Going to university supposes a new educational challenge, a new level of
literacy. Becoming competent in academic writing demands knowledge and
specific command of different languages and media that promote communication in all of its dimensions. In this paper we focus on competence in writing allied to multi-media competence as an introduction to the world of
multiliteracy, in which conscious reflection on the process of writing in order to build academic knowledge is necessary. Our goal is twofold: to describe the metacognitive strategies on the one hand, and the technological resources on the other, that students of Spanish as a second language (L2)
know and use in an academic writing task such as essay writing. In a real
classroom context, an instrument such as a self-evaluation with open questions about the resources used and the procedures followed, step by step, in
the composition of academic writing was used. We carried out a qualitative
analysis of the data obtained, which allowed us to categorise and describe
the procedures followed by the students.The results showed that most of the
students know and use strategies for planning and reviewing their work as
well as a number of technological support resources in their academic writing process. However, they do not demonstrate knowledge and ability to
handle some basic contextual elements.
In this sense, we analyse the educational implications for self-reflection through academic writing for the formative assessment of independent student learning.