. Furthermore, another less serious difficulty was the permanent necessity to return to the theory whenever citing was requested. Finally, I had to make an enormous effort to maintain the unity of the texts as once I started writing about a topic, a lot of ideas started to flow from my mind and I found such a flow of ideas extremely difficult to control. Although weak points were present, the fact that I was able to recognize them on time help me to avoid further mistakes when writing.

All in all, I feel that the theory we were given to read has been very important for my personal development in the subject. Having known about the writing steps and having clarified the concepts of unity, coherence and cohesion made me fell more confident during the assignments. Although there is still a long way to go, significant improvements have been evidenced so far, and my being able to detect my weak points has also been really important. 

Working with synomym pairs:

Juicy: Syns. interesting, colourful, sensational, vivid, provocative, spicy.
Interesting:  that takes and keeps one's interest; giving entertainment.
Juicy=interesting.

Lower: Syns. to submerge, lessen, cut, reduce, moderte, diminish, decrease, slash, prune, minimize.
Lower: to make or become smaller in aount, degree, strength.
Reduce: to make less in size, amount, price, degree, etc
lower=reduce

Clarify: Syns.  explain, resolve, interpret, illuminate, explicate, clear the air about, shed light on.
Clarify: to make clearer and easier to understand, esp. by explaining and giving more details.
Interpret: to understand the likely meaning of a statement, action, etc.
clarify=interpret

Long: Syn.extended, elongated, extensive, lengthy./ Prolonged, slow, dragging, interminable
Long: measuring a large amount from one end to the other.
Extensive: large in amount, area or range; having an effect on or including many parts.
long/extensive

Note on the Graphic Organizer:
Based on the theory from the book "From Paragraph to Essay" I arranged the organizer so that the structural similarities between the paragraph and the essay can be easily recognized. It is important to make clear that my metacognitive analysis is not a essay but it was intended to maintain coherence throughout the four paragraphs (as essays do).

"...The paragraph is introduced by either a topic sentence or a topic introducer followed by a topic sentence. In the essay, the first paragraph provides introductory material and established the topic focus. Next, the sentences in the body of a paragraph develop the topic sentence. Similarly, the body of an essay consists ofa number of paragraphs that expand and support  the ideas presented in the introductory paragraph. Finally, a terminator ands a paragraph. The essay, too, has a device which brings its ideas to a logically and psychologically satisfying completion: the concluding paragraph."
                                                                                               (From Paragraph to Essay. CH 4. P 17)

Works cited:

          Imhoom, M and Judson, H. (1991) 7th Edition. From Paragraph to Essay. Developing Composition Writing. UK