Metacognitive reflection, part 1

Here I sit, ravaged by the seasonal cold as well as having gone through the worst migraine attack for most of the day. But I have started writing the reflection paper. If it does not makes sense however, it is because my head is filled with cotton and I can't really see straight. I have written about half I think, and I need to add more but for now I just don't have the mental energy.

            I have been ever so frustrated throughout this course. Not because of it lacking interesting material, on the contrary, but because it has truly challenged me in many ways. I have a lot of issues with uncertainty, and I have been uncertain for the majority of the class. Uncertain of what the outcome would be, uncertain of how I was going to achieve my goal, uncertain of my own abilities as a writer. I know how to write, but I only know it if I’m allowed to do it in my own way. I see that that could be an issue, since I need to learn how to be less stubborn, and how to adapt to different genres. I also need to learn how to analyze my own writing, instead of simply putting it down when I’m done and refusing to read it through properly. I suppose I have the wonderful gift of being highly self-critical, and if I go through what I have produced I would only see the mistakes and the errors that I had made. Even so, I will try to write this reflection paper and thoroughly go through what I have learned, and not what I did wrong. What I need you, as a reader, to understand is how difficult that is for me.      

            In the beginning of the class I had a very hard time to understand what the end-product of the course would be, and I must admit that even though we are very close to the end I am still a bit confused. I have, however, been able to grasp the outlining idea of the task at hand, and I have decided to roll with it. Being a control-freak, I generally don’t do that. Referring to Shitty First Drafts, an article I have read before and that I both like and dislike, truly mirror my apprehension regarding the work in this class. Anne Lamott writes about how most good writing start with really shitty rough drafts, and that it takes a lot of work and self-doubting before anything of value is truly created (Lamott, 2005), and I totally understand that. But that is not how my brain works. I need to let my mind flow and then just write and write and write. I have in the past usually written all my large papers in one sitting, revising them only to find syntax errors or spelling mistakes, and it has worked for me. When I write that way I follow the train of thought and the final product makes sense. When I write in sessions, however, I find my writing to be blotchy and incomprehensible. Having to bring multiple rough drafts for the final paper has helped me overcome the fear I have for coming across as a bad writer, and I have written the darn drafts even though it rubs me the wrong way.

            Something that I have come to think about during the course as well is the fact that every move I make when writing has some kind of intent behind it. I might not see it, because I am to close to analyze it right away, but someone else could most likely see why I make the choices I do. I think learning about that, and reading about it in How To Read Like a Writer, have made me think more consciously about my writing. I have caught myself writing this paper stopping and thinking for a bit about what I want to portray in the text, who do I want people to see me as? I didn’t do that in the past, other than the occasional snicker when I thought I was being funny or ingenious, which many o times can seem quite obnoxious. No, this is different. I think that writing our blog-posts have helped, since they are casual yet academic work, so I had to find a balance there. I wanted to get the essence out of the assigned readings, while at the same time being approachable to the rest of the class. I can be the worst know-it-all at times, and I really did not want that to come across in the blog-posts.