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Kyle Henson
Professor Jan Rieman
UWRT 1103
22 September 2014
Framework Individual Assignment
I didnt know how to approach the short story genre since I had close to nothing to do
with it. This led to some awkward one sentence statements in some of the body paragraphs. I
had no clue what to do with the conclusion paragraph, which made it odd and short. I feel like I
did an average to decent job fleshing out the points besides the second one, where I really didnt
know what to talk about. The opening seems a little short and maybe a little clunky, but nothing
too serious. I feel like my transitions often fell short in the body paragraphs.
We used the Framework assignment to teach younger students what we wish we would
have known about metacognition at their age while furthering our own understanding of it. I
would even go as far as to say that this assignment was more a practice of our writing skills than
anything else. We were thrown out of our writing comfort zone and into a new one. This led us
to push our boundaries in order to succeed at this assignment. In this assignment I was able to
practice rhetoric, critical thinking, group writing, conventions, and composing in multiple
environments.
We first had to use our rhetorical knowledge in order to pick our genres and how we were
going to structure them. In order to write to a certain group of people, we have to first know who
that group of people is and how to approach them. Our audience is a group of either 8th or 9th
graders with our subject being metacognition. This is the one that I definitely did not know the
meaning of when I was that age, so it was a unique opportunity within the class. Things we had

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to keep in mind when writing to this age group were their short attention spans, their ability to
process new informal information fast, their reliability on the internet, and the fact that they are
used to changing learning environments. Taking these into account we chose to do a Facebook
page, a short story, and a group seminar. These are all incredibly different genres that we tried to
use to reach the audience that we defined. Our main purpose is to teach them about a topic few
of them probably actually know, but would be helpful in furthering their process of
learning. The genres that we picked make it pretty easy to write informally, which will appeal
more to the age group that we are working with. All of this rhetorical knowledge combined to
give me direction with where I wanted to go with this assignment.
My group was in a unique position because metacognition was probably the most
unknown topic in the list. We had to do some research online to make sure we actually knew
what we were talking about. We took what we already knew about metacognition and added in
what we learned online in order to write about it. This also led us to format the seminar like we
did, with information and examples included before the questions. We took what we wrote in
the seminar and applied that to the Facebook page and the short story. We also did a good
amount of online research for the Facebook page. We used quite a few quotes and pictures in the
Facebook page that took research, and the knowledge of what our goal was so that we could
funnel everything from the internet into something that we could use. We also had to use that
skill in order to find a video describing metacognition on the internet that we were able to link in
the page. We had to know the specific kinds of things to add to the page in order to get our point
across. That led to some challenges of not finding exactly the kinds of quotes and pictures that
we wanted, but in the long run it makes the page flow a little better. We also wanted to spread
out the different types of media on the page, with pictures and the video breaking up the flow of

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all of the word posts. That was the basis of our research and how we applied it with critical
thinking.
This project was able to include both the collaborative writing while retaining the
individual part. We started the seminar questions as a group in class. This helped us to all
understand the topic before we went off on our own and wrote about it. We all started with
looking up information that could be used. We started with abstract thoughts and slowly started
figuring out how it was going to look. We finally got the format down and finished putting
information in with minor changes, like teacher instructions, later on. The Facebook page was a
mixture of collaborative work with Jennifer and individual work. This worked out nicely
because I am not too familiar with Facebook, and definitely not with making pages on
Facebook. Having someone there, even if she didnt know all the inner workings either, helped
with the learning process. Once we got the format of the Facebook page down, we split up the
responsibilities and worked on them individually. I looked for things to post, while also thinking
of things that I could write be myself. Work was split up in the group both individually and
collaboratively. For example, I didnt have much to do with the short story, but Jennifer and I
worked together on the Facebook page. This is how we were able to work both collaboratively
while retaining some individual responsibilities.
Conventions are in all of our writing whether it be an academic research paper or a post
on twitter. We were able to explore some conventions in this assignment. In the group seminar
paper we used bullet points to define and provide examples before the discussion questions. The
questions themselves were different than what I was used to. It was also important that we left
that one open ended so that it is not limited to the words on the paper. The format was informal
so that it would be easily accessible to the audience. The seminar does however rely on group

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involvement which is important to keep the conversation going. In the Facebook page we used
quotes, pictures and a video. Facebook has developed its own language since it has been around,
being probably the most formal of all the social media outlets. It is still approachable to our
audience though since there are pictures and a video there alongside short, easily read
sentences. Our Facebook genre included mostly quotes and graphics without really spelling out
what metacognition is though. Short stories need to draw your eye in and have complete
thoughts and a story that can be followed, especially for this 8th and 9th grade age group. It
captures the attention of readers and creates easily understood examples which is important for
topics like metacognition. It doesnt fully flesh out what metacognition is, but the examples to
describe what it is like. Conventions have been a part of writing forever, and they are definitely
visible in our different genres.
Through this project we were definitely able to explore multiple environments in our
writing. In order to work collaboratively on the seminar questions we used Google Docs. I
never really used Google Docs in high school, so it was nice being able to learn about that as I
went through and learned about metacognition. We could all see what everyone was writing and
share our opinions by talking it out. We didnt need to do anything with the seminar at home,
but if we had to it would have been a whole lot easier with Google Docs. I was able to explore
the many tools of creating a page on Facebook, which was something I had never done. I could
add information everywhere, put all sorts of pictures in, and even advertise if I wanted to. The
writing was mainly quoting and finding pictures. There was a bit of self-composition in which I
tried to write like a Facebook post with a point that could be applied specifically or broadly. The
short story was probably the most familiar to me since it was just pen and paper, even though I

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didnt have a whole lot to do with it. It was nice being able to step out of my comfort zone into
writing that I am not very familiar with.
The Framework assignment was an interesting way to reflect on what I know and build
off of that in a new and creative way. It was challenging to jump into new genres and
environments in writing. Every genre has its beginning though, and this was mine for a few
different types. I was able to do this through understanding the audience, organizing research,
learning the best writing process, getting to know conventions, and exploring different
environments to compose. Everyones contribution is how we were able to succeed in this
project.