Metacognitive Reflection #1

On a daily basis, I do not really write or do any sort of journaling. I mostly write academic things such as chemistry or biology notes. The only other thing I can think of is my social media which can technically be considered a type of journaling with how I sometimes share some feelings I may be having. In that aspect, I mostly write for myself, and occasionally for the people, I am mutual friends with on the app. Even though I may not know these people in real life, we follow each other because of the similar things we write about, and because of the common background and language, we share.

I grew up speaking Spanish, although I am not sure it is fluent because I quickly picked up English at school and left Spanish as my second language. I can speak, write and read in Spanish, but I can be a bit slow when it comes to reading and my words don't flow as easily as they do in English. I do want to minor in Spanish here at UCI so I can become more comfortable with the language.

My best academic writing experience was either 10th grade English or 11th grade AP language. I also enjoyed my speech class because it challenged me to reflect and write about many different topics, as I am doing now, but also got me to step out of my comfort zone by having us present some of our writings or speeches. My worst writing experience would probably be 12th grade AP Literature because it was online, and I felt as if my writing was at its worst compared to other writing classes I had taken. Perhaps it was because of the pandemic, because it was an online class, or because of what they call "senioritis" or maybe all 3, I struggled to do what I had previously been good at. Although I really did enjoy the Literature books we read, the teacher, and what we learned, I personally just couldn't apply what I was learning to my own writing.

In the past, I had been told that my writing was good and that I should challenge myself to take an AP writing course, so of course I decided to do so for my junior and senior year. I was told that my writing has good structure, and I personally do think that way to some extent too because I try to make my essays as coherent as possible. Because of this, I think my strength as a writer mostly comes from writing an argumentative or evidence-based essay. I mostly write as structured as possible which is why I think my weakness is my creativity. I cannot write a poem to save my life. I can't make my writing flow beautifully and use my imagination to tell a great story. Since this class's topic is fairytales, which are creative pieces of work, I'm nervous about how good I can interpret some of the fairytales. I need to start thinking outside the box when it comes to analyzing scenes or illustrations. I would also hope that I get better at writing these metacognition reflections to make them sound more like story, with better transitions and flow appropriate for this kind of writing.