For a while now, I've thought of metacognition as something that can and should be taught as a skill. (I was reminded of this by a podcast episode from The Happiness Lab.) In this episode, I share a reflective exercise based on some of the 8 subcomponents of metacognition that were developed by Gwen Gorzelsky, Dana Lynn Driscoll, Joe Paszek, Ed Jones, and Carol Hayes in Chris Anson and Jessie Moore's edited collection titled _Critical Transitions_ and published by the WAC Clearinghouse.

In short, naming skills, defining them, finding examples of them in their own writing, and writing narratives about their experiences with those skills can help students gather evidence and examples they can use to think about their own writing and their identity as a writer. They can be applied to (and probably will reflect) various subcomponents of metacognition to enrich students' (and our) understanding of writing and what it means to be a writer.

Resources:
The WAC Clearinghouse's page for Anson and Moore's _Critical Transitions_: https://wac.colostate.edu/books/perspectives/ansonmoore/
The link to the chapter on Metacognition by Gorzelsky, Driscoll, Paszek, Jones, and Hayes: https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/books/ansonmoore/chapter8.pdf
The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos: Simple Ways to Feel Great Every Day -- with Dr. Rangan Chatterjee: https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/the-happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos/simple-ways-to-feel-great-every-day-with-dr-rangan-chatterjee