Metacognitive Reflection 2

1. How has your understanding of academic writing evolved over the first half of the quarter?

• I think my understanding of academic writing has evolved so far because I learned how to be more flexible with my writing. When I write, I like following a certain structure and it ends up sounding robotic, but by writing my essay and peer editing, I saw that I could be "human" in my essay. I could include the word "I", I could include a question, and include what I thought about a piece before comparing it to a bigger picture.

2. What about your understanding of fairy tales, genre, and rhetorical context?

• My understanding of fairytales has expanded because I have put more though into it now. I think before I just saw them as some kid's tales with morals, but I realized that most were not like that at all. I also learned what the word "conventions" means to fairytales. Jack's Zipes's take on genre, wonder tales, oral tales (even if it was difficult to understand at times) was pretty interesting.

3. What did you struggle with most in the GA process?

• I struggled a lot with the conventions of my fairytale and making analysis about them without bringing up other ideas that were conventions of their own. I successfully wrote about one convention which was about naivety, but I couldn't organize the convention about happy endings, and successful protagonist. I wasn't sure whether to include something about villains in the essay because I didn't want to write about it as a convention on its own.

4. What did you do well? Include at least one screenshot or quote from your essay showing a sentence or paragraph that you are proud of.

• I think I did well in my introduction and first analysis paragraph.

• "Many fairytales follow the same guidelines, or conventions, something we expect to see in fairytales. Fairytales are a source of imagination and inspiration. Since we were young, we have been surrounded by tales of many versions over and over again, each with its own interpretations and morals. To us as children, tales were hopeful, and we cheered for the protagonist's rescue but not all fairytales are written with this in mind. In his fairytale, influenced by French Society in the 17th century, Charles Perrault uses female/children's naivety to subvert the idea of a successful protagonist with a happy ending in order to reveal the male perspective on women at the time."

• This was the intro paragraph. I like that I explained what fairytales are to us and that I introduce what conventions in the first paragraph. I wrote this during one of the writing sprints in class and it surprised me that I liked what I wrote in such a short time.

5. What was the process of submitting 3 drafts like for you? What editing practices will you adopt for future classes and which ones did you find less helpful?

• The first draft took me so long to write. Nothing was coming to my mind, and I didn't know where to start. I had to tell myself multiple times that it was OK to write somethings pretty trashy. That is something I was, and still am struggling to do. The second draft was easier now that I had written some ideas and I knew where to focus my concerns because the essay had been proofread at that point and it was only a matter of taking into consideration what was commented. The final draft was once again difficult because I realized that the bottom half of my essay did not align with my thesis the way I thought. It was hard re-writing more than half of the paper.

6. Where are you still struggling and what can you do to keep improving in the second half of the quarter?

• I'm think still struggling with embedding quotes. I thought I had the hang of it but when it comes to citing them, I always doubt the way I do it. Overall, I wasn't sure how or when to introduce quotes either but the template from the class slides was really helpful.

7. How can I support you over the next four weeks? Are there areas regarding rhetoric and genre that you still don't understand? Skills, you still feel you need help with. Anything I should know about how the rest of this quarter is looking for you. Any other feedback you want to share about the class structure, pacing, etc. so far?

• For the most part I'm understanding genre and rhetoric, it's just hard putting it all together nicely in a way I'm satisfied with in the essay.

• This Friday I have my chem midterm, but after that I should be fine until it's time for the final. My other problem is chem lab. Throughout the quarter, I have had something due for lab every Monday/Tuesday, so weekends are pretty stressful, especially when it's my lab report that is due. Towards finals week, I'm worried for my chem lab practical because I really don't know what they're planning to test us on.

• Despite those two classes taking over my life (sometimes it feels like I eat, breathe, and sleep chemistry, and I'm a BIO major) this class has been a little breather for me. It's doable with my schedule and I enjoy reading and analyzing fairytales.