Making Metacognition Part of Student Writing
Writing conferences are now a common occurrence in many English language arts courses. Teachers appreciate the value of conversational comments in giving students more agency over their work, as well as the importance of conferences in creating rapport.
In my own classroom, I’ve been using writing conferences for over a decade, and they’ve evolved dramatically since I first started. I’ve gone from doing the majority of the talking to students doing more and more sharing. My perspective on writing conferences has recently evolved once more. I added a new degree of complexity after recognizing that our conferences were mostly focused on a piece with little to no reflection on the writing process.
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REFLECTION OF THE METACOGNITIVE
Metacognition is the process of thinking about one’s own thinking in order to reflect on it. Instead of focusing solely on content or rubric criteria, the idea is for students to think more about the process — how they approach writing, roadblocks to excellent writing, and methods that help them write well. Metacognitive reflection can help students become more conscious of their own thoughts when writing, leading to a better grasp of who they are as writers and how to apply their knowledge to any genre of writing.
So, what exactly is metacognitive writing thinking, and how can teachers incorporate this form of reflection into writing conferences?
Because students are frequently focused on assignments rather than their thinking while doing them, a whole-class discussion about the importance of metacognition is an excellent place to start. These tactics can help students become more conscious of their thoughts when writing and are simple to implement into tasks, giving students time to pause and reflect on their thinking while writing. Students will be able to discuss metacognition at conferences based on their observations from these activities.
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6 ACTIVITIES TO SUPPORT METACOGNITION
1. Maintaining a journal. Encourage pupils to take two to three minute metacognitive breaks when writing to capture their thoughts. Describe your journey up to this point. What was a roadblock to your writing? How did you get through it? What do you believe you could do to avoid this happening again? These breaks can and should occur at various stages of the writing process.
2. Keeping track of troubleshooting suggestions. Encourage pupils to keep a list of successful tactics and ideas that they can utilize throughout writing to help them push through when they are having problems.
3. Collaborative writing Provide opportunities for pupils to collaborate on writing assignments. Students can talk about why they make the decisions they do along the way. Comments in a Google Doc or on sticky notes placed on the student’s paper can be addressed.
4. Making use of graphic organizers. Graphic organizers can also be used to help students think about their thinking while writing and identify effective solutions. The goal is not to complete the full graphic organizer, but to provide various entrance points for students to consider their thoughts while writing.
5. Emphasizing papers I frequently have students highlight publications for assertions, evidence, and analysis, but this may be changed to suit any topic. This method provides a visual component to reflection and allows students to consider what causes strong components of a piece and why other components are weaker.
6. Keeping track of post-writing ideas. Writing a paragraph on your thought process during an assignment can be especially beneficial for the larger picture. What would you change if you were to write again? Why? What would you leave alone? Why? What methods did you utilize that worked effectively and that you can apply in the future?
The insights gained from these metacognitive methods can be applied to writing discussions. Try include some of the italicized questions in your next writing conference to get insight and provide input into the thought process behind the work.
What do you find most appealing about this piece of writing? Why do you believe this portion is powerful? What stood out to you when you wrote this section? Where did you have difficulty with this piece? Why were you having trouble with this section? How did you feel while you wrote this section? What could you have done differently while writing this section? Let’s go over your troubleshooting ideas and solutions. What else can you add?
In what area have you taken a risk or tried something new? Why did you decide to try something new here? Was it a success? What is your reasoning? If this is the case, how could you incorporate it into your other writing?
How do you feel about the piece as a whole? How did you feel about the whole thing? How do you anticipate your writing career progressing? Is there anything in your learning environment or mentality that you believe contributes to successful writing? Determine one or two specific techniques to use going forward.
Metacognition is a key phase in writing teaching and is where the true magic of learning occurs. Students do require comments on specific pieces of writing, but they should also be allowed to think beyond the output. Giving students opportunities for metacognitive reflection and discussion enriches their writing not only in class but also for years to come.
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