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

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 assignment makes 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

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-tofinish 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.