Developing Student-Centred Metacognitive Parameters for Writing Feedback

Rosamond, Emily. 2017. Developing Student-Centred Metacognitive Parameters for Writing Feedback. Creative Pedagogies, 1(1), pp. 15-19. [Article]

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Abstract or Description

This short study aims to consider how educators might help students to develop metacognitive skills in their writing. Many studies demonstrate that metacognitive skills – in other words, the ability to think about thinking – are strongly correlated with academic success. Yet often, such studies understand metacognition reductively, as a student’s general awareness of the overall quality of their work, as reflected by a grade. How can educators help students to develop metacognitive awareness of their writing process in their own terms, by paying attention to the singularities and subtleties of their thought, and their creative process as writers? A structured interview of rst year Goldsmiths BA (Hons) Fine Art students aimed to identify what factors impacted how, and whether, students were able to develop student-centered metacognitive parameters to understand their writing processes. The interview revealed how excellent writers make the essay material their own, trust their instincts as to what is important, and consciously enter into dialogue with other thinkers as they engage in the writing process. It also revealed that students’ self-assessment of their strengths and weaknesses in academic writing was coloured by their self-perception as classed subjects. In other words, students who may have had a harder time believing that they belonged in higher education, perhaps due to their self-perceived class position, tended to underestimate their writing abilities; and this had the potential to hinder their writing experience. These findings support an approach to teaching metacognitive writing skills that emphasizes how a student might understand their writing process according to the experience of immersing oneself in – and contributing to – a rich dialogue of ideas and debates that extends beyond their own thinking.

Item Type:

Article

Additional Information:

The publisher full text is reproduced with permission.

Keywords:

critical pedagogy, academic writing, metacognition, writing process, teaching, writing skills

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Visual Cultures

Dates:

DateEvent
March 2017Accepted
June 2017Published

Item ID:

21890

Date Deposited:

24 Nov 2017 16:45

Last Modified:

29 Apr 2020 16:40

URI:

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/21890

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