In regards to your Reflection Statement:
You *must* have had a purpose for writing this story. Well, ok, so I woke up one morning and wanted to write a story about a cow. Why? Dig a little deeper... ok, so I had a dream about cows, I *want* to write a story with a simple character and subject (like a cow) in order to __________-
It's actually a lot easier than you think. However, don't expect your answers to be floating around on the top of your head... go a little deeper.
As writers, what we write is as a result of years of culture, discourse (I could go on about this forever) and also what we read. For example, even though I had a sort of po-mo thing going on in my major work, the bulk of it wasn't to prove how cleverly I could fragment my story, it was to look at a concept close to my heart, because *I* wanted to analyse it, and *I* wanted the audience to be able to understand what I was trying to do. That was my purpose - I wanted to educate an audience, show them a new perspective, tell them *my* story.
Also - even though there's a trend towards the whole pomo thing (yes, even me... *sigh*) I'm not a pomo writer, never claimed to be. I read fantasy and glorious pulp fiction, hence I write like a pulp-fiction writer. Think for a minute about all the things that influenced your writing style - is it because you love action movies/books, magazines, front-page news...? Chances are all this "background stuff" will sneak itself into your writing somehow, for the unconscious reason that you want your story to appeal to your intended audience - essentially other people just like you
However, I wanted to do it in a non-overly-academic way so it was accessible to my intended audience. So, I do a little research into psychology, and I read a couple of short stories to get my head around the fact I have a *gasp* word limit... (I'm more of a novel/epic writer).
But as Justin has said, if you overanalyse you *will* find something. Even if you analyse, you might find something you're assuming the reader will just sort of know - don't assume, write it down. Yes, even if it's obvious to you.
Talking more about research now - research your genre, for a start. Language, concept... There is a whole bunch of books out there "teaching" you how to write. There's even the movie Finding Forrester which I thought was WONDERFUL.
Even if you research, and it's not useful, still put it in your journal and say *why* it wasn't useful. We do so much textual analysis in Adv Eng and EE1 - it's just doing it again (in part) in EE2.
And now, I'm also way too tired to go on... will continue this tommorrow