Metacognition: Short Story

Overall, I think my thought process for writing my short story worked pretty well. As always, once I got a good idea, I had no problem with the beginning of the story. My thoughts flowed pretty quickly, and, after listening to Mr. Allen's advice, I found it very helpful to just type and wait for the right words to come. It was the middle part and ending that were more difficult for me. I think those are the most critical parts of any story. All the beginning has to do is capture the reader's interest in some way, but the middle must intensify the plot and put pressure on the characters, and the ending must have some sort of resolution and leave the reader satisfied. At first, I was overwhelmed by all the requirements I set up for myself. In a way, I think my expectations were limiting my thinking. I wanted my story to be perfect. Honestly, I expected myself to be as good as the great writers of our time, and the truth is, I can't be that good. 

Once I came to that important realization, everything became easier. I began judging myself on my own standards, and I was much happier with the writing of my story. In any future writing assignments, I think I will remind myself to forget all expectations and just write. 

Metacognition: Jane Eyre essay

I'm not gonna lie. This Jane Eyre essay was a major challenge for me. From the very start, I was concerned, because I tend to get rather controlling when it comes to writing--I'm sort of a perfectionist, and I want everything a certain way. I think it was a good exercise for me, just so I could learn to be more flexible and collaborate with others on a piece of writing. I think my thinking worked pretty well as far as getting started. Our group established ground rules so we'd all be on the same page, and we started working on our portions relatively early on in the process, so we'd have time to piece them all together. I think one aspect that was lacking was communication while we were writing. Although we made the expectations very clear, we didn't tell each other the specifics of what we were writing until after we wrote it. This became somewhat of an issue, since Marika and I ended up using the same film as our reference. After this was resolved, I think we had a relatively good finished product. The only thing I would do differently next time, besides communicate more, is leave more time for polishing and editing at the end. I think we were a little rushed, which led to us forgetting silly things, like attaching the bibliography. I appreciate that Mr. Allen spent time trying to teach us collaboration skills, because I think these will be useful to all of us in our future lives.