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Zichun Chai

Professor Robert Speiser

Writing 2 M/W 11:00-12:50

Metacognitive essay

How time flies. It took me quite a lot of time to realize that ten weeks of learning writing

have just passed. I always consider writing was a torturing procedure only a quarter ago.

Comparing learning subjects like physics and chemistry, I used to feel bored sitting in front my

desk, typing words that are sometime meaningless to me. During these ten weeks, I have learned

a lot thanks to professor Speiser. Comparing to my previous writing courses, which are writing

about topics that are not related to writing itself, this writing 2 course literally taught me about

composing essay and approaching university writing.

As an international student, I did not grow up in a place where people speak English.

Although I like English since I was a little boy, English writing has never been easy for me.

Students in China are trained to write English essays based on the Chinese translation given by the

teacher. All we needed to do was putting all those scattered Chinese words together and compose

our original essays. It is obvious that kind of practice helped me little when I first encountered

actual English writing. When I was preparing for ACT, my teacher told me to remember certain

models and examples to solve different kind of problems. It was efficient when it comes to tests

but still useless to improve my writing skills.

During the first two quarters, I took two writing courses under the department of

Linguistics. Those courses are designed for international students and served as transitional

courses to university writing ability. However, the level and difficulty of these courses are still not
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proficient for me to actually improve my writing skills. Luckily, I was enrolled in professor

Speisers writing 2 course and finally made an progress in English writing.

Different to my previous writing courses, this course is also a reading course. I was a little

overwhelmed by the dozen-page reading materials, but later on, I found those articles extremely

useful. I used to spend plenty of time to perfect my first draft. That habit cost me a lot of time,

meanwhile, I found it difficult to submit the second draft with major improvement on it. The

article Shitty First Draft inspired me about how to treat unfinished essays at the first time.

Besides, professor Speisers attitude also encourages us to get our ideas out at the beginning. I

both saved time and pain writing the first draft, I can also revise my second draft with plenty of

inspirations.

During this quarter, I wrote three essays following the professors instructions. I still

remember the first essay, which is about analyzing genres when talking about the same topic. The

first two essays are about analyzing genres in both unacademic and academic ways. The professor

told us to focus on the same topic throughout the entire quarter, and I chose to analyze political

topics. When I first began to brainstorm about the essay, I was confused about genres, which was

usually heard before but never know what exactly it means. Again, the reading assignment

Navigating Genres helped me out. That was also the article which inspired me with my first and

second essay. In my first essay, I analyzed two unacademic genres journalism and visual

expression towards political issue especially the election. The professors encouragement

motivated me on the second essay. During the time composing the second writing project, I learned

how to conduct research online through databases when I need to write a research paper. That was

extremely helpful for my college years and later in my career.

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The second essay was still about the election, and still about how different genres make

separate impact on the same topic. I chose political geography and biology to elaborate on this

topic. I also learned about discourse community and APA writing style during this time. The

reading assignments really helped me with realizing academic disciplines.

The third writing projects topic was civic writing, and I think I improved the most during

this time. I wrote a magazine article about the legalization of drugs. I finally realized how

motivated I can be when I write a topic that I am interested in, and I also learned a lot when I

conduct researches online. The most excited part was the presentation part. To be honest, I never

gave a presentation in English in front of dozens of native English speakers. I was quite nervous

during the presentation, but I definitely improved my confidence on speaking English.

The last part of this course was a final portfolio and we are asked to make a website

containing all the work for this quarter. I really think this course was a comprehensive course

instead of a writing course. I really need to thank professor Speiser for all the helps, suggestions

and encouragements to me this quarter. I learned quite a lot writing skills along with the practice

of reading and speaking and the ability to conduct research and make website online. I cannot have

done so much without the professor. Thanks again for professor Speiser and feel free to read my

posted essays.