Metacognitive Analysis

There have been many essays that I have written throughout my schooling years. From narrative, persuasive, and even expository--my knowledge on essays is pretty significant. Coming to college, I thought, throughout my whole time there I would write longer, in-depth versions of those types of essays. When I was introduced to a hybrid essay in my English class, I had no idea what those particular pieces of work consisted of. As I pondered more and more about it, I found myself clicking on the links provided by my professor with the definition and the few examples of what a hybrid essay is. At about the second essay example, I had a clear idea of what a hybrid essay is composed of.

A hybrid essay is a joint combination of two or more different writing styles that flow together to make one concise, centered piece. These different styles can range from poems, pictures, quotes, as well as excerpts from essays or other pieces of work. When writing a hybrid essay, there is a lot more leeway than your typical essay, but at the same time it does allow lots of room for mistake.

When I decided it was time to compose my essay, I thought of all the possible ways I can unify different styles to make the essay as clear as possible. At first, it seemed a bit difficult and confusing but I then realized that putting pictures and animations along with my actual essay would fit best with my topic. I came to consensus with this idea because I felt that using images along with my words, the words would serve as a means of interpretation to the audience in case there were to be any type of confusion as to what I mean when I put it on my blog.

Dividing my essay into the different topics I had previously talked about in each post and writing about each one of them as well as adding a picture or animation was the route I chose to best fit the idea I was trying to portray. I felt that by writing about it more, it would expand my ideas and really instill my underlying thesis. Some, if not most of the animations have some sort of sense of humor in them; I felt that sarcasm is very effective among people—it really gets the message through. Whether or not you have seen the movie or show the clip is from, it is a great way to understand the text.

Learning about a whole new way of writing an essay with an addition of other aspects in it was interesting. I definitely learned that an essay is not always limited to written words, as my perception of it had been all my life. I can honestly say that I would prefer writing a hybrid essay over a regular essay. I find it way easier and adding a visual or other form of text just makes it all that better. Overall, I would hope I encounter a hybrid essay in the future!