7/31/2019 Met a Cognition Essay

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Jamie Nascimento

Portfolio

(901 words)

May 7, 2012

Metacognition Essay

To all things, an end. The semester is over, and now it is simply a matter of preparing for

final examinations. Not a moment too soon. When constructing this portfolio, I tried to reflect

on this course and all the materials we completed as a class. Some of the work is better than

others, some of the work I reviewed for other students were better than my own. And some were

worse. Of all the work Id completed during this class, my research paper was the best

assignment I handed in.

There are a few reasons why I prefer it to the other papers Ive written for this class, even

the other papers included in this portfolio. For the record, the first reason I prefer it is because I

had unknowingly sent in a piece that was plagiarized and after being informed that was the file

received rewrote the assignment with this piece. I compiled the sources, wrote their abstracts,

found the appropriate quotes, and wrote a full research paper in one night. Regardless of the

accidental nature of the situation, I understood it was a requirement; it was the only rewrite I had

done for the entire class, and was prepared to give an additional apology to the class for my

action.

This is not the first time Id sent the wrong file, so was completely resolved to deal with

the situation. Its an idea Id gained from music, where an individual may write from another

piece until the work starts to become original. Like a version of imitation. It is very unfulfilling,

though. This is the second reason I prefer this work. When I rewrote the assignment, Id done it

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in the same spirit but with an alternate approach. After completing my source abstracts, Id

taken quotes I liked and placed them in an order where they made sense on their own. I then

wrote a paper from my perspective, using personal history as almost an allegory to some sort of

blanket contemporary life. That was the idea; afterwards I simply took my quote story and put

them in where they seemed appropriate.

The last reason is simply because it was one of the lowest grades Id received on a paper,

ever. Ive gotten lower grades in other class assignments, like math, but as far as papers are

concerned this was by far the lowest. There is an old saying, ask ten people the same question,

and youll get twelve different answers. Every professor wants something different, even when

they ask for the same thing. That fact, coupled with the institutional requirement of grade

inflation which we experienced already with the conversion of one of the graded papers being

converted to an extra-credit assignmentmakes this the last reason for my preference of this

paper over all my others: it was an appropriate submission for the assignment, that received an

equally appropriate grade. It shows all my strengths and weaknesses in writing.

When taking all my assignments into account, it feels like starting the paper is the most

difficult part. Once you start writing, it only gets easier. That is the easiest part. Just continuing

wherever you left off, whether your current work or something written earlier a never completed.

That is satisfying, to complete something after stopping for a bit. Not with writing, because of

being difficult to start again, but with most things. When thinking on how to improve my older

and future works, it seems this process of finding a starting point requires more work. That was

my experience with the Compare/Contrast assignment.

I entered the short story text into my reader program, and downloaded the movie in the

time it took for my computer to read the story to me. I followed along with the program, reading

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as it read to me. It really helps with pace: reading a set number of pages in a set amount of time.

You focus on the reading. The movie was a similar case, having only had to watch it once to get

the story differences down. This work required only a few hours, including writing time, and

was my highest grade of the class. Using the same principles, the same construction, start-to-

finish linear progression: go figure.

As for the class itself, this is the second-worse class Ive taken at Westfield State College.

I would never take another specialty writing course unless it is a prerequisite for something else I

know from experience I want. Id only taken this course on my prior English Professors advice

when promoting these selections. I understand he was only trying to promote the department. I

dont blame him for my situation, nor do I hold the professors in the sections accountable. It is

the idea I dislike. English I & II are prerequisites for everyone, regardless of major.

Yes, everyone has to take math and science, but its not a particular math or specific

science class. There are options in those departments, there are no options here. Except for this

specialty English classes: they are creative writing electives in disguise, and I do not like them

because they are disingenuous. These are the things Ive taken away from this class. My

experiences here will alter the way I view both my future college prospects, as well as all future

writing assignments I do.