Writing Workshop Writing a Reflective Essay Assignment Prewriting Think About Purpose Choose an Experience Reflect on Your Subject Gather and Record Details

Writing WorkshopWriting a Reflective Essay

Assignment

Prewriting

Think About Purpose

Choose an Experience

Reflect on Your Subject

Gather and Record Details

Organize Your Reflective Essay

Practice and Apply

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Assignment: Write a 1,500-word reflective essay in which you explore the meaning of an important experience.

Writing a Reflective Essay

When you have a significant experience, you usually know it right away. You might think to yourself, “Wow, I never saw it this way before.” Writing a reflective essay gives you a chance to explore how an important experience has changed you or your ideas about life.

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When you write a reflective essay, your purpose is to

Writing a Reflective EssayPrewriting: Think About Purpose

• explore the meaning of a personal experience

• examine how the experience changed you

• tell what the experience says about life in general

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Think about your most important personal experiences:

Writing a Reflective EssayPrewriting: Choose an Experience

What significant events have you participated in or witnessed?

What unusual conditions have you encountered?

What special concerns have you had?

If an experience doesn’t come to mind right away, . . .


• look through old yearbooks, photos, or journals for ideas

• read some reflective essays or poems

Make sure to choose an experience you’ll feel comfortable sharing with an audience.


The flash flooding that hit our community last fall was a significant, life-changing experience I would like to explore and share.

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Writing a Reflective EssayPrewriting: Reflect on Your Subject

Your reflective essay should

• help you examine abstract ideas—love, patience, courage

• lead you to a new understanding of your beliefs about life and people


How does (or did) the experience affect me?

I experienced a sense of awe at the destructive power of nature. This was a new feeling for me. It is different to see a natural disaster in real life than to watch special effects in a movie.

Consider questions like these as you reflect on your experience.


How did the experience change my attitudes or behaviors?

Being stranded at the community center and not being able to go home or get in touch with my parents gave me a new appreciation for my home and family.


What universal truth or insight into human existence did the experience teach me?

I learned that the most catastrophic events can bring out the best qualities in people—courage, cooperation, kindness, leadership.

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Then, make a list of all the events.

Writing a Reflective EssayPrewriting: Gather and Record Details

each event from beginning to end.

Recall the events that made up the experience:

to someone else who was there.

through mementos—photographs, letters, souvenirs.

Visualize

Talk

Look

Record narrative and descriptive details about each event. These details will help you create concrete images in the minds of your readers.


Narrative details• relate actions, thoughts, and feelings of the

people involved in the events

I saw a young girl wade through water up to her waist to rescue a cat from her neighbor’s porch.


Narrative details• include dialogue, the actual words spoken by

people involved in the experience, and interior monologue, your thoughts during the experience

“I just hope my dog is okay,” Diego whispered to me. “I love that dog more than anything else in the world.”

“When will we be able to call our families?” I wondered silently.


Descriptive details• describe the way people look

Some of the last people to arrive at the center had been rescued from cars or homes. Most had been provided with dry, but ill-fitting, clothes. They carried their own clothes in plastic sacks. Many of them still seemed to be in shock.


Descriptive details• describe settings of events

By this time the community center was crowded with evacuees. There were no cots and very few chairs. We tried to sleep on blankets on the hardwood floor of the gymnasium, but very few people actually slept that night. We could hear news pouring out of radios all night long.

Throughout your essay . . .


• maintain a balance in the events. (Don’t spend all your time narrating just one event.)

• describe your thoughts and feelings to hint at the meaning of the experience

As you narrate each event . . .

• state the significance of the experience

In your conclusion . . .

• connect the experience to abstract ideas

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Arrange the events in chronological order—the order in which they occurred.

Writing a Reflective EssayPrewriting: Organize Your Reflective Essay

You might want to vary the chronological order by using flashbacks and flash-forwards.

WhatHappened

First

WhatHappened

Second

WhatHappened

Third

. . . and so on

Within chronological order, you can use other organizational patterns for certain purposes.

Writing a Reflective EssayPrewriting: Organize Your Reflective Essay

Spatial Order Order of Importance

• Good for describing places, people, or objects

• Details arranged by location in space—top to bottom, near to far, and so on

• Good for discussing effects and ideas

• Points arranged from most important to least important, or vice versa

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Writing a Reflective EssayPrewriting: Practice and Apply

First, choose a subject for your reflective essay. Then

• reflect upon your subject

• gather narrative and descriptive details

• organize your essay

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Documents

Writing Workshop Writing a Reflective Essay Assignment Prewriting Think About Purpose Choose an Experience Reflect on Your Subject Gather and Record Details