Reflective writing quick reference

Adapted from Canvas modules on reflective writing developed by Jess Fenn and Lytton Smith at SUNY Geneseo.

Research shows that guided reflection enhances student learning, metacognition, and personal growth. Reflection requires students to "think about how they are thinking" (Savicki and Price, 60). Guided reflection provides one avenue to ask students to construct meaning from their experiences; through reflection, students become active participants in the production of knowledge. As such, reflection is a keystone of transformative learning (Taylor), and offers a means by which students can construct a perspective to navigate the "discontinuities of meaning that occur when different sets of cultural elements collide" (Bennett, 98).

What makes for effective reflection?

Effective reflection has three main components:

  1. It’s conducted as a social, iterative, guided process in a feedback-rich environment.
  2. It integrates social, emotional, and cognitive registers. When emotion, thought, and memory are activated by reflection, study abroad students can become more active, effective, and purposeful learners (Zull).
  3. It connects to course, program, and college learning outcomes (Deardorff), offering a way for students, faculty, and staff to assess outcomes (Brewer and Moore; Bourner) as part of a process of continued learning and transformation .

Why Reflect?

Research shows that the feelings of self-compassion and social inclusion that result from writing — or even just reading — reflection products have the power to better student perseverance on discrete tasks, such as tests (Walton, Cohen, Cwir, Spencer), and even, in some cases, increase health and college retention rates, particularly among minority students (Walton and Cohen).

The reflective process in your course

A basic format for iterative self-reflection might involve the following three steps, which can be adapted in infinite ways:

  1. A student posts a two-page (double-spaced) reflection.
  2. Peers offer feedback (two or three peer commentators per reflection, first come first served) in the form of marginal feedback (2-3 comments per page) and an end comment (a paragraph long). Peers will offer constructive criticism, offering ideas about where they’d like to see more details or examples, what they’re curious to see expanded, and how the reflection’s strengths could be made even stronger. At this stage, a faculty member can offer formative feedback based on both the reflection and the peers’ feedback.
  3. Student revises their reflection or responds to feedback received to identify goals for future learning and for a next reflective prompt.

Self-reflection prompts from a study-abroad course

We’ve included these prompts for self-reflective writing in the context of study abroad, developed by Jess Fenn, to help you get thinking about prompts you might create for your writing course. Tailoring them to your own context will obviously take a bit of imagination.

Prompt 1

Think of a small moment in which something about the nature, culture, and/or history of your home environment (the environment you grew up in, or at your home institution) surprised you, or moved you to some strong feeling.

Can you describe the moment in 100-200 words?

Use concrete and sensory details, including gestures, bodies in space, significant or particular aspects of the setting, including proper nouns.

Then, in another 100-200 words, describe why this aspect of your home environment surprised you.

  • Why did you react as you did?
  • How might the moment you described be explained in natural, cultural, and/or historical perspective?
  • How do you expect your experience of your home environment to affect your study abroad experience?

Prompt 2

Think of a small moment in which something about the nature, culture, and/or history of your study abroad environment surprised you, or moved you to some strong feeling.

Can you describe the moment in 100-200 words?

Use concrete and sensory details, including gestures, bodies in space, significant or particular aspects of the setting, including proper nouns

Then, in another 100-200 words, describe why this aspect of your study abroad environment surprised you.

  • Why did you react as you did?
  • How might the moment you described be explained in natural, cultural, and/or historical perspective?
  • How do you expect your experience of your study abroad environment to affect your experience of your home environment?

Prompt 3

Think of a small moment in which something about the nature, culture, and/or history of your study abroad environment reminded you of your home environment, or vice versa.

Can you describe the moment in 100-200 words?

Use concrete and sensory details, including gestures, bodies in space, significant or particular aspects of the setting, including proper nouns

Then, in another 100-200 words, describe how this moment reveals commonalities and differences between the two environments, especially in terms of how the environments might be seen in natural , cultural , and/or historical perspective.

  • What does this comparison reveal to you about your home environment ?
  • About the study abroad environment ?

Prompt 4

Think of a small moment during your study abroad experience that reminded you of two other environments in which you’ve lived and/or studied, especially in terms of natural, cultural, and/or historical perspectives on these environments.

Can you describe the moment in 100-200 words?

Use concrete and sensory details, including gestures, bodies in space, significant or particular aspects of the setting, including proper nouns

Then, in another 100-200 words, describe what this moment revealed to you about the multiple environments it evoked, in order to explore these environments from multiple, perhaps even conflicting, perspectives.

  • How has looking at these environments in natural , cultural , and/or historical perspective allowed you to see something new about these environments themselves?
  • How has looking at these environments in natural , cultural , and/or historical perspective allowed you to see something new about the ways we come to experience and understand environments in the first place?

Some examples of effective reflection

The students below completed self-reflection in association with study abroad courses. Their work serves as strong models of reflective writing because they 1) focus on small moments, 2) build sensory-rich scenes around those moments, and 3) incorporate reflective insights about the experiences described in the scenes, showing a distance between the person who had the experienced described and the person reflecting on it afterward.

References