Unit 4 Process Essay Prompt
In our Unit 4 essay, you will examine and describe your essay-writing process. At this point in the semester, you have written three essays using the three steps of (1) brainstorming/prewriting, (2) outlining/writing, and (3) writing/revising. What’s worked for you so far? What was your essay-writing process like before you started this class? How has your essay-writing process changed in this class, if at all? What do you notice about how you write, how you like to write, and how you organize your ideas, thoughts, and work as you write? How have your different writing situations (for more on writing situations, see below) affected your process and the way you approached your different essays and the essays themselves? For this essay, I’d like you to consider some of these questions and to focus on and share the details of your essay-writing process.
Other Introductory Remarks
This essay is an exercise in metacognition–a term we introduced earlier in the semester. Metacognition is the process in which we develop an awareness and understanding of our own behavioral and thought processes. In this case, the purpose of this essay–and this class–is to develop and reflect on a new awareness and understanding of your essay-writing process. The point, and my hope, is that by developing an awareness of your essay-writing process, you will become a more effective and confident writer moving forward.
Here are some steps in the metacognition process that you might find helpful as you explore and try to describe the various aspects of your essay-writing process.
Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is the process of coming to understand how our mind works and how we think under normal circumstances. Since our aim in this class is to write effective essays, the first question we want to ask ourselves is, “What do I do when I’m trying to write an essay?” To answer this question, we turn our mind’s focus on ourselves and try to figure out how we approach essay-writing and what we do when we’re trying to write an essay.
Self-Reflection
Once we understand how we approach essay-writing under normal circumstances, the question arises, “Does what I do work? Should I keep doing what I’m doing, or should I consider changing what I do?” To answer these questions, we consider the outcomes of our current writing practices and compare those to the outcomes we want to achieve. “Do my current writing practices help me convey what I want to say clearly and effectively? Do my current writing practices accurately capture my thought processes, and do my thought processes reflect clear, effective thinking?”
Self-Evaluation
When we self-evaluate, we perform a behavior or an action and we examine the outcome. In this case, Did we write our essay well? What did we do well? What could we have done differently or better? How?
Writing Situations
I’m a big believer in recognizing and embracing the uniqueness of the different situations we find ourselves in. This includes something we call the Writing Situation (Links to an external site.). The reality is that every essay we write is doing to be unique because every essay we write belongs to a different writing situation. The writing situation includes:
The purpose we are hoping to achieve when we write
The topic we are writing about
The audience we are writing for
The writer–i.e., us, who we are and what we bring to our writing
The context in which all of these elements come together
In this essay, I’d you like to think about whether and how these different elements changed at all across your different essays.
Title
Introduction
Subject (what is the essay about generally)
Topic/Approach (how are you approaching the subject?)
Thesis (Overall, how would you characterize your essay writing process?)
Body Paragraph 1
Before this class
How did you feel about writing generally before this class? How did you feel about essay-writing? In other words, did you like or dislike writing essays? Did you have a sense about why you were asked to write essays? Please feel free to share details about previous experiences that impacted your attitude toward essay-writing.
Before this class, how did you feel about your skills as a writer generally and as an essay-writer in particular?
Before this class, what was your essay-writing process like? Did you have a teacher who asked you to do something specific, or certain things, before or as or after you wrote an essay?
So far in this class
So far in this class, have you encountered or learned or adopted anything that has altered your essay-writing process in any substantial way? If yes, describe how your process has changed and why it’s changed? If no, describe why you don’t feel like your process has changed or what it is about what you’ve encountered in this class that didn’t work for you?
So far in this class, how do you feel now about your skills as a writer generally and as an essay-writer in particular?
Body Paragraph 2
Metacognition
What do I do when I’m trying to write an essay?
Does what I do work? Should I keep doing what I’m doing, or should I consider changing what I do?
Do my current writing practices help me convey what I want to say clearly and effectively?
Do my current writing practices accurately capture my thought processes, and do my thought processes reflect clear, effective thinking?
Body Paragraph 3
Writing situation (choose three elements)
The purpose we are hoping to achieve when we write
The topic we are writing about
The audience we are writing for
The writer–i.e., us, who we are and what we bring to our writing
The context in which all of these elements come together
Conclusion
What thought or idea do you want to leave your reader with? How do you want your reader to walk away from your essay?
Last Completed Projects
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