Post 191: Metacognition and Teacher as a Writer

Post 191: Metacognition and Teacher as a Writer

It was fun writing alongside my students in a writing workshop. The word 'metacognition' indicates an awareness of one's mental processes. As I wrote my story with the students, I made students aware of their writing process. I would tell students how I conceived of the different characters, what thoughts went through my mind as I wrote the story, what sources I used as I wrote the story, what inspired me to write a chapter, how I organized my plot line and notes and as I wrote I would tell them whatever I was thinking as I was writing in real time. As a result, the students saw me as a fellow writer just like them. We were all sharing a common activity and having fun together.

Then the students as they were writing would tell me how they were feeling, how they were conceiving their stories, what inspired them and what sources they used. When you use metacognition in teaching writing, you make students aware of the mental process involved in every step of writing a creative story or writing an academic essay. Students begin to see writing as more of an organic process rather than writing as a product for a grade.

Being aware of your own mental processes as you write helps students overcome the panic of seeing a blank page. Knowing how to think while writing and how the writing process functions from page to page helps students overcome writer's block because then they have mental process skills at their disposal to use to overcome the writer's block. The teacher becomes the role model of how to overcome writer's block by telling students what goes through the teacher's mind as she writes or as she confronts a blank page.

Rather than lecture about the Writing Process (Pre-Write/Write/and Re-write), in my face to face writing workshop class, demonstrating in real time in front of students what I am thinking as I am writing helps writing students develop their own writing processes.

When teaching writing online, I would make videos of myself writing in real time to demonstrate to students my writing process. Now with Zoom, you can write with students in real time and just like in a face to face classroom, you tell students exactly what you are thinking as you write each page and you let students tell you via Zoom what they are thinking as they are writing. It is possible to create that writing workshop atmosphere in real time using Zoom.  Demonstrating the mental processes of writing helps encourage students to write and helps students see writing as a process not a product. And metacognition makes students aware of what they are thinking as they learn to write just like the teacher. In my next blog post, I will write about how the three stages of metacognition writing coincides with the Writing Process.