Hello, and welcome back to my blog! Thank you for clicking into this entry; this week's topic: analyzing my progress (part 2). Let us begin!

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To help me reach the objective for this blog, I am going to fully evaluate one particular activity I completed this week: the metacognitive annotating and response to the podcast "Carlos's Secret;" but more specifically, I am going to focus just on the response paragraph (although I will slightly elaborate on the annotation process itself), for this part of the activity truly shows my most recent growth in this class, and it differs from the metacognitive assignment I wrote about last week. For this activity, we were instructed to listen to an episode of "The Daily," a media outlet that publishes 20 minute episodes about the hottest news on the daily. While listening, we had to use the metacognitive tools we learned to annotate what we were hearing, jot down notes, and answer questions that were outlined on the prompt. In addition, we had to craft a response to the podcast, outlining its purpose, message, thesis, and our reactions to the news that was presented.

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Regarding the annotations, I believe this part of the activity really tested my metacognitive skills because instead of simply reading and physically annotating a text like before, this time, we had to listen to the text, breaking down exactly what we were hearing, noting what words were used, what images we can imagine while listening to particular voices and stories, and even distinguishing between the types of background music being played in different parts of the podcast. Never have I ever had to break down the contents of an audio so finely; I mean, I even had to pause and rewind the podcast at times to re-listen to the type of tune that was being played during a story! This part of the activity was an interesting spin on metacognitive reading, without a doubt, for I had to pay particular attention to every detail I was hearing, wonder why the creator made such decisions, and analyze my own reactions, noting the overall experience the creator was persuading me to have. But this activity was only getting me ready for the real task: the response paragraph.

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Now, for this section of the activity, we had to utilize what we learned from our annotations to pinpoint the purpose, message, and thesis of the entire text. In other words, we had to put together the parts that we identified from the text and put them all together to answer the real questions at hand: what was this podcast saying? how did it say it? and why? To be frank, I almost felt like a philosopher while thinking about these questions, for I had to ponder the very existence of a mere audio file, asking myself why was it even made and, because it was made, why was it made the way it was? But luckily, the metacognitive tools I have been building on the past few weeks aided me in this task. To be quite honest, to craft my response, I mostly had to just let my thoughts flow; my annotations already prepped me for the questions I had to answer, so in a sense, I already had everything I needed to make my response. The only thing that was missing, truly, was my thoughts that linked my annotations to the meaning behind the text, to my interpretation, my sense of its purpose. I did not realize this at first, but after realizing that all the answers to the questions on the prompt were on the tip of my tongue, I just allowed myself to type whatever was on my mind-- with, of course, the direction of the prompt itself-- for what I was really writing about was my experience with the text and what I as an academic scholar, an audience member, got out of the text. 

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This was the first time in a long time I truly had confidence in my thoughts and my writing. At first, this felt like a risk because I usually ponder for hours about what I am going to write. But this time was different. This time, I put myself on the page, naturally integrating context and content simultaneously, and I even took some risks in my writing, incorporating questions and answering them myself-- all of which I have never really done before. This was when I realized I was meeting one of the objectives of the course: to gain confidence in my ability to identify main ideas and theses of a text through the employment of metacognitive tools. And that was truly what I was doing: my annotations of the text served as puzzle pieces that allowed me to confidently put the entire puzzle together-- that is, it allowed me to confidently express my interpretations and experiences as a reader of the text, all of which expose the purpose and meaning behind the text itself, which is frankly something I did not realize until completing this particular activity.

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To top it all off, Professor Delany-Ullman commented on my response and scored me an 11/10! Seeing her response and the score, I gained more confidence in myself as a writer, for she validated my interpretations, my thoughts, my voice. I learned to believe in myself more. I learned to stop being so anxious about whether or not I truly understood the text or answered the prompt, to stop picking at each word I used, to stop wondering if what I wrote was "okay" or "enough." I learned to trust in myself, to just let my fingers flow across the keyboard because, quite frankly, if I do these things, then I will naturally answer the prompt, for after truly reading and understanding it, my thoughts are already directed towards the direction it wants me to go, towards the answer it wants me to give. And overall, this allows me to become a more successful writer, for the confidence I have in my responses allows me to participate as a true scholar in the academic discourse community, since the more confidence I have in myself and my writing, the more reliable and valid my thoughts and responses become. And I believe the audience who reads my writing can see that too-- the confidence, I mean. If I was not confident, I would lose credibility as a writer; but because of these activities, I'm actually doing the opposite: I am gaining integrity and character, establishing my place in the academic discourse community.

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To end this entry, I would like to leave off on a positive note: below, you will find an excerpt of my metacognitive reading assignment of "Carlos's Secret" --more specifically, my response paragraph-- along with a screenshot of Professor Delany-Ullman's comment on my assignment, all of which serve as evidence of my personal and academic growth. Thank you again for clicking into this entry. I apologize for how long it is!

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Until next time,

Joanne

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