Metacognition: Writing My Short Story

We haven't done creative writing in English class for years, so the idea of actually doing some creative writing this year sounded like a great idea. However, I soon learned that creative writing in high school is a lot different than creative writing in junior high. The process of writing my short story was a lot more difficult that I thought it would be. Currently, my beginning story fragment is not even in my story. The premise has completely shifted from what I originally had wrote. This really surprises me. However, I know Mr. Allen had said that this would probably be true and I think this change in the story was for the better. I learned how to create "emotional pressure" on my characters and how to create a solid conflict in the middle of the story. I was very surprised at the amount of work it took to create a solid conflict that would not result in a "therapy session" (in the words of Mr. Allen) and actually write something that could potentially hook readers. I like how we took this story in steps. Writing a portion and then coming back to it a week later gave me time to think about the next part of the story and play off of what I had originally wrote. It surprised me that this method worked well because I originally thought we would write the whole story in about a week but the schedule of writing only parts at a time has worked out very well for me. Next time, I think I would like to think out my story fragment a little bit more because I feel as if it was almost useless now and feel like I might have rushed writing it. I would also make sure that I had a better general idea where my plot was going after I had written my beginning. Other than those few things, I would have to say that the short story writing process went very smoothly for me and surprised me along the way!

Metacognition: Jane Eyre Writing Assignment

I have to admit that when I first heard about the Jane Eyre writing assingment, I was less than thrilled. The project itself seemed hard and on top of that, it was a group project which would take more coordination. However, I got into a group with 2 other girls that I trusted would do their fair share and we created our rules for collaboration. The rules seemed fair and like everyone could follow them. I think this was one of they keys to our success. Like Mr. Allen said in class, your collaboration group has to be made up of people you can trust. We divided the paper equally and each set out to do our individual tasks. I think that this was also effective because we saved time by each of us creating a section than if we had wrote the paper together. Yes, we had to spend some time linking the three different sections, but I think this was very effective. When it was time for me to write my portion, I was surprised to find that the majority of my good thinking happened while I was at the keyboard. While working on our short stories, Mr. Allen had said that the best thoughts come while your at the computer typing. I found this to also be true for this assignment. At first, I thought I would plan out what I would say and then type it. Although this surprised me, I liked it because I felt that I was getting more creative and working off of what I came up with. Overall, I think that the Jane Eyre writing assignment went very smoothly and the collaboration aspect turned out to be positive because it helped decrease the workload as well as spark creativity. Collaboration is also just a good skill to learn because it is used in the real world everyday.