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I’m not usually someone who makes Disney references, but when I was coming up with this blog post, I couldn’t help but give in to nostalgia.<\/p>\n
Reflection\u2014thinking about ourselves and our actions\u2014is an important tool in our personal, professional, and academic lives. Many of my friends use mindfulness apps like Headspace to help them slow down and think about their lives and situations more clearly. People also use counselors and therapists to better understand their behaviors and emotions, especially during times of change, grief, and conflict. If you\u2019re religious, maybe you use reflection in your practices like prayer or meditation. Exercise can help us reflect on the relationship between our minds and our bodies, blurring the line between physical and mental well-being. We reflect in our jobs by through self-assessments and trainings to become better at what we do, so that in the future we can achieve promotions and titles. There are many ways to reflect, and in this post I\u2019m going to discuss reflection through writing, and how to adapt reflective writing to an academic audience.<\/span><\/p>\n Reflective writing is often seen as very personal. Journaling or keeping a diary is maybe the most personal, because the only rhetorical audience is the writer themselves. But sometimes we\u2019re asked to perform that introspection for others, and it can be challenging to balance our unfiltered inner truths with the expectations other people have for our writing, especially when those other people include a professor or classmates. <\/span><\/p>\n Have you ever been told not to use \u201cI\u201d or \u201cme\u201d in a class paper? And now suddenly that rule doesn\u2019t apply anymore? But you\u2019re still being graded on this? But you\u2019re supposed to be yourself? As long as that falls into the assignment requirements?<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Plus, there are different kinds of reflective genres <\/span>within<\/span><\/i> the category of academic writing. Subgenres upon subgenres! But this can actually be helpful because once you can identify these subgenres, you know what guidelines to follow in your academic reflection. Let\u2019s talk about some here:<\/span><\/p>\n The Portfolio Cover Letter\/ Reflective Memo<\/b><\/p>\n We often hear about cover letters in the context of job applications\u2014they come with your resume as a way of introducing yourself in a personal manner. They can also accompany portfolios (lookin\u2019 at you, WRIT students) as a way of helping the reader make a connection between the work itself and how you, the writer, intend the work to represent you. They\u2019re not unlike an artist statement that accompanies an exhibit. Through the cover letter, your reader knows they\u2019re not reading your writing in a vacuum\u2014instead, you\u2019re guiding them toward understanding your style, decisions, and progress. You could discuss:<\/span><\/p>\n The Self-Assessment<\/b><\/p>\n This is one you\u2019re likely going to see outside of school, as self-assessments are often used in the professional world as well. You\u2019re already assessed by your professors through grading, and you\u2019re already assessed by your boss through feedback and training, so why do you have to do it to yourself? In the Writing Center, we often discuss the concept of<\/span> transfer\u2014<\/span><\/a>how can we get students to transfer knowledge from previous experience to the task at hand? We do this because it gets the writer\u2019s gears going independently; they apply what they know and adapt to the new situation. Self-assessments have the same purpose: you\u2019re more likely to improve if you come to your own conclusions about how you need to improve. If it\u2019s your own idea, your own vision or goal, you\u2019re going to be more likely to achieve it. Kind of like <\/span>Inception<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n Like the cover letter, don\u2019t be afraid to talk about your challenges and your weaknesses, but also don\u2019t be shy about your successes and strengths. The point is not to brag or be too harsh on yourself, but to show your reader how you plan to improve yourself.<\/span><\/p>\n The Experiential Reflection<\/b><\/p>\n Experiential reflections, like portfolio cover letters and self-assessments, ask us to consider our progress after a particular experience. This experience could be a class, a volunteer post, studying abroad, or (very likely) an internship. Internships are such a popular way to get credit because you can learn in a professional atmosphere and make contacts at the same time. It\u2019s a get-your-hands-dirty way to learn your discourse. But it\u2019s imperative that you <\/span>show<\/span><\/i> what and how you\u2019ve learned, which is why many professors ask that you produce a reflection of your time as an intern. Like the cover letter, the goal is to demonstrate what progress you\u2019ve made, but you\u2019ll also want to express how you will take what you\u2019ve learned and apply it as a professional. <\/span><\/p>\n This genre is as forward-looking as it is retrospective. It shows that you didn\u2019t take your experience for granted. You might want to talk about:<\/span><\/p>\n The Analytical Reflection\/Reading Response<\/b><\/p>\n You might be called to reflect on a reading or a topic in any one of your classes. If you\u2019re an English literature student, you might respond to a literary theory by agreeing, disagreeing, or something in the middle, and then enriching your ideas with other established theories and criticisms. If you\u2019re a student of public policy, maybe you\u2019ll be asked to reflect and analyze such a policy\u2014maybe you\u2019re interested in its success in achieving its goal, or perhaps you think the goal itself needs to be criticized and reconsidered. No matter the discipline, your original idea about what you\u2019re responding to should be front and center, so using \u201cI\u201d and \u201cme\u201d are acceptable. But in this subgenre, you need to make sure your ideas are influenced and affirmed by existing research, because if you believe one thing and are surrounded by research and evidence that says the opposite, you can\u2019t expect others in your discourse to hold your idea in the same regard as established thought.<\/span><\/p>\n The Literacy Narrative<\/b><\/p>\n Think of of this as an autobiography of yourself as a writer. In recent years, a genre called the micro-history has seen several major publications. The book <\/span>Salt<\/span><\/i>, for instance, offers an expansive world history as it pertains to the influence of salt on human society. <\/span>The Emperor of All Maladies<\/span><\/i> takes a medical approach to the history of cancer. So think of this assignment as a microhistory of yourself\u2014how have you lived in relation to reading and writing? Some things you might want to consider are:<\/span><\/p>\n Cultural Reflection<\/b><\/p>\n In some academic discourses, like psychology, medicine, public policy, human resources, or really any field where you interact with the public, you might be asked to consider your cultural background and how that might affect how you relate to others. This can be a pretty vulnerable genre, as it might require you to think about your racial and ethnic identity, as well as your sexuality, gender, an ability. This genre asks you to think about your heritage, the neighborhoods where you grew up, and what possible privileges you might have that obscure the experiences of people who aren\u2019t like you. Not too long ago, I took an <\/span>implicit bias test<\/span><\/a> after reading an essay by someone who was assigned to take it for class. Some results surprised me, initially, but as I thought about my own cultural past, I began to understand how the results reflected my upbringing and how diverse (or not) it was. It wasn\u2019t easy to be told that I have implicit biases, but taking this test is helping me interrogate those biases and how I act on them in my everyday life, even when I didn\u2019t realize it before. I think this cultural reflection is important for anyone to write, but especially those who enter professions that have some kind of power over other people, whether that\u2019s the power of medical or mental treatment, policy-making, or office dynamics. Cultural reflection helps us understand our own perspectives as well as the perspectives of others.<\/span><\/p>\n Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n I hope that this list of genres expands what \u201creflection\u201d can mean, and what it can do, both for yourself and your grade. Just like any other assignment for class, reflection can have a variety of rhetorical purposes and audiences, and they <\/span>can<\/span><\/i> be successfully balanced with your personal voice. <\/span><\/p>\n I think of it the same way I think about what clothes I\u2019m going to wear\u2014just because I\u2019m most comfortable in a t-shirt and and something with an elastic waistband doesn\u2019t mean I become a different person when I wear business casual for work, and I can still find business casual clothing that aligns with my sense of style. We always make decisions about how we present ourselves in different situations, and reflective writing is no different.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’m not usually someone who makes Disney references, but when I was coming up with this blog post, I couldn’t help but give in to nostalgia. 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