Prior Knowledge, Metacognition, and Reflective Writing

The key to successful learning is the ability to integrate knowledge the student already has with new knowledge. A traditional persuasive essay assignment, for example, will prompt a first year writing student to recall what they already know about making arguments and deploy those strategies within a highly formal academic essay. The prior knowledge in this example is the student’s familiarity with debate and argumentation. The new knowledge might be the ability to persuade an academic reader by deploying “they say/I say” rhetorical strategies or successfully integrating research to help prove a claim.

In an effort to foster this integration, a writing instructor might then ask the student to not only attempt a persuasive essay, but then, after the assignment has been drafted and revised, to write about the process of writing the essay. The goal in such a reflective assignment is to prompt the student to recognize the prior knowledge, the new knowledge, and what might carry over (transfer) into other contexts and future situations. “At the heart of the contention is the issue of generalizability,” suggest Kathleen Blake Yancey, Liane Roberston, and Kara Taczak.^[1] Certain forms of writing are particularly suited to cultivating this knack for generalizability, repurposing, and remixing. These more reflective writing situations require metacognition, the ability of a student “to reflect on their process and their knowledge.”^[2]

One of the most important goals for a writer is to learn how to use reflection to help further their educational and career practices. In the very broadest sense, all burgeoning writers must remain attuned to the following questions:

Who am I as a writer? What do I believe about writing? What do I understand about writing? What do I know about writing from previous experiences? How do I write/compose in different situations? Do I write the same way in all situations? How can I use what I learn from one context to the next?^[3]