Reflective Writing

Kate Williams, Mary Woolliams, Jane Spiro

• Publisher: Red Globe Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781352010084
• eBook ISBN: 9781352010091
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Study Aids
• Subtopic: Study Guides

Reflective Writing provides concise and practical guidance on how students can improve their academic writing through self-reflective thinking, reading and writing. Covering a range of frameworks and strategies, it includes advice on applying reflective practices to personal and CV development.

PART 1 UNDERSTANDING REFLECTIVE WRITING

Part 1 starts to unpack what is meant by ‘reflection’ and ‘reflective writing’:

WHAT it is

WHY you are asked to write about your reflections, and, of course,

HOW to approach it.

1 About reflection

Reflection starts with thinking about something. As Jenny Moon (2005 p. 1) observes, we don’t reflect on ‘simple’ things like the route to the corner shop, but on ‘things for which there is not an obvious or immediate solution’.

You could say that reflection is not about what you’re going to have for dinner this evening as you whizz round the shops. But it could be. If you are thinking about who will be eating it, what happened last time, then something as apparently simple as a shopping list could involve a lot of reflection.

It is not just to do with the subject matter of what you are thinking about or learning, but how you think about it and how you learn.

Being reflective involves being:

open to different ideas, seeing things from different angles

curious-asking questions

patient – if the issue is not ‘simple’, the answer probably isn’t either (although it can suddenly jump out at you)

honest with yourself, your uncertainties, what you’re getting wrong – or right – and your writing needs to make this transparent to others, so they can see it too

rigorous – being analytical, and acting on the insights you gain.

Why reflect?

A very good reason to reflect is because it helps you to learn.

Students on an MA course explained what they learnt through reflection:

Reflection has helped me recognise …

Patterns and routines that weren’t really helpful. I have started to think more carefully about how and why I do things, and change them if they aren’t working.

My own strengths that I hadn’t appreciated before. It has given me a lot more confidence.

Why my writing wasn’t improving. I wasn’t reading feedback carefully enough.

Reflection in a programme of study or a professional context is a purposeful activity. Purposeful reflection can change how we think about things, what we do, how we do it, and can lead to specific changes in planning for what we do next.

Reflection for life

The power of reflection in learning doesn’t stop after studies. Increasingly, employers and professions encourage people to become ‘reflective practitioners’. Reflecting on an experience and learning from it is the basis of professional and personal development that continues throughout life (see Part 6).

Starting out on reflection

The following illustration shows some of the outcomes of the reflections on a group task of some Product Design students in the first weeks of their course.

By looking back on their experience and refle...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Series Editor
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part 1 Understanding reflective writing
• Part 2 Language in reflective writing
• Part 3 Forms and contexts for reflective writing
• Part 4 Reflection in reading and writing
• Part 5 Using frameworks in reflective writing
• Part 6 Reflection for life
• Conclusion: the habit of reflection
• References
• Useful sources
• Index