Metacognition: Orlando Essay

When I wrote my Orlando essay for Academy English, my process of thinking tended to follow a certain pattern. When it came to finding the subject of my writing, I generally followed all of the standard processes, trying to think of some good ideas. I am the kind of person who usually goes for the minimum and not the maximum, but this something I would like to change. For example, I will admit that I tried to write as few explorations as possible for the "Exploration" stage of the Orlando essay.

As for the blood and guts of my paper, however, I typed it all out and went back once, twice, maybe three times to edit and revise it. I felt like I was doing the right amount of editing, but I probably needed to do a little more revision. This was evident in the fact that, when I received my essay grade, I received perfect scores in spelling and grammar, but lost points in areas that needed better revision.

I am surprised that my method of thinking is not as effective as I perceive it to be. I generally feel pretty content with my essays after editing and revising them, but I have seen obvious reasons for why I should be second-guessing my feelings of content.

I like how my thinking tends to follow a pattern. I feel as if someone follows the same pattern for doing something, they are likely to get the same result each time they do it. If someone's thinking is too frantic and messy, it causes the results of their thinking to vary largely. 

When it comes to improving my thinking, I would like to increase the cycles of the different steps of the pattern I follow. I definitely need to increase my amounts of brainstorming and revision, but I would not want this to change my patterns too much.  I would also like to find ways to make what I am doing engaging, because this would greatly improve my thinking. If I can make my thinking involve something I like, it makes me a LOT more involved in what I am doing.

In a way, metacognition is similar to critical thinking which, according to my seventh and eighth grade English teacher, is "thinking about your thinking while you're thinking in order to make your thinking better". I've got the "thinking about thinking" part down. Now it's time to make my thinking better.