Meta-conversations (from Instructor Materials for the R-P Assignment)
A writing course not only extends students’ writing proficiency, fluency, and rhetorical flexibility: it is also designed to increase their meta-knowledge. Meta means “about its own category.” For example, meta-cognition is cognition about cognition (or thinking about thinking); meta-writing is writing about writing; meta-discussion is discussion about discussion, and so on. When we engage in analysis and reflection about our own work, we are doing important meta-work. Meta-work allows us to uncover and articulate for ourselves—what we may do or know unconsciously—but without awareness. These meta-conversations are essential to further learning.
