reflection paper in creative writing

You are using an outdated browser. Please click here to upgrade your browser & improve your experience.

Explore #WeAreOCA

Writing a good reflective commentary

I recently a ran an online workshop on what a good RC might include, so for those of students who were unable to attend (and for those who did attend, but would like a refresher), here’s a summary of my suggestions.

First of all, I think it’s helpful to remember the differences between notebooks, your writing diary and a Reflective Commentary:

Notebooks are where you start writing creatively, whether in the form of ideas and notes or sketches and early drafts. Notebook writing can form the basis of the projects and creative writing assignments that you will send to your tutor. You may find yourself starting numerous notebooks for different areas of interest.

No one will read your notebooks except you. Privacy is important because the thought of anyone reading your writing may inhibit you. Notebooks can be paper or electronic (many people use their phones for jotting down ideas), or a combination of both – it’s totally up to you.

Writing Diary:

Your writing diary is where you record your thoughts on your writing and your developing writing skills. You can discuss and reflect on concepts related to the writing craft here and reflect on what you feel your own strengths and weaknesses are. What are you good at? What do you need to work on? How can you improve these skills? Which writers can you learn from? What have you been reading?

When you are generating new writing material, you’ll be partly learning on an intuitive level. A writing diary will help you to be more conscious of your learning process and more aware of the different skills you’re developing. If you add to your diary regularly, it will form a record of your writing journey. 

Like your notebooks, your writing diary is for you alone and you can keep it in whatever format you prefer.

You can use your writing diary to help you write your Reflective Commentaries, but they aren’t the same thing. 

Reflective Commentaries:

A Reflective Commentary is either a short piece of reflective writing (500 words for Levels 1, 2 and 3; or 350 words at Foundation Level) considering the particular assignment it accompanies, or it’s a longer piece of reflective writing which you submit at the end of the unit in which you reflect on your learning over the unit as a whole, with reference to particular assignments (especially the final assignment).

A few dos and don’ts:

Don’t discuss how you came up with your idea.

Don’t discuss pieces you started and discarded.

Don’t summarise the story, poem, script etc. – your tutor has just read it..

Do focus on the creative work you’ve just submitted to your tutor.

Do focus on a few writing techniques you’ve used in the work. You can’t cover everything, so choose those that are particularly pertinent.

Do say what writing techniques you used and why they were effective.

So, don’t say: “I wrote my story in first person” and leave it at that. Instead say: “I wrote my story in first person because I wanted the feeling of intimacy of the narrator talking directly to the reader about the events. This was important for my story because….”

Discussing Writing Techniques:  

The term ‘writing techniques’ may seem rather abstract, but all it means is those techniques you used to write your creative piece. Here’s a selection of writing techniques you could consider:

Techniques in fiction: 

Descriptive writing, metaphors and similes, setting, character, use of dialogue, structure, narrative pacing, point of view, tense (usually past or present), use of flashback (or, occasionally, flashforward), voice, word choice, register (formal or casual), information reveal (what do you tell the reader and when), psychic distance, use of free indirect discourse, sentence structure (e.g. a short sentence at the end of a paragraph for impact). 

Techniques in poetry: 

Use of stanzas, use of punctuation, imagery, word choice, tone, structure, point of view, use of sound (e.g. rhyme, or assonance, alliteration), rhythm.

These are just a few of the techniques you could discuss – there may be others that are more relevant to your particular piece of creative work.

The tone of the RC:

The reflective commentary is not an academic essay, so you don’t need to use academic jargon. Use first person, because it’s a personal reflection on your work.

However, don’t be too colloquial and chatty either – your tone needs to be moderate and considered. Don’t say “I tried to do X but it was rubbish”. Instead, say you thought it wasn’t successful as a technique and explain why.

Similarly, when discussing your reading, don’t just say “I loved this book” or “It was fab”. Instead, explain what you thought was good about it and why. Give your opinion, but support it with careful analysis.

Reflecting on your reading: 

In the assessment criteria, a proportion of marks are allocated for Contextual Knowledge. Your final RC is your opportunity to demonstrate that you’ve read other writers and engaged with them seriously, not just as a reader, but as another writer. 

In your final RC you should refer to both primary materials (e.g. novels, poems, stories, plays, films, memoirs, poetry performances, etc – depending on what form you’re writing in) and secondary materials (e.g. books, articles, blogs, videos, etc. about the craft of writing). 

Get into good habits early on by referring to some primary and some secondary materials in your short RCs submitted with each assignment.

Think about what you’ve learnt from your reading in terms of craft – this is much more impressive than just saying you were inspired to write about the same subject. 

So don’t say, “I enjoyed Vicki Feaver’s poem ‘Ironing’ and decided to write a poem about ironing of my own.” This might be true and you can put this in your writing diary, but in your RC try to think about what you learnt about the craft of writing poetry from your reading. 

Include short quotations from your reading to demonstrate your points, but a short phrase or single sentence usually suffices (remember you’ve only 500 words for the short RCs).

The Final RC:

The Final RC is longer and in it you should consider what you’ve learnt from the unit as whole, as well as referring to particular assignments. You will now be close to preparing your work for assessment, so you should discuss your redrafting process – what you’ve changed and why – and also demonstrate your engagement with your tutor’s feedback.

Reflecting on redrafting:

Be precise. Don’t just say “I cut extraneous words” or “I rewrote Assignment 4 a lot”. Give examples of what you changed and why .

Use quotations from your own work when discussing what you’ve changed, but be brief: just a pertinent sentence or phrase.

Don’t just give a quotation from your assignment that shows it before redrafting, and then one after. Discuss the changes made and say why you think it is an improvement.

Reflecting on tutor feedback:

You don’t need to agree with every suggestion or comment from your tutor, but you do need to show you’ve thought about your tutor’s feedback. 

Similarly, don’t say you changed something just because your tutor told you to – only change it if you think it’s the right change to make, and say why you think so.

A quirk of the system is that at Level 1 you are likely to write this final reflective commentary before receiving feedback on Assignment Five. You’ll need to redraft your final RC and add comments about your tutor feedback’s on Assignment Five and your redrafting process, before you submit this final RC for assessment.

Submit both your tutor-annotated final RC and a redrafted version at assessment.

Referencing: 

Include a bibliography/reference list at end of all sources referred to in your RC (but don’t include anything you’ve not directly referred to), and use the Harvard Referencing Style.

The Bibliography does not form part of your word count.

Why write RCs:

Writing the reflective commentaries is an important part of the creative writing degree and the RCs serve several purposes. They are useful for tutors as they help us to understand students’ aims in a particular piece of writing. They should demonstrate students’ critical engagement with other writers as well as with books, articles, blogs etc. about the craft of writing, which helps us make better reading suggestions and to understand where our students are on their learning journey.

But, and arguably much more importantly, they’re a crucial part of your learning process, as they require a conscious engagement with the writing craft and a reflection on your writing skills, all of which will help you to think ‘like a writer’.

11 thoughts on “ Writing a good reflective commentary ”

Thank you Vicky. The workshop helped me have a better understanding of reflective commentaries.

This is an interesting article. I am studying photography and part of the work involves writing critiques of other people’s work. The guidelines set out above are relevant to any critique, whatever the subject matter. Thank you. I will be putting these suggestions into practice in my future work.

Thanks Vicky. I like the way you start with the Don’ts before the Dos!

Great advice Vicky! It would be lovely to see another workshop covering Reflective Commentaries. For some reason I struggle to get these right when doing my own R.Cs for the Art of Poetry.

This book called called: “Creative Writing and Critical Reflective Commentary.” was the only recent book I could find. It was really helpful to me It has an example in it and what else to include like references and how to write reflecively with underpinning critical theories.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B098MXYY54

https://celoe.telkomuniversity.ac.id/

“Your blog always provides valuable insights. Thank you for sharing!”

“I noticed you mentioned a study in this article. Do you have a link to the source for more information?”

It is critical to recognize the differences between notebooks, writing diaries, and Reflective Commentaries. Your workshop overview is important to both attendees and those who were unable to participate. Such clear thoughts greatly boost our writing experience. Thank you for sharing this enlightened viewpoint!

I’m really intrigues to know why you say so emphatically not to write about how you cam up with an idea – I would have thought his was crucial to the reflective process. Could you explain?

Your blog is appreciated for its usefulness and informative content. IFDA is the best institute for Computer Courses in Delhi and after that any courses completed IFDA is providing paid internship & 100% job placement. Best Computer Course in Delhi

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

> Next Post What is conflict?

Edge zine – submit by 15 july 2020.

Open College Of The Arts Degree Show Showcase

OCA’s Online Degree Show Showcase 2023

OCA Degree Show Showcase 21/22

OCA News: Student Fees from August 2022

How to Write a Reflection Paper: A Guide For Students

Here in our step-by-step guide, we take you through how to write a reflection paper.

Reflection papers are a common type of academic paper that help students learn to communicate their thoughts and ideas. Learning to write well is an essential part of honing your communication skills . Being able to express your own opinion on a topic in a structured format that makes your point of view and supporting evidence clear is a useful skill in nearly every career field. However, writing a reflective essay might seem intimidating, especially if you’re new to writing academic papers in general.

Below, we discuss several steps to writing a good reflection paper and answer your most frequently asked questions about reflective writing.

Before Getting Started

Step 2: start brainstorming, step 3: write the outline, step 4: format your reflection paper, step 7: compose the conclusion, tips for writing an outstanding reflection paper.

Before you start, it’s important to understand a reflection essay. A reflection paper is an essay or academic paper that offers a summary of the writer’s personal opinion or thoughts about a particular topic. It’s typically written in the first person and is a type of paper designed to communicate the writer’s opinion.

You can also:

• Gather the materials you will need to write, such as a pen and paper, your laptop, and any books or other research materials you will be using.
• Go somewhere quiet where you can work without interruption.
• Set a time limit and schedule breaks for yourself in between.
• Set goals for what you would like to finish during your writing session.
• Make notes of anything left to do when your session is complete and return to it another time.

Step 1: Pick a Point of View 

First and foremost, you should decide what point of view you want to present to the reader. What do you want the reader to learn from your reflective essay? How do you want them to feel while reading it, and what messages do you want to convey? Jot down your thoughts at this stage without worrying too much about structure or the order of your ideas. This first step aims to get the main points of your argument out so you know what angle you’re taking before you jump into brainstorming your supporting content. You might also be interested in learning how to write a book report .

• The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is a fascinating self-help book packaged as a fantasy story.
• It’s about a young boy named Santiago who turns from a life of Andalusian shepherding to travelling the world in search of treasure.
• After finishing the book, I was compelled to look at my own life and what dreams and goals I had, and how I might be able to pursue those.
• The most valuable lesson I learned was that each person should develop their ideas, goals, and objectives that they can work to pursue throughout their lifetime.
• The main character finds even more than he is looking for by learning about himself and living genuinely regardless of the cost.
• Overall, I found the book intriguing and engaging and could extrapolate several helpful ideas I could immediately apply to improve my life.

Begin the brainstorming process by thinking about personal experiences you’ve had that align with your main argument. Then, think about how these experiences and your response to them have impacted how you interpret the topic you’re presenting and why you have arrived at this point of view. This is particularly important if you’re writing an experiential reflection paper based on the opinions and ideas you developed from going through a specific experience or event.

Use the following techniques to brainstorm your reflection paper ideas:

• Draw Venn diagrams to group and separate ideas.
• Make bullet point lists of ideas.
• Create a mind map for different topics.
• Role play with other people.
• Think of as many ideas as fast as possible and write them down, no matter what.
• Write down ideas that start with specific letters of the alphabet.

A good outline will cover the main points of your paper so that the reader can come away with the intended meaning, even if they only scanned or skimmed the outline. Your essay should be written with a solid structure, and your thoughts should transition easily from one to the next. An excellent reflective paper will guide readers along your thought process, gently nudging them from one idea to another as they follow your cognitive journey around the topic.

Your reflection essay should have a clear:

• Beginning — Set the stage for your readers using descriptive language. Use a topic sentence to convey the main points of your paper immediately and let readers know what they can expect from the rest of the article.
• Middle — Get into the meat of your ideas by presenting a problem or challenge and how it was resolved. While reflection papers might not have traditional climaxes, you can strategically build your ideas up to a conflict or problem and then to a revelation or epiphany.
• End — Resolve conflicts and impart lessons learned at the end of your essay to wrap things up. Here is where the reflective part of the paper comes into play as you describe how you’ve gained a better understanding of the events described in the essay.

Your reflection paper format is essential if you write a personal reflection for high school or a thesis statement for college. Not only does formatting make your reflection essay easier to read, but it also ensures the piece meets submission criteria if the paper is for school, work, or publication. Most academic writing follows a predetermined format, and reflective essay writing is no different. Here are some formatting basics for a reflective essay:

• The page should be double-spaced.
• The first word in each new paragraph should be indented.
• Your margins should be 1” on the top, bottom, and sides of the page.
• The font should be set to Times New Roman 12 pt.
• The page should be 8 1/2” x 11”.
• Most reflective essays are between 250 to 750 words.

Step 5: Write Your Introduction

Finally, it’s time to do the bulk of the writing. You don’t need to go in any particular order, and it’s perfectly okay to write the conclusion or body paragraphs before the introduction or even a few sentences. There’s no wrong answer to how the words get from your mind onto the paper or computer screen, but the writing tips below can help you figure out which process you like best.

Your introduction is the first part of your research paper and what readers will engage with first. Your introduction should include the paper’s topic sentence, expressing the main themes you will discuss. They should know what to expect as they read the paper and what benefits they might get from continuing. You might also be wondering how to write a preface .

Throughout my life, I’ve wondered why some people seem to have an easier time than others. No matter what happens, these people seem to bounce back quickly or even might seem unaffected at all. As someone who has always been curious to learn about why other people do, say, or think certain things, this was naturally of great interest to me.

As I began to study various social, behavioural, and psychological textbooks, I realized that there were some common denominators between people who seemed to fare well emotionally, regardless of their circumstances. First and foremost, I noticed that extreme hardships at an early age resulted in less resilience to everyday stressors later in life.

Step 6: Create the Body Paragraphs

Next, write the body of your paper. This should be the largest portion of your paper and longer than the introduction and conclusion combined. The body will usually be at least a few paragraphs long but could be lengthier depending on the total word count of the paper. Be sure that your introduction, body, and conclusion contain smooth transitions from one to the other in a way that guides the reader through the paper. You might also be interested in these articles about assessment .

As I watched the sky where the Twin Towers once stood filled with smoke on the television screen, I remembered a scene from my childhood that I had thought was long forgotten. We were on a family road trip and drove past a car accident on the side of the highway. Someone’s van had collided with the guardrail and burst into flames, and thick, black pillars of smoke poured out of the engine.

Seeing the aftermath of the September 11th, 2001 attacks with my eyes was a surreal experience that I’ll never forget. It didn’t matter where people were or what religion they were — people just helped others. Firefighters dug survivors out of the rubble, and nearby shop owners provided first responders with food and water as they worked to clean up what was left of Ground Zero. It’s an event that impacted me profoundly and inspired me to help my fellow neighbors whenever I get the chance.

Finally, wrap up your reflection paper with a solid conclusion summarizing the paper already covered. Don’t use this space to introduce new information — if you still have something to say, it should be included in your body paragraphs. Your conclusion should be succinct and straightforward, providing a great segue from the body of your paper to the end. Write your conclusion in a way that leaves readers thinking about the point of view you were trying to convey or how they might apply the moral of your story to their own lives.

My experience with social media has left a lot to be desired, and I see many young people struggling to navigate public spaces on the internet. I’ve found it challenging to find genuine people or those interested in forming legitimate, long-term friendships or relationships.

As I became increasingly frustrated with my online life, I began investing more time in my real life. I looked for ways to improve my day-to-day routine and make time for things that gave me joy. Over time, I realized that social media brought me more stress and anxiety than it resolved and there just weren’t very many benefits in it for me anymore. I think many young people would find that their lives would be improved by spending less time on social media sites.

There are many ways to write a good reflection paper, depending on your topic and personal preferences. Still, some reflective writing strategies have stood the test of time and come highly recommended by other writers. 

• Make sure your essay is straightforward and concise. Use shorter sentences to convey the main points of your paper instead of long, convoluted phrases. Include only relevant information in the essay and leave out anything that doesn’t directly support or explain your main point of view.
• Use an academic tone of voice. Most reflective essays are formal and require an academic or professional tone and style. However, a good trick to use is to match the tone of your writing to your target audience. For example, if your reflective essay is for a children’s show, you may want to use a more casual tone of voice, even though most reflective writing should sound professional.
• Include credible sources, and make sure to cite them appropriately. Determine whether you should use MLA or APA formatting and follow the guidelines for citing sources you use to support your text. Don’t skip the research phase of reflective writing, even if your essay will be strictly experiential reflection. You should always include at least one to two supporting references.
• Use tight paragraphs and stay on track. Because most reflective papers are less than 1000 words and may even be shorter than 500 words, it’s important that your writing is concise and that each sentence brings value to the paper. Conversely, padding your essay with fluff writing wastes valuable word space and waters down the overall impact your writing has on your target audience.
• Proofread your essay thoroughly. Simple mistakes and typos can be detrimental to an otherwise perfect reflective essay. Most teachers will deduct marks for these issues, so be sure to proofread and edit your writing at least once or twice before turning it in.

If you are interested in learning more, check out our essay writing tips !

If you’re still stuck, check out our general resource of essay writing topics .

What Is Reflective Writing? (Explained W/ 20+ Examples)

I’ll admit, reflecting on my experiences used to seem pointless—now, I can’t imagine my routine without it.

What is reflective writing?

Reflective writing is a personal exploration of experiences, analyzing thoughts, feelings, and learnings to gain insights. It involves critical thinking, deep analysis, and focuses on personal growth through structured reflection on past events.

In this guide, you’ll learn everything you need to know about reflective writing — with lots of examples.

What Is Reflective Writing (Long Description)?

Table of Contents

Reflective writing is a method used to examine and understand personal experiences more deeply.

This kind of writing goes beyond mere description of events or tasks.

Instead, it involves looking back on these experiences, analyzing them, and learning from them.

It’s a process that encourages you to think critically about your actions, decisions, emotions, and responses.

By reflecting on your experiences, you can identify areas for improvement, make connections between theory and practice, and enhance your personal and professional development. Reflective writing is introspective, but it should also be analytical and critical.

It’s not just about what happened.

It’s about why it happened, how it affected you, and what you can learn from it.

This type of writing is commonly used in education, professional development, and personal growth, offering a way for individuals to gain insights into their personal experiences and behaviors.

Types of Reflective Writing

Reflective writing can take many forms, each serving different purposes and providing various insights into the writer’s experiences.

Here are ten types of reflective writing, each with a unique focus and approach.

Journaling – The Daily Reflection

Journaling is a type of reflective writing that involves keeping a daily or regular record of experiences, thoughts, and feelings.

It’s a private space where you can freely express yourself and reflect on your day-to-day life.

Example: Today, I realized that the more I try to control outcomes, the less control I feel. Letting go isn’t about giving up; it’s about understanding that some things are beyond my grasp.

Example: Reflecting on the quiet moments of the morning, I realized how much I value stillness before the day begins. It’s a reminder to carve out space for peace in my routine.

Learning Logs – The Educational Tracker

Learning logs are used to reflect on educational experiences, track learning progress, and identify areas for improvement.

They often focus on specific learning objectives or outcomes.

Example: This week, I struggled with understanding the concept of reflective writing. However, after reviewing examples and actively engaging in the process, I’m beginning to see how it can deepen my learning.

Example: After studying the impact of historical events on modern society, I see the importance of understanding history to navigate the present. It’s a lesson in the power of context.

Critical Incident Journals – The Turning Point

Critical incident journals focus on a significant event or “critical incident” that had a profound impact on the writer’s understanding or perspective.

These incidents are analyzed in depth to extract learning and insights.

Example: Encountering a homeless person on my way home forced me to confront my biases and assumptions about homelessness. It was a moment of realization that has since altered my perspective on social issues.

Example: Missing a crucial deadline taught me about the consequences of procrastination and the value of time management. It was a wake-up call to prioritize and organize better.

Project Diaries – The Project Chronicle

Project diaries are reflective writings that document the progress, challenges, and learnings of a project over time.

They provide insights into decision-making processes and project management strategies.

Example: Launching the community garden project was more challenging than anticipated. It taught me the importance of community engagement and the value of patience and persistence.

Example: Overcoming unexpected technical issues during our project showed me the importance of adaptability and teamwork. Every obstacle became a stepping stone to innovation.

Portfolios – The Comprehensive Showcase

Portfolios are collections of work that also include reflective commentary.

They showcase the writer’s achievements and learning over time, reflecting on both successes and areas for development.

Example: Reviewing my portfolio, I’m proud of how much I’ve grown as a designer. Each project reflects a step in my journey, highlighting my evolving style and approach.

Example: As I added my latest project to my portfolio, I reflected on the journey of my skills evolving. Each piece is a chapter in my story of growth and learning.

Peer Reviews – The Collaborative Insight

Peer reviews involve writing reflectively about the work of others, offering constructive feedback while also considering one’s own learning and development.

Example: Reviewing Maria’s project, I admired her innovative approach, which inspired me to think more creatively about my own work. It’s a reminder of the value of diverse perspectives.

Example: Seeing the innovative approach my peer took on a similar project inspired me to rethink my own methods. It’s a testament to the power of sharing knowledge and perspectives.

Personal Development Plans – The Future Blueprint

Personal development plans are reflective writings that outline goals, strategies, and actions for personal or professional growth.

They include reflections on strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Example: My goal to become a more effective communicator will require me to step out of my comfort zone and seek opportunities to speak publicly. It’s daunting but necessary for my growth.

Example: Identifying my fear of public speaking in my plan pushed me to take a course on it. Acknowledging weaknesses is the first step to turning them into strengths.

Reflective Essays – The Structured Analysis

Reflective essays are more formal pieces of writing that analyze personal experiences in depth.

They require a structured approach to reflection, often including theories or models to frame the reflection.

Example: Reflecting on my leadership role during the group project, I applied Tuckman’s stages of group development to understand the dynamics at play. It helped me appreciate the natural progression of team development.

Example: In my essay, reflecting on a failed project helped me understand the role of resilience in success. Failure isn’t the opposite of success; it’s part of its process.

Reflective Letters – The Personal Correspondence

Reflective letters involve writing to someone (real or imagined) about personal experiences and learnings.

It’s a way to articulate thoughts and feelings in a structured yet personal format.

Example: Dear Future Self, Today, I learned the importance of resilience. Faced with failure, I found the strength to persevere a nd try again. This lesson, I hope, will stay with me as I navigate the challenges ahead.

Example: Writing a letter to my past self, I shared insights on overcoming challenges with patience and persistence. It’s a reminder of how far I’ve come and the hurdles I’ve overcome.

Blogs – The Public Journal

Blogs are a form of reflective writing that allows writers to share their experiences, insights, and learnings with a wider audience.

They often combine personal narrative with broader observations about life, work, or society.

Example: In my latest blog post, I explored the journey of embracing vulnerability. Sharing my own experiences of failure and doubt not only helped me process these feelings but also connected me with readers going through similar struggles. It’s a powerful reminder of the strength found in sharing our stories.

Example: In a blog post about starting a new career path, I shared the fears and excitement of stepping into the unknown. It’s a journey of self-discovery and embracing new challenges.

What Are the Key Features of Reflective Writing?

Reflective writing is characterized by several key features that distinguish it from other types of writing.

These features include personal insight, critical analysis, descriptive narrative, and a focus on personal growth.

• Personal Insight: Reflective writing is deeply personal, focusing on the writer’s internal thoughts, feelings, and reactions. It requires introspection and a willingness to explore one’s own experiences in depth.
• Critical Analysis: Beyond simply describing events, reflective writing involves analyzing these experiences. This means looking at the why and how, not just the what. It involves questioning, evaluating, and interpreting your experiences in relation to yourself, others, and the world.
• Descriptive Narrative: While reflective writing is analytical, it also includes descriptive elements. Vivid descriptions of experiences, thoughts, and feelings help to convey the depth of the reflection.
• Focus on Growth: A central aim of reflective writing is to foster personal or professional growth. It involves identifying lessons learned, recognizing patterns, and considering how to apply insights gained to future situations.

These features combine to make reflective writing a powerful tool for learning and development.

It’s a practice that encourages writers to engage deeply with their experiences, challenge their assumptions, and grow from their reflections.

What Is the Structure of Reflective Writing?

The structure of reflective writing can vary depending on the context and purpose, but it typically follows a general pattern that facilitates deep reflection.

A common structure includes an introduction, a body that outlines the experience and the reflection on it, and a conclusion.

• Introduction: The introduction sets the stage for the reflective piece. It briefly introduces the topic or experience being reflected upon and may include a thesis statement that outlines the main insight or theme of the reflection.
• Body: The body is where the bulk of the reflection takes place. It often follows a chronological order, detailing the experience before moving into the reflection. This section should explore the writer’s thoughts, feelings, reactions, and insights related to the experience. It’s also where critical analysis comes into play, examining causes, effects, and underlying principles.
• Conclusion: The conclusion wraps up the reflection, summarizing the key insights gained and considering how these learnings might apply to future situations. It’s an opportunity to reflect on personal growth and the broader implications of the experience.

This structure is flexible and can be adapted to suit different types of reflective writing.

However, the focus should always be on creating a coherent narrative that allows for deep personal insight and learning.

How Do You Start Reflective Writing?

Starting reflective writing can be challenging, as it requires diving into personal experiences and emotions.

Here are some tips to help initiate the reflective writing process:

• Choose a Focus: Start by selecting an experience or topic to reflect upon. It could be a specific event, a general period in your life, a project you worked on, or even a book that made a significant impact on you.
• Reflect on Your Feelings: Think about how the experience made you feel at the time and how you feel about it now. Understanding your emotional response is a crucial part of reflective writing.
• Ask Yourself Questions: Begin by asking yourself questions related to the experience. What did you learn from it? How did it challenge your assumptions? How has it influenced your thinking or behavior?
• Write a Strong Opening: Your first few sentences should grab the reader’s attention and clearly indicate what you will be reflecting on. You can start with a striking fact, a question, a quote, or a vivid description of a moment from the experience.
• Keep It Personal: Remember that reflective writing is personal. Use “I” statements to express your thoughts, feelings, and insights. This helps to maintain the focus on your personal experience and learning journey.

Here is a video about reflective writing that I think you’ll like:

Reflective Writing Toolkit

Finding the right tools and resources has been key to deepening my reflections and enhancing my self-awareness.

Here’s a curated toolkit that has empowered my own reflective practice:

• Journaling Apps: Apps like Day One or Reflectly provide structured formats for daily reflections, helping to capture thoughts and feelings on the go.
• Digital Notebooks: Tools like Evernote or Microsoft OneNote allow for organized, searchable reflections that can include text, images, and links.
• Writing Prompts: Websites like WritingPrompts.com offer endless ideas to spark reflective writing, making it easier to start when you’re feeling stuck.
• Mind Mapping Software: Platforms like MindMeister help organize thoughts visually, which can be especially helpful for reflective planning or brainstorming.
• Blogging Platforms: Sites like WordPress or Medium offer a space to share reflective writings publicly, fostering community and feedback. You’ll need a hosting platform. I recommend Bluehost or Hostarmada for beginners.
• Guided Meditation Apps: Apps such as Headspace or Calm can support reflective writing by clearing the mind and fostering a reflective state before writing.
• Audio Recording Apps: Tools like Otter.ai not only allow for verbal reflection but also transcribe conversations, which can then be reflected upon in writing.
• Time Management Apps: Resources like Forest or Pomodoro Technique apps help set dedicated time for reflection, making it a regular part of your routine.
• Creative Writing Software: Platforms like Scrivener cater to more in-depth reflective projects, providing extensive organizing and formatting options.
• Research Databases: Access to journals and articles through databases like Google Scholar can enrich reflective writing with theoretical frameworks and insights.

Final Thoughts: What Is Reflective Writing?

Reflective writing, at its core, is a deeply personal practice.

Yet, it also holds the potential to bridge cultural divides. By sharing reflective writings that explore personal experiences through the lens of different cultural backgrounds, we can foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of diverse worldviews.

Read This Next:

• What Is a Prompt in Writing? (Ultimate Guide + 200 Examples)
• What Is A Personal Account In Writing? (47 Examples)
• Why Does Academic Writing Require Strict Formatting?
• What Is A Lens In Writing? (The Ultimate Guide)

Creative Writing: Reflective Journaling

by Melissa Donovan | Aug 5, 2021 | Creative Writing | 58 comments

Reflective journaling cultivates personal awareness.

A journal is a chronological log, and you can use a journal to log anything you want. Many professionals keep journals, including scientists and ship captains. Their journals are strictly for tracking their professional progress. Fitness enthusiasts keep diet and exercise journals. Artists use journals to chronicle their artistic expressions.

A writer’s journal can hold many things: thoughts, ideas, stories, poems, and notes. It can hold dreams and doodles, visions and meditations. Anything that pertains to your creative writing ideas and aspirations can find a home inside your journal.

Today let’s explore an intimate style of journaling, one in which we explore our innermost thoughts: reflective journaling.

Creative Writing Gets Personal

A diary is an account of one’s daily activities and experiences, and it’s one of the most popular types of journals.

A reflective journal is similar to a diary in that we document our experiences. However, reflective journaling goes deeper than diary writing; we use it to gain deeper understanding of our experiences rather than simply document them.

Reflective journaling is a form of creative writing that allows us to practice self-reflection, self-exploration, and self-improvement. Through reflective journaling, we gain greater understanding of ourselves through mindful observation, contemplation, and expression. As a result, we become more self-aware.

Reflective Journaling

We all have stories to tell. With reflective journaling, you write about your own life, but you’re not locked into daily chronicles that outline your activities or what you had for dinner. You might write about something that happened when you were a small child. You might even write about something that happened to someone else — something you witnessed or have thoughts about that you’d like to explore. Instead of recounting events, you might write exclusively about your inner experiences (thoughts and feelings). Reflective journaling often reveals tests we have endured and lessons we have learned.

The Art of Recalibration is a perfect example of reflective journaling in which stories about our lives are interwoven with our ideas about life itself.

Reflective journaling has other practical applications, too. Other forms of creative writing, such as poems and stories, can evolve from reflective journaling. And by striving to better understand ourselves, we may gain greater insight to others, which is highly valuable for fiction writers who need to create complex and realistic characters. The more deeply you understand people and the human condition, the more relatable your characters will be.

Do You Keep a Journal?

I guess I’m a journal slob because my journal has a little bit of everything in it: drawings, personal stories, rants, and reflections. It’s mostly full of free-writes and poetry. I realize that a lot of writers don’t bother with journals at all; they want to focus on the work they intend to publish. But I think journaling is healthy and contributes to a writer’s overall, ongoing growth.

I once read a comment on a blog by a writer who said she didn’t keep a journal because she couldn’t be bothered with writing down the events of each day; I found it curious that she had such a limited view of what a journal could hold. A journal doesn’t have to be any one thing. It can be a diary, but it can also be a place where we write down our ideas, plans, and observations. It can hold thoughts and feelings, but it can also be a place where we doodle and sketch stories and poems.

I’m curious about your journal. Do you keep one? What do you write in it? Is your journal private or public? Is it a spiral-bound notebook or a hardcover sketchbook? Does journaling inspire or inform your other creative writing projects? Have you ever tried reflective journaling? Tell us about your experiences by leaving a comment, and keep writing!

58 Comments

Hello. I keep writing refrective journal in Japanese. Now I’m trying to it in English. My dream is publish my book of English someday.Mamo

English takes a lot of practice, even for us native speakers, but with time, patience, and commitment, you can do it! Good luck.

Except for a few short months following an interstate move in December, I’ve faithfully kept a journal for 24 years. It’s reflective, it’s prayer, it’s story starts, character sketches, research and notes, it’s sometimes a rant, and usually how I see the world and my take on life. There’s just no way I function well without the journal. It fills some deep need for reflection and observation, but also the need to physically write, which is soothing and mind-ordering for me.

Twenty-four years is a long time! I’m impressed. Wait… that’s about how long I’ve kept a journal too! However, I haven’t been that faithful about it. There are weeks and months when I’m writing so much in other forms (blogging, fiction, etc.), that my journal gets neglected. I admire anyone who can stick with it over the long haul. No wonder you’re such a good writer!

It is wonderful to know that others in this world feel this way. Journaling does seem to help me fell aggreable about the events and happenings that were wholesomel and settle the ones that were not. I never thought of writing as soothing and wondered about dragon voice recognition to do the writing for me, but it just does not have the right feel. So I have stayed with hand writing to record my experiences in this fleeting life.

I have to confess I’m not a fan of voice recognition software except in cases where it helps people who are disabled and cannot type or write. The act of writing, of putting words down on paper or typing them onto a screen, is how we learn vocabulary, sentence structure, spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Otherwise, we’re just dictating, and that’s not writing.

Yes, I definitely believe that journaling is good for working out problems and celebrating life’s blessings.

Just today I was visiting with my pastor about this very topic. He wants to journal so he could revisit his thinking from time to time but is too impatient with handwriting. He uses Dragon Writing for dictating sermons, etc. and mentioned he might try it for journaling as well. Whatever works! I’m a big fan of handwriting and I occassionally type journal entries, print them and glue them into my journal. My journals include bits of everything – handwritten entries about my life, copies of special emails, images and articles I run across, quotes, creative sign copy I see while traveling, etc. etc. I tend to keep a separate travel journals and include bits of info from local newspapers, promotional brochures, etc. Other than travel, I like to have everything in one journal.

I’m a one-journal person, too, although I have notebooks for various purposes: one for my blog, one for my client work, and another for a fiction project. I don’t consider those journals. My journal is for ideas, personal thoughts, and poetry. Keep writing!

I was just thinking of putting everything in one journal. It drives me buggy to keep track of 20 different journals.(one for this,one for that)The reflective writing sounds helpful for a course I’ve been listening to on Podcast. Thanks!

I write essay and poetry, and I also keep a journal. I write stream of conscious sessions or dive into explanations of what I’m trying to say ina poem or essay. I also write book reviews and thoughts on what I’m reading. Rant too. All kinds of stuff.

I love stream-of-consciousness writing sessions too, although I usually call it freewriting. It’s the ultimate adventure in writing for me, and it generates so much great, raw, creative material. A really good session actually feels magical.

I’ve kept a journal since the early 1970s as a record of the things going on around me in my life, events, good and not so good things. It is a record of my life. I don’t know if anyone will read it after I am gone, but it has been handy for me at times. When I wanted to know when a certain event happened, I look back in my journal. Because people know I keep a regular journal, I have often had others call and ask me when such and such happened and I am able to find it.

I think your journal will be a wonderful record of your life, something you could pass along as an heirloom or donate to an archival library. I know lots of historical writers love to dig through those archives and learn about people’s lives. I think that’s so cool!

Thanks, but I doubt that it will ever make it into an archives. I will just be happy if my children and grandchilren appreciate it. I have read that people put all kinds of things into their journals, but this one is a life journal. That is one reason I started using some of your ideas for different kinds of journals. I have started a reading journal going all the way back to when I can remember reading, recording some of my experiences and favorite books and so on. I am doing in that way as more of a legacy in the hopes that someday my grandchildren who are avid readers (and possibly a few budding writers as well) will enjoy reading about their grandma’s reading adventures. It definitely has to be what works for a person, or they wouldn’t be motivated to write in it.

What a wonderful legacy — such a treasure. Your children and grandchildren are very lucky!

I agree your grandchildren are fortunate. I recently acquired a copy of my great, great aunt’s journal. It is priceless to me and gave me so many new insights into “pioneer days” when she and her family were traveling across the prarie during the land run in Oklahoma.

I have kept a journal for years. It does reflect what is happening in my life but is more conversations with God, my hopes and dreams, my discernments and my frustrations. I know someday my kids will read them but on a whole I am very honest in them. One of the best habits I have is to ‘harvest’ them, rereading what I write and highlighting certain passage. Get double benefits from that.

I have my great Aunt’s 60 plus years of journal and want to do something with them someday. I have a friend who typed out all of his grandfathers journals, gleaned nuggets of thoughts and wisdom and published a book for his family. Isn’t that cool?

Thanks for good thought today!

I love the double benefits of journaling. In my family, there has only been one journal/diary that I know of and I believe they threw it away because it was full of so much smack-talk about other family members. I read it and didn’t think it was all that bad, but someone got offended and our little family heirloom got tossed. Ugh, what a shame. I kind of wish someone had redacted the offending passages and kept the diary. Anyway, yes, one thing about journals is that “one day someone will read them.” People need to keep that in mind. Thanks, Jean.

I’ve been keeping a journal since I’ve been able to write. It was full of angst during my teen years, but since adulthood, it’s been mostly filled with observations and just whatever’s on my mind that day. Some could be called writing exercises, but I think they’re more like Morning Pages purging my mind of whatever ails it, to free it up for fiction writing.

I was a big teen ranter and whiner too (in my journal). I did morning pages for a while and enjoyed them very much, but I’m not a morning person, so eventually I switched. Now, I guess I write night pages, except I call them moonlight pages. Ha!

Hi melissa,

Great post! I do have a journal and I write there everything you have mentioned: ideas, thought, insights, things I observe around, small stories that come out of my mind in the middle of a train ride.

Regards, Fernanda

I love the multipurpose journal best of all. There are so many different types of journals — who needs a hundred different notebooks floating around? I’m right there with you, Fernanda, although I do have special notebooks for fiction and blogging. Everything else goes into my journal though.

Nice post with some great ideas. As to your questions, I guess I’m a journal slob too. My journal has a little bit of everything and I often put in story ideas and story beginnings. So you could say I get a lot of my writing from what began in my journal. As to what type of journal, I have recently started to keep mine at an online private journaling source, makes it really easy and convenient.

Thanks for posting this.

I’m curious about private online journaling. Do you worry about a third party having control over your journal? Do you back it up locally? I can’t journal electronically anyway. For some reason, I write all poetry and journaling (plus some fiction) longhand. I would love a tablet with a stylus!

I just started using the online journaling a couple of months ago. I use penzu.com, supposedly they use the same encryption that the military uses plus you can lock your journals with two pass codes and no one is suppose to be able to access it but you, not even their staff. You can also download it or print it out at anytime. I use to journal on my computer, because I can type faster than I can write longhand. But constantly downloading to cd and having to upload it each type I wanted to use a different computer was a real pain. I’ve lost journals due to viruses or corrupted cd’s. This way it’s all backedup automatically so I don’t have to worry about losing anything, and I can access it from anywhere. It’s really nice.

Thanks, Tiffiny. I certainly see the benefits of storing a journal online. I guess everything will eventually move to the cloud. Normally, I’m all in favor of technological advances, but storing my stuff (journals, photos, music) somewhere other than my own hard drives is one advance I’m not crazy about. I like the idea, but I am fixed on having my own backup. Anyway, I’ll definitely look into penzu.com. That sounds pretty cool!

I don’t go anywhere without my spiral notebook. I don’t really call it a journal, though. I write everything in it. From grocery lists to affirmations. I tend to think of a journal as being more personal. I cannot underatand a writer who does not keep some form of journal with them at all times. I guess they figure the good ideas will rise to the top.

I kind of understand the good-ideas-rise-to-the-top concept now. A while back, I started conceptualizing a novel and I would just think about my ideas throughout the day — for several months — and didn’t write anything down. And it worked. The best ideas stuck, so then I moved on to brainstorming and note taking. But generally, I write everything down and keep little notebooks stashed in places where I might need them in a pinch (my car, purse, nightstand).

I journaled frequently during our Peace Corps experiences in Ukraine and posted them on my website so they were availableto the public. I was amazed how many people followed them. I received many e-mails from total strangers who were living vicariously through my journals. When we returned to th euSA, we decided to do a stint in AmeriCorps*VISTA and because of my journals, someone contacted me and offered us wonderful housing (a housesitting arrangement) for the duration of our tenure. My journaling is generally reflective. I also do “morning pages” (a la “The Artist’s Way”)…these tend to be rants or details of my day or dreams and schemes and plans…these are private, unedited, quickly tapped out and I do not share them since they may be too intimate or revealing. (I use 750words.com and write as fast as I can for 20 minutes every day – no editing and no thinking just hit it sister!) It is amazing to look back at my journals and relive my thoughts and obeservations. I recommend doing this kind of daily writing. It is cathartic, healing and helps one know themselves. Life is good. “Ginn” In Steamy SC http://www.pulverpages.com (look for my Ukrainian journals there and my Malawi journals and find a link to my blog on my Camino from Roncesvalles to Santiago de Compostela)

I will definitely go check out your journals and 750words.com (I’ve never heard of that site). I love a fast, intense writing session with no editing. That’s where all my best material comes from.

I used to keep diaries when I was a kid and teenager. The ones from my teens were mainly public blogs and I wrote on them nearly everyday. In my twenties I’ve kept a private hardback journal where I write about experiences I don’t want to forget, feelings, stories, lyrics, doodles, rants, etc. I write pretty much anything I want to write about. Sometimes it helps me sort things out and other times it inspires me to write about something.

It is so weird to me that kids these days are keeping public diaries on their blogs. Blogs didn’t exist when I was a teenager (and I’m grateful for that!). When I was a teen and in my twenties, I always wrote down my favorite song lyrics (and made up plenty of my own too). What I love best about journaling is that anything goes. It’s my writing space, so I can write whatever I want there, and so can you!

Hi Melissa, I’ve kept some form of journal writing for years, but in a more deliberately conscious manner for about 8 years, in which I include, as you say, ‘free writes,’ which are so great for personal growth and awareness, as well as sudden insights about family and relationships and story ideas. I love my journal and, as I say, in recent years, keep it handy with me wherever I go.

That’s so interesting because I never get personal insights from my freewrites — just a lot of raw material that I can shape into something like a poem or song. I guess when I do focused freewrites, I solve problems, but in those cases, the freewrite has an intent (as opposed to just writing anything that comes to mind). That’s what I love about freewriting — there are so many different ways to use it.

This is the first time I’ve responded to one of your posts. Yet, you can rest assured that I read them faithfully. Why? Because, um, well, uh, because they are just so darn good!

I learn from you and enjoy the process.

Before I say how I use my journals, I must disclose that I am part owner of a business which sells guided journals as well as a home study course about how to get the most out of using a journal.

My first introduction to journal keeping came while I was in college. I treated the process poorly. I was a very bad date for my poor journal. You can say that while he was always faithful to me I certainly was not that to him.

Later, peer pressure from some very wonderful friends had me reaching for another blank book.

Now, well let’s just say my journals and I have become dearest of friends.

There is one journal which is different from all my others. I began it four years ago and there are only a few pages used. Yet, this journal is used faithfully as it was intended to be used. Once a year my granddaughter and I have a Christmas Tea. After our tea I record things about the tea and ask for her input. She will be six years old when we have our tea this year. This will be the first year her own pen will touch the page.

My desire is that she continue the Christmas Tea Celebration as well as the recording of the event after my death. Perhaps her mom or a friend will join her. Some day her own daughter may be her guest.

At any rate, the treasure she and I are creating together is worth more than any gold I might think of leaving her.

Thank you for your kind words, Yvonne. Your Christmas Tea Celebration and its accompanying journal is a beautiful idea. What a wonderful thing to share with the little ones. I think it’s a lovely tradition.

Yes, I always keep a journal. My thing is to not put any rules on it or it stresses me out. So, it is chaotic, unorganized, pages ripped out, stuff written here and there, scribbles, magazine clippings stuffed inside, pictures stuffed in. Messy.

Rules are stressful, aren’t they? I find that sometimes rules promote creativity but other times (like in my own journal), they hinder it, so I’m with you Kristy — I like a messy journal.

Your post is wondeful!! I do have a journal about which i had forgotten for almost a month :/ Reading your post just reminded of the fact that it was only because of constant reflective writing in my journal that i realised that this (writing) was what i want to do for my entire life! Thank you 🙂

I think a lot of writers start out by keeping a journal. There’s something about journal writing that comes naturally to certain people, and it makes sense that they would go on to become writers.

I started to keep an everyday journal when I was going through a tough time (about 4yrs now), it was suggested to me and ever since I’ve been keeping one. It’s great to get things out,sometimes though it’s hard to put everything down because I’m afraid someone will read it (because they would if they found it).lol but I use my journal for writing thoughts, feelings about things and people,memories,dreams/nightmares, I write about events that have happened too good and bad, I do drawings,sketches,poems,favorite quotes, stick in fav pics etc. Basically a bit of everything!! I prefer leather bound journals with plain paper but at the mo I’m trying out an art blanc journal because the design caught my eye,not to fond of being restricted to lines though! 🙂 I hope I keep one on into my life,sometimes I forget how helpful it is.

Great post! 😀

Your journal sounds a lot like mine! I do have a suggestion for you. If you’re uncomfortable writing your private thoughts in your journal because you’re worried someone will invade your privacy, you might develop a code system or use images instead of text to express certain ideas. I used to use code names for people, and I would sometimes write certain words in another language or using icons. It also makes journaling a little more interesting.

I call my journals Daily Milestones, because that’s what life feels like to me. Even in the most mundane days where I don’t engage in many activities, I can still have an epiphany in some way or another. If I’ve had an activity packed day or week, then I can go off even more!

I also like titling each entry with something witty like Planting Seeds in the Sandbox because it sometimes keeps the focus and intent of a certain entry. That one in particular is about how life is like a giant sandbox and how we, like children, like to play different roles. We plant “seeds” of our imagination to sprout into our reality.

When I first started keeping a journal in 2009, my entries would just be positive messages and revelations about life, but as time went on, they became more personal. I began writing about actual events in my day rather than just abstract inspirations. It felt odd to write about what happened in my day and even more weird to write how I felt about different aspects of the day and my life. I realized if I’m not gonna be honest with myself, especially where I have all the space and time to do so; what chance would I have with being honest with other people or in my creative writing?

It’s really helpful as a fiction writer to keep a journal because I notice a lot of recurring themes to write about: Reminders of how to remain on the path of truth and virtue amongst the many others that would take too much space in my post. One thing I find is how I judge/commend other people. When I write about other people they feel like they become fictional characters because of how I pick apart their faults and qualities. It helps me see them multidimensionally and transfer that realism in the characters I create in my stories.

And of course all this leads to a massive insight to self discovery as I find myself revisitting old entries just in case I’ve strayed from the path.

Thank you, Marlon, for sharing your experience with reflective journaling and explaining how it has benefited you as a writer, storyteller, and human being. What a wonderful testimonial!

Hi Melissa, sounds like your reflective journal is much like mine, with ideas, lists, doodles and plenty of free writing and first drafts of poem. I also note down story ideas and scraps of conversation or a phrase from someone else’s poem or story – so I suppose mine is a journal cum writer;s notebook. I also have a pad specifically for things to do and also my diary and when I look through they also seem to be combination of things, sometimes including pitching ideas and client requests.

Thanks, Sue. I love learning about how other writers use their journals, notebooks, and other writing tools. I’m glad you shared yours!

Hi Melissa,

I have been filling sketchbooks for years as a way of developing my watercolor painting skills, but I am a writer too, so inevitably I worte abd write a lot too, sometimes more than I sketched. Currrently, my main journal is a sewn-binding refill from Renaissance-Art. I have about 14 of them filled. I use mostly the 5.5 x 8.5 size and put my own hardbound covers on them when done, usualy with a sketch or writing on it and imitation leather trip. I use them for sketches on the spot or from photos, like a scrapbook at times, pasting in photos and this and that. An yes, resflections, insights, acconts of evens and trips, just about anything.

Good post, as usual. Thanks.

Hi Bill! Even though I can’t see your journals, they sound beautiful! I love when words and art come together.

I honestly don’t keep a journal,but I periodicaly write in a tablet ideas for new story development. ps.I have a book out the title is THE SIR DAVID THOMAS SERIES.Perhaps it may be something you would like to read.

A tablet or notebook could be considered a journal.

Honestly, i also don’t keep a journal, but I’d write my story ideas, probable developments of them , brainy quotes by others in every-day life and any interesting observation in my phone, laptop, or on a variety of papers (which do not form a notebook in whole!). But I have a separate notebook to jot down ideas for my thesis research report. I guess I’ll keep on writing my creative notes also in future in the same manner.

Yes, now with all these electronic devices, I think a lot of writers’ notes are becoming spread out. I use Evernote, which syncs to all my devices, including my computer. It has tons of great features — for example, you can clip stuff from the web. You can also create multiple notebooks.

Hi Melissa, Personally, I love keeping journals. I have multiple journals for different things. My private journal is just a regular composition notebook where I write down basically all my thoughts and things that happen to me. Occasionally, I paste pictures and articles. Another journal I keep is a spiral-bound notebook where I write down ideas, poems, short stories, etc. I have a couple of those, and I tend to read through them from time to time. I find it helpful to keep journals, that way, I can see the progress I’ve made over the years.

I love flipping through my old idea journals. I often find little treasures that I’ve forgotten about! Sometimes I even find an old idea that I’m now ready to use.

As silly as it might sound to some, I have MANY journals I keep at once. Of course, I have many to begin with and have been journaling since 1983…I have a journal of daily quotes filled with awe inspiring quotes from famous or important to me people. I journal of family history stories for when the thoughts and memories arise, I record them. My everyday (but not always every day) journal filled with intimate and inspiring yet sometimes dark and dreary moments in life. I have two journals (one for each of my children) loaded with photos and stories of important and important to me events to record in each of their lives. I have a Christmas and Thanksgiving journal so I can record each and every holiday and gathering with family and friends and including the preparing and gift giving. A travel journal that I use to prep for journeys and attach receipts and pics and business cards. I must not forget to mention the Bibliophile Reader’s Journal to record books I am reading so that I remember the most important details from each. An honorable mention is the Homes I Have Lived In Journal where I sketch out each home’s floor plan and add pics from our old albums to depict a room that just happened to be in old photos we took. One might ask, why so many as opposed to combining all in one? My simplest answer is; each journal represents a complex chapter in the Life of Me.

That’s awesome, Marcy! What a wonderful collection you’re creating.

I have already been trying to experiment on different types of journaling method since I was a child. My family knew how attached I have always been to notebooks.However, I would always find it too tedious to keep different notebooks for different aspects of my life. Finally, at 2018, I discovered the bullet journaling method. That was when I realized that I could actually keep an all-in-one journal. Currently, my bullet journal houses my ideas, my Bible reading and book reading reflections, and my thoughts. It also serves as my diary. But probably the most treasured part of my journal is Dream Notes section where I keep my most memorable dreams. That is because I would usually have weird and vivid dreams that sometimes serve as reflections of my current mental or emotional state. Other times, those dreams could be excellent sources for stories and poems. I’m always amazed of what my mind could conceive while I’m asleep. So I keep them recorded in my journal.

I use a variation of bullet journaling too. I’ve been doing it for a couple of years now (just ordered my third one) and it’s been pretty awesome. I use mine strictly as a planner, calendar, and tracker. I’m not sure I’ll keep all those journals; they’re mostly full of work-related stuff. So I like to keep my creative journals separate. I love notebooks too. Can’t have too many!

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

• Top Picks Thursday! For Readers and Writers 07-14-2016 | The Author Chronicles - […] and craft can be improved in many ways. Melissa Donovan shows the power of reflective journaling, and Jordan Dane…

Submit a Comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

Subscribe and get The Writer’s Creed graphic e-booklet, plus a weekly digest with the latest articles on writing, as well as special offers and exclusive content.

Recent Posts

• Punctuation Marks: The Serial Comma
• Getting Creative with Essay Writing
• Tips for Crafting Language
• The Writer’s Journey: A Must-Read for Storytellers
• A Selection of Journal Prompts from 1200 Creative Writing Prompts

Write on, shine on!

Pin It on Pinterest

Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Assignments

• Annotated Bibliography
• Analyzing a Scholarly Journal Article
• Group Presentations
• Dealing with Nervousness
• Using Visual Aids
• Grading Someone Else's Paper
• Types of Structured Group Activities
• Group Project Survival Skills
• Leading a Class Discussion
• Multiple Book Review Essay
• Reviewing Collected Works
• Writing a Case Analysis Paper
• Writing a Case Study
• About Informed Consent
• Writing Field Notes
• Writing a Policy Memo
• Writing a Reflective Paper
• Writing a Research Proposal
• Generative AI and Writing
• Acknowledgments

Reflective writing is a process of identifying, questioning, and critically evaluating course-based learning opportunities, integrated with your own observations, experiences, impressions, beliefs, assumptions, or biases, and which describes how this process stimulated new or creative understanding about the content of the course.

A reflective paper describes and explains in an introspective, first person narrative, your reactions and feelings about either a specific element of the class [e.g., a required reading; a film shown in class] or more generally how you experienced learning throughout the course. Reflective writing assignments can be in the form of a single paper, essays, portfolios, journals, diaries, or blogs. In some cases, your professor may include a reflective writing assignment as a way to obtain student feedback that helps improve the course, either in the moment or for when the class is taught again.

How to Write a Reflection Paper . Academic Skills, Trent University; Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; Tsingos-Lucas et al. "Using Reflective Writing as a Predictor of Academic Success in Different Assessment Formats." American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 81 (2017): Article 8.

Benefits of Reflective Writing Assignments

As the term implies, a reflective paper involves looking inward at oneself in contemplating and bringing meaning to the relationship between course content and the acquisition of new knowledge . Educational research [Bolton, 2010; Ryan, 2011; Tsingos-Lucas et al., 2017] demonstrates that assigning reflective writing tasks enhances learning because it challenges students to confront their own assumptions, biases, and belief systems around what is being taught in class and, in so doing, stimulate student’s decisions, actions, attitudes, and understanding about themselves as learners and in relation to having mastery over their learning. Reflection assignments are also an opportunity to write in a first person narrative about elements of the course, such as the required readings, separate from the exegetic and analytical prose of academic research papers.

Reflection writing often serves multiple purposes simultaneously. In no particular order, here are some of reasons why professors assign reflection papers:

• Enhances learning from previous knowledge and experience in order to improve future decision-making and reasoning in practice . Reflective writing in the applied social sciences enhances decision-making skills and academic performance in ways that can inform professional practice. The act of reflective writing creates self-awareness and understanding of others. This is particularly important in clinical and service-oriented professional settings.
• Allows students to make sense of classroom content and overall learning experiences in relation to oneself, others, and the conditions that shaped the content and classroom experiences . Reflective writing places you within the course content in ways that can deepen your understanding of the material. Because reflective thinking can help reveal hidden biases, it can help you critically interrogate moments when you do not like or agree with discussions, readings, or other aspects of the course.
• Increases awareness of one’s cognitive abilities and the evidence for these attributes . Reflective writing can break down personal doubts about yourself as a learner and highlight specific abilities that may have been hidden or suppressed due to prior assumptions about the strength of your academic abilities [e.g., reading comprehension; problem-solving skills]. Reflective writing, therefore, can have a positive affective [i.e., emotional] impact on your sense of self-worth.
• Applying theoretical knowledge and frameworks to real experiences . Reflective writing can help build a bridge of relevancy between theoretical knowledge and the real world. In so doing, this form of writing can lead to a better understanding of underlying theories and their analytical properties applied to professional practice.
• Reveals shortcomings that the reader will identify . Evidence suggests that reflective writing can uncover your own shortcomings as a learner, thereby, creating opportunities to anticipate the responses of your professor may have about the quality of your coursework. This can be particularly productive if the reflective paper is written before final submission of an assignment.
• Helps students identify their tacit [a.k.a., implicit] knowledge and possible gaps in that knowledge . Tacit knowledge refers to ways of knowing rooted in lived experience, insight, and intuition rather than formal, codified, categorical, or explicit knowledge. In so doing, reflective writing can stimulate students to question their beliefs about a research problem or an element of the course content beyond positivist modes of understanding and representation.
• Encourages students to actively monitor their learning processes over a period of time . On-going reflective writing in journals or blogs, for example, can help you maintain or adapt learning strategies in other contexts. The regular, purposeful act of reflection can facilitate continuous deep thinking about the course content as it evolves and changes throughout the term. This, in turn, can increase your overall confidence as a learner.
• Relates a student’s personal experience to a wider perspective . Reflection papers can help you see the big picture associated with the content of a course by forcing you to think about the connections between scholarly content and your lived experiences outside of school. It can provide a macro-level understanding of one’s own experiences in relation to the specifics of what is being taught.
• If reflective writing is shared, students can exchange stories about their learning experiences, thereby, creating an opportunity to reevaluate their original assumptions or perspectives . In most cases, reflective writing is only viewed by your professor in order to ensure candid feedback from students. However, occasionally, reflective writing is shared and openly discussed in class. During these discussions, new or different perspectives and alternative approaches to solving problems can be generated that would otherwise be hidden. Sharing student's reflections can also reveal collective patterns of thought and emotions about a particular element of the course.

Bolton, Gillie. Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development . London: Sage, 2010; Chang, Bo. "Reflection in Learning." Online Learning 23 (2019), 95-110; Cavilla, Derek. "The Effects of Student Reflection on Academic Performance and Motivation." Sage Open 7 (July-September 2017): 1–13; Culbert, Patrick. “Better Teaching? You Can Write On It “ Liberal Education (February 2022); McCabe, Gavin and Tobias Thejll-Madsen. The Reflection Toolkit . University of Edinburgh; The Purpose of Reflection . Introductory Composition at Purdue University; Practice-based and Reflective Learning . Study Advice Study Guides, University of Reading; Ryan, Mary. "Improving Reflective Writing in Higher Education: A Social Semiotic Perspective." Teaching in Higher Education 16 (2011): 99-111; Tsingos-Lucas et al. "Using Reflective Writing as a Predictor of Academic Success in Different Assessment Formats." American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 81 (2017): Article 8; What Benefits Might Reflective Writing Have for My Students? Writing Across the Curriculum Clearinghouse; Rykkje, Linda. "The Tacit Care Knowledge in Reflective Writing: A Practical Wisdom." International Practice Development Journal 7 (September 2017): Article 5; Using Reflective Writing to Deepen Student Learning . Center for Writing, University of Minnesota.

How to Approach Writing a Reflection Paper

Thinking About Reflective Thinking

Educational theorists have developed numerous models of reflective thinking that your professor may use to frame a reflective writing assignment. These models can help you systematically interpret your learning experiences, thereby ensuring that you ask the right questions and have a clear understanding of what should be covered. A model can also represent the overall structure of a reflective paper. Each model establishes a different approach to reflection and will require you to think about your writing differently. If you are unclear how to fit your writing within a particular reflective model, seek clarification from your professor. There are generally two types of reflective writing assignments, each approached in slightly different ways.

1.  Reflective Thinking about Course Readings

This type of reflective writing focuses on thoughtfully thinking about the course readings that underpin how most students acquire new knowledge and understanding about the subject of a course. Reflecting on course readings is often assigned in freshmen-level, interdisciplinary courses where the required readings examine topics viewed from multiple perspectives and, as such, provide different ways of analyzing a topic, issue, event, or phenomenon. The purpose of reflective thinking about course readings in the social and behavioral sciences is to elicit your opinions, beliefs, and feelings about the research and its significance. This type of writing can provide an opportunity to break down key assumptions you may have and, in so doing, reveal potential biases in how you interpret the scholarship.

If you are assigned to reflect on course readings, consider the following methods of analysis as prompts that can help you get started :

• Examine carefully the main introductory elements of the reading, including the purpose of the study, the theoretical framework being used to test assumptions, and the research questions being addressed. Think about what ideas stood out to you. Why did they? Were these ideas new to you or familiar in some way based on your own lived experiences or prior knowledge?
• Develop your ideas around the readings by asking yourself, what do I know about this topic? Where does my existing knowledge about this topic come from? What are the observations or experiences in my life that influence my understanding of the topic? Do I agree or disagree with the main arguments, recommended course of actions, or conclusions made by the author(s)? Why do I feel this way and what is the basis of these feelings?
• Make connections between the text and your own beliefs, opinions, or feelings by considering questions like, how do the readings reinforce my existing ideas or assumptions? How the readings challenge these ideas or assumptions? How does this text help me to better understand this topic or research in ways that motivate me to learn more about this area of study?

2.  Reflective Thinking about Course Experiences

This type of reflective writing asks you to critically reflect on locating yourself at the conceptual intersection of theory and practice. The purpose of experiential reflection is to evaluate theories or disciplinary-based analytical models based on your introspective assessment of the relationship between hypothetical thinking and practical reality; it offers a way to consider how your own knowledge and skills fit within professional practice. This type of writing also provides an opportunity to evaluate your decisions and actions, as well as how you managed your subsequent successes and failures, within a specific theoretical framework. As a result, abstract concepts can crystallize and become more relevant to you when considered within your own experiences. This can help you formulate plans for self-improvement as you learn.

If you are assigned to reflect on your experiences, consider the following questions as prompts to help you get started :

• Contextualize your reflection in relation to the overarching purpose of the course by asking yourself, what did you hope to learn from this course? What were the learning objectives for the course and how did I fit within each of them? How did these goals relate to the main themes or concepts of the course?
• Analyze how you experienced the course by asking yourself, what did I learn from this experience? What did I learn about myself? About working in this area of research and study? About how the course relates to my place in society? What assumptions about the course were supported or refuted?
• Think introspectively about the ways you experienced learning during the course by asking yourself, did your learning experiences align with the goals or concepts of the course? Why or why do you not feel this way? What was successful and why do you believe this? What would you do differently and why is this important? How will you prepare for a future experience in this area of study?

NOTE: If you are assigned to write a journal or other type of on-going reflection exercise, a helpful approach is to reflect on your reflections by re-reading what you have already written. In other words, review your previous entries as a way to contextualize your feelings, opinions, or beliefs regarding your overall learning experiences. Over time, this can also help reveal hidden patterns or themes related to how you processed your learning experiences. Consider concluding your reflective journal with a summary of how you felt about your learning experiences at critical junctures throughout the course, then use these to write about how you grew as a student learner and how the act of reflecting helped you gain new understanding about the subject of the course and its content.

ANOTHER NOTE: Regardless of whether you write a reflection paper or a journal, do not focus your writing on the past. The act of reflection is intended to think introspectively about previous learning experiences. However, reflective thinking should document the ways in which you progressed in obtaining new insights and understandings about your growth as a learner that can be carried forward in subsequent coursework or in future professional practice. Your writing should reflect a furtherance of increasing personal autonomy and confidence gained from understanding more about yourself as a learner.

Structure and Writing Style

There are no strict academic rules for writing a reflective paper. Reflective writing may be assigned in any class taught in the social and behavioral sciences and, therefore, requirements for the assignment can vary depending on disciplinary-based models of inquiry and learning. The organization of content can also depend on what your professor wants you to write about or based on the type of reflective model used to frame the writing assignment. Despite these possible variations, below is a basic approach to organizing and writing a good reflective paper, followed by a list of problems to avoid.

Pre-flection

In most cases, it's helpful to begin by thinking about your learning experiences and outline what you want to focus on before you begin to write the paper. This can help you organize your thoughts around what was most important to you and what experiences [good or bad] had the most impact on your learning. As described by the University of Waterloo Writing and Communication Centre, preparing to write a reflective paper involves a process of self-analysis that can help organize your thoughts around significant moments of in-class knowledge discovery.

• Using a thesis statement as a guide, note what experiences or course content stood out to you , then place these within the context of your observations, reactions, feelings, and opinions. This will help you develop a rough outline of key moments during the course that reflect your growth as a learner. To identify these moments, pose these questions to yourself: What happened? What was my reaction? What were my expectations and how were they different from what transpired? What did I learn?
• Critically think about your learning experiences and the course content . This will help you develop a deeper, more nuanced understanding about why these moments were significant or relevant to you. Use the ideas you formulated during the first stage of reflecting to help you think through these moments from both an academic and personal perspective. From an academic perspective, contemplate how the experience enhanced your understanding of a concept, theory, or skill. Ask yourself, did the experience confirm my previous understanding or challenge it in some way. As a result, did this highlight strengths or gaps in your current knowledge? From a personal perspective, think introspectively about why these experiences mattered, if previous expectations or assumptions were confirmed or refuted, and if this surprised, confused, or unnerved you in some way.
• Analyze how these experiences and your reactions to them will shape your future thinking and behavior . Reflection implies looking back, but the most important act of reflective writing is considering how beliefs, assumptions, opinions, and feelings were transformed in ways that better prepare you as a learner in the future. Note how this reflective analysis can lead to actions you will take as a result of your experiences, what you will do differently, and how you will apply what you learned in other courses or in professional practice.

Basic Structure and Writing Style

Reflective Background and Context

The first part of your reflection paper should briefly provide background and context in relation to the content or experiences that stood out to you. Highlight the settings, summarize the key readings, or narrate the experiences in relation to the course objectives. Provide background that sets the stage for your reflection. You do not need to go into great detail, but you should provide enough information for the reader to understand what sources of learning you are writing about [e.g., course readings, field experience, guest lecture, class discussions] and why they were important. This section should end with an explanatory thesis statement that expresses the central ideas of your paper and what you want the readers to know, believe, or understand after they finish reading your paper.

Reflective Interpretation

Drawing from your reflective analysis, this is where you can be personal, critical, and creative in expressing how you felt about the course content and learning experiences and how they influenced or altered your feelings, beliefs, assumptions, or biases about the subject of the course. This section is also where you explore the meaning of these experiences in the context of the course and how you gained an awareness of the connections between these moments and your own prior knowledge.

Guided by your thesis statement, a helpful approach is to interpret your learning throughout the course with a series of specific examples drawn from the course content and your learning experiences. These examples should be arranged in sequential order that illustrate your growth as a learner. Reflecting on each example can be done by: 1)  introducing a theme or moment that was meaningful to you, 2) describing your previous position about the learning moment and what you thought about it, 3) explaining how your perspective was challenged and/or changed and why, and 4) introspectively stating your current or new feelings, opinions, or beliefs about that experience in class.

It is important to include specific examples drawn from the course and placed within the context of your assumptions, thoughts, opinions, and feelings. A reflective narrative without specific examples does not provide an effective way for the reader to understand the relationship between the course content and how you grew as a learner.

Reflective Conclusions

The conclusion of your reflective paper should provide a summary of your thoughts, feelings, or opinions regarding what you learned about yourself as a result of taking the course. Here are several ways you can frame your conclusions based on the examples you interpreted and reflected on what they meant to you. Each example would need to be tied to the basic theme [thesis statement] of your reflective background section.

• Your reflective conclusions can be described in relation to any expectations you had before taking the class [e.g., “I expected the readings to not be relevant to my own experiences growing up in a rural community, but the research actually helped me see that the challenges of developing my identity as a child of immigrants was not that unusual...”].
• Your reflective conclusions can explain how what you learned about yourself will change your actions in the future [e.g., “During a discussion in class about the challenges of helping homeless people, I realized that many of these people hate living on the street but lack the ability to see a way out. This made me realize that I wanted to take more classes in psychology...”].
• Your reflective conclusions can describe major insights you experienced a critical junctures during the course and how these moments enhanced how you see yourself as a student learner [e.g., "The guest speaker from the Head Start program made me realize why I wanted to pursue a career in elementary education..."].
• Your reflective conclusions can reconfigure or reframe how you will approach professional practice and your understanding of your future career aspirations [e.g.,, "The course changed my perceptions about seeking a career in business finance because it made me realize I want to be more engaged in customer service..."]
• Your reflective conclusions can explore any learning you derived from the act of reflecting itself [e.g., “Reflecting on the course readings that described how minority students perceive campus activities helped me identify my own biases about the benefits of those activities in acclimating to campus life...”].

NOTE: The length of a reflective paper in the social sciences is usually less than a traditional research paper. However, don’t assume that writing a reflective paper is easier than writing a research paper. A well-conceived critical reflection paper often requires as much time and effort as a research paper because you must purposeful engage in thinking about your learning in ways that you may not be comfortable with or used to. This is particular true while preparing to write because reflective papers are not as structured as a traditional research paper and, therefore, you have to think deliberately about how you want to organize the paper and what elements of the course you want to reflect upon.

ANOTHER NOTE: Do not limit yourself to using only text in reflecting on your learning. If you believe it would be helpful, consider using creative modes of thought or expression such as, illustrations, photographs, or material objects that reflects an experience related to the subject of the course that was important to you [e.g., like a ticket stub to a renowned speaker on campus]. Whatever non-textual element you include, be sure to describe the object's relevance to your personal relationship to the course content.

Problems to Avoid

A reflective paper is not a “mind dump” . Reflective papers document your personal and emotional experiences and, therefore, they do not conform to rigid structures, or schema, to organize information. However, the paper should not be a disjointed, stream-of-consciousness narrative. Reflective papers are still academic pieces of writing that require organized thought, that use academic language and tone , and that apply intellectually-driven critical thinking to the course content and your learning experiences and their significance.

A reflective paper is not a research paper . If you are asked to reflect on a course reading, the reflection will obviously include some description of the research. However, the goal of reflective writing is not to present extraneous ideas to the reader or to "educate" them about the course. The goal is to share a story about your relationship with the learning objectives of the course. Therefore, unlike research papers, you are expected to write from a first person point of view which includes an introspective examination of your own opinions, feelings, and personal assumptions.

A reflection paper is not a book review . Descriptions of the course readings using your own words is not a reflective paper. Reflective writing should focus on how you understood the implications of and were challenged by the course in relation to your own lived experiences or personal assumptions, combined with explanations of how you grew as a student learner based on this internal dialogue. Remember that you are the central object of the paper, not the research materials.

A reflective paper is not an all-inclusive meditation. Do not try to cover everything. The scope of your paper should be well-defined and limited to your specific opinions, feelings, and beliefs about what you determine to be the most significant content of the course and in relation to the learning that took place. Reflections should be detailed enough to covey what you think is important, but your thoughts should be expressed concisely and coherently [as is true for any academic writing assignment].

Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; Critical Reflection: Journals, Opinions, & Reactions . University Writing Center, Texas A&M University; Connor-Greene, Patricia A. “Making Connections: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Journal Writing in Enhancing Student Learning.” Teaching of Psychology 27 (2000): 44-46; Good vs. Bad Reflection Papers , Franklin University; Dyment, Janet E. and Timothy S. O’Connell. "The Quality of Reflection in Student Journals: A Review of Limiting and Enabling Factors." Innovative Higher Education 35 (2010): 233-244: How to Write a Reflection Paper . Academic Skills, Trent University; Amelia TaraJane House. Reflection Paper . Cordia Harrington Center for Excellence, University of Arkansas; Ramlal, Alana, and Désirée S. Augustin. “Engaging Students in Reflective Writing: An Action Research Project.” Educational Action Research 28 (2020): 518-533; Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; McGuire, Lisa, Kathy Lay, and Jon Peters. “Pedagogy of Reflective Writing in Professional Education.” Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (2009): 93-107; Critical Reflection . Writing and Communication Centre, University of Waterloo; How Do I Write Reflectively? Academic Skills Toolkit, University of New South Wales Sydney; Reflective Writing . Skills@Library. University of Leeds; Walling, Anne, Johanna Shapiro, and Terry Ast. “What Makes a Good Reflective Paper?” Family Medicine 45 (2013): 7-12; Williams, Kate, Mary Woolliams, and Jane Spiro. Reflective Writing . 2nd edition. London: Red Globe Press, 2020; Yeh, Hui-Chin, Shih-hsien Yang, Jo Shan Fu, and Yen-Chen Shih. “Developing College Students’ Critical Thinking through Reflective Writing.” Higher Education Research and Development (2022): 1-16.

Writing Tip

Focus on Reflecting, Not on Describing

Minimal time and effort should be spent describing the course content you are asked to reflect upon. The purpose of a reflection assignment is to introspectively contemplate your reactions to and feeling about an element of the course. D eflecting the focus away from your own feelings by concentrating on describing the course content can happen particularly if "talking about yourself" [i.e., reflecting] makes you uncomfortable or it is intimidating. However, the intent of reflective writing is to overcome these inhibitions so as to maximize the benefits of introspectively assessing your learning experiences. Keep in mind that, if it is relevant, your feelings of discomfort could be a part of how you critically reflect on any challenges you had during the course [e.g., you realize this discomfort inhibited your willingness to ask questions during class, it fed into your propensity to procrastinate, or it made it difficult participating in groups].

Writing a Reflection Paper . Writing Center, Lewis University; Reflection Paper . Cordia Harrington Center for Excellence, University of Arkansas.

Another Writing Tip

Helpful Videos about Reflective Writing

These two short videos succinctly describe how to approach a reflective writing assignment. They are produced by the Academic Skills department at the University of Melbourne and the Skills Team of the University of Hull, respectively.

• << Previous: Writing a Policy Memo
• Next: Writing a Research Proposal >>
• Last Updated: Jun 3, 2024 9:44 AM
• URL: https://libguides.usc.edu/writingguide/assignments

• Translators
• Graphic Designers

Please enter the email address you used for your account. Your sign in information will be sent to your email address after it has been verified.

6 Tips to Writing a Solid Reflection Paper (With a Sample Essay)

A reflection paper is an essay that focuses on your personal thoughts related to an experience, topic, or behavior. It can veer toward educational as a reflection of a book you've read or something you've been studying in class. It can also take a more professional slant as you reflect on a certain profession or your experiences within that profession.

A lot of students enjoy writing this type of essay, especially if they find it easy to discuss their feelings and experiences related to a topic or profession. However, some students find this type of subjective writing to be difficult and would rather a more objective writing assignment.

Whether you're the former or the latter, for this article, we're going to look at 6 tips for writing a solid reflection paper that will help you get through the outlining and writing processes. We've also provided a sample reflection paper so you can see these tips in action.

Tip #1—Choose a topic you're passionate about

However you choose to focus your reflection paper, if you're able to choose your own topic, choose one that is highly interesting to you or that you find important. You'll find that your paper will be much easier to outline and draft if you do. There are a range of potential topics that have been used or have the potential of turning into a great reflection paper. Here are a few suggestions:

• Describe your internship experience.
• Discuss a recent book you read that changed you.
• What is "family" to you and why?
• What are some of the qualities demonstrated by your favorite employers and/or managers? What makes them your favorite?
• Discuss music that has altered your way of thinking or made you see the world from a different perspective.
• Reflect on your favorite memory of a pet or loved one.

Tip #2—Outline your reflection paper before you write

Be sure to outline your reflection paper first before you start to write. Even though this sort of essay is written as a personal reflection, you'll still need to make sure you stay on topic and organize your writing in a clear, logical way. As with other traditional essays, there should be an introduction with a thesis statement, a body, and a conclusion. Each paragraph within your body should focus on a different sub-topic within the scope of your overall topic.

Tip #3—Write in first-person singular

Write in first-person singular. Format the essay according to your teacher's instructions, using whatever citation style required. Your teacher will likely request that it is double-spaced, with 1" indentation in each margin, in 12 pt. font. Also keep in mind that most reflection papers will be around 750 words or less.

Tip #4—Avoid too much description

Avoiding adding too much description of events. This is not the kind of essay where you need to discuss a play-by-play of everything that happens. Rather, it is the kind of essay that focuses on your reflection of the topic and how you felt during these experiences.

Tip #5—Avoid colloquial expressions or slang

Avoid colloquial expressions or slang—this is still an academic assignment. Also, be sure to edit your essay thoroughly for any grammar or spelling mistakes. Since a reflection paper is written in first-person point of view, it's easy to mistake it for an informal essay and skip the editing. Regardless of the type of essay you submit to your professor, it should always be edited and error-free.

Tip #6—Critical reflection goes deeper

If your assignment asks you to write a critical reflection paper, it is asking for your observations and evaluations regarding an experience. You'll need to provide an in-depth analysis of the subject and your experience with it in an academic context. You might also provide a summary, if the critical reflection paper is about a book or article you've read.

Sample reflection paper

My student teaching experience with the Master's in Education program has been a great learning opportunity. Although I was nervous at first, it didn't take long to apply lessons I have been learning in my academic program to real-world skills such as classroom management, lesson planning, and instruction.

During my first week of student teaching, I was assigned a mentor who had been teaching middle school grades for over 12 years. She assured me that middle school is one of the most difficult grades to teach and that there is a high turnover rate of teachers, which worried me. However, once the week got started and I began to meet the students, my fears abated. These young people were funny, inquisitive, and eager to begin reading the assigned book, Lord of the Flies —especially after we started with a group project scenario that included kids being stranded on an island without adults.

The first few weeks of applying classroom management skills I had read about in my Master's program were a definite learning experience. I had read enough about adolescent development to know that they were not yet at the age where they were able to control all of their impulses, so there were moments when some would yell out an answer or speak without raising their hand first. So, at my mentor's suggestion, I worked with the students to create their own classroom rules that everyone would agree to abide by. Since they played a role in coming up with these rules, I believe it helped them take more personal responsibility in following them.

When we finished that initial group project, I began to see how tasks such as lesson planning—and plans that have to be turned in to the administration weekly—can easily become overwhelming if not worked out on the front-end of the semester. My mentor explained that most seasoned teachers will work on their lesson plans over the summer, using the proper state curriculum, to have them ready with the school year begins. Having scrambled to get my lesson planning done in time during the first few weeks, I saw the value in this and agreed with her that summertime preparation makes the most logical sense. When the school year gets started, it's really a whirlwind of activities, professional development and other events that make it really difficult to find the time to plan lessons.

Once the semester got well underway and I had lesson planning worked out with as little stress as possible, I was able to focus more on instructional time, which I found to be incredibly exciting. I began to see how incorporating multiple learning styles into my lesson, including visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning styles, helped the students stay more actively engaged in the discussion. They also enjoyed it when I showed them short video clips of the movie versions of the books we were reading, as well as the free-write sessions where they were able to write a scene and perform it with their classmates.

Finally, my student teaching experience taught me that above all else, I have truly found my "calling" in teaching. Every day was something new and there was never a dull moment—not when you're teaching a group of 30 teenagers! This lack of boredom and the things I learned from the students are two of the most positive things for me that resulted from the experience, and I can't wait to have my own classroom in the fall when the school year begins again.

We’re reviewing our resources this spring (May-August 2024). We will do our best to minimize disruption, but you might notice changes over the next few months as we correct errors & delete redundant resources. 

Critical Reflection

A Critical Reflection (also called a reflective essay) is a process of identifying, questioning, and assessing our deeply-held assumptions – about our knowledge, the way we perceive events and issues, our beliefs, feelings, and actions. When you reflect critically, you use course material (lectures, readings, discussions, etc.) to examine our biases, compare theories with current actions, search for causes and triggers, and identify problems at their core.   Critical reflection is   not   a reading assignment, a summary of an activity, or an emotional outlet.   Rather,   the goal is   to change your thinking about a subject, and thus change your behaviour.

Tip: Critical reflections are common in coursework across all disciplines, but they can take very different forms. Your instructor may ask you to develop a formal essay, produce weekly blog entries, or provide short paragraph answers to a set of questions. Read the assignment guidelines before you begin.

How to Critically Reflect

Writing a critical reflection happens in two phases.

• Analyze:   In the first phase, analyze the issue and your role by asking critical questions. Use free writing as a way to develop good ideas. Don’t worry about organized paragraphs or good grammar at this stage.
• Articulate:   In the second phase, use your analysis to develop a clear argument about what you learned. Organize your ideas so they are clear for your reader.

First phase: Analyze

A popular method for analyzing is the three stage model: What? So What? Now what?

In the  What?  stage, describe the issue, including your role, observations, and reactions. The   what?   stage helps you make initial observations about what you feel and think. At this point, there’s no need to look at your course notes or readings.

Use the questions below to guide your writing during this stage.

• What happened?
• What did you do?
• What did you expect?
• What was different?
• What was your reaction?
• What did you learn?

In the second  So What?   stage, try to understand on a deeper level why the issue is significant or relevant. Use information from your first stage, your course materials (readings, lectures, discussions) -- as well as previous experience and knowledge to help you think through the issue from a variety of perspectives.

Tip:  Since you’ll be using more course resources in this step, review your readings and course notes before you begin writing.

Below are three perspectives you can consider:

• Academic perspective: How did the experience enhance your understanding of a concept/theory/skill? Did the experience confirm your understanding or challenge it? Did you identify strengths or gaps in your knowledge?
• Personal perspective:   Why does the experience matter? What are the consequences? Were your previous expectations/assumptions confirmed or refuted? What surprised you and why?
• Systems perspective:   What were the sources of power and who benefited/who was harmed? What changes would you suggest? How does this experience help you understand the organization or system?

In the third   Now what?   stage, explore how the experience will shape your future thinking and behaviour.

Use the following questions to guide your thinking and writing:

• What are you going to do as a result of your experiences?
• What will you do differently?
• How will you apply what you learned?

Second phase: Articulate

After completing the analysis stage, you probably have a lot of writing, but it is not yet organized into a coherent story. You need to build an organized and clear argument about what you learned and how you changed. To do so,   develop a thesis statement , make an   outline ,   write , and   revise.

Develop a thesis statement

Develop a clear argument to help your reader understand what you learned. This argument should pull together different themes from your analysis into a main idea. You can see an example of a thesis statement in the sample reflection essay at the end of this resource.

Tip: For more help on developing thesis statements, see our   Thesis statements  resource

Make an outline

Once you have a clear thesis statement for your essay, build an outline. Below is a straightforward method to organize your essay.

• Background/Context of reflection
• Thesis statement
• Introduce theme A
• Writer's past position/thinking
• Moment of learning/change
• Writer's current/new position
• Introduce theme B
• Introduce theme C
• Summarize learning
• Discuss significance of learning for self and others
• Discuss future actions/behaviour

Write and revise

Time to get writing! Work from your outline and give yourself enough time for a first draft and revisions.

Even though you are writing about your personal experience and learning, your audience may still be an academic one. Consult the assignment guidelines or ask your instructor to find out whether your writing should be formal or informal.

Sample Critical Reflection

Below are sample annotated paragraphs from one student’s critical reflection for a course on society and privilege.

Introduction

Background/context of reflection : I became aware of privileged positions in society only in recent years. I was lucky enough, privileged enough, to be ignorant of such phenomena, but for some, privilege is a daily lesson of how they do not fit into mainstream culture. In the past, I defined oppression as only that which is obvious and intentional. I never realized the part I played. However, during a class field study to investigate privileged positions in everyday environments, I learned otherwise.   Thesis:   Without meaning to, I caused harm by participating in a system where I gained from others’ subtle oppression. In one of these spaces, the local mall, everything from advertisements to food to products, to the locations of doorways, bathrooms and other public necessities, made clear my privilege as a white, heterosexual male.

Body paragraph

Topic sentence : Peggy McIntosh describes privilege as an invisible knapsack of tools and advantages. This description crystalized for me when I shopped for a greeting card at the stationary store. There, as a white, heterosexual male, I felt comfortable and empowered to roam about the store as I pleased. I freely asked the clerk about a mother’s day card.   Writer’s past position:   Previously, I never considered that a store did anything but sell products. However, when I asked the sales clerk for same sex greeting cards, she paused for a few seconds and gave me a look that made me feel instantly uncomfortable. Some customers stopped to look at me. I felt a heat move over my face. I felt, for a moment, wrong for being in that store.  I quickly clarified that I was only doing a report for school, implying that I was not in fact homosexual.   Writer’s current position:   The clerk’s demeanor changed. I was free to check, she said.  It was the only time during the field study that I had felt the need to explain what I was doing to anyone. I could get out of the situation with a simple clarification. But what if I really was a member of the homosexual community? The looks and the silence taught me that I should be feared.  I realized that, along with its products, the store was selling an image of normal. But my “normality” was another person’s “abnormality.”  After I walked out of the store I felt guilty for having denied being homosexual.

Summary of learning:   At the mall I realized how much we indirectly shame nonprivileged groups, even in seemingly welcoming spaces. That shame is supported every time I or any other privileged individual fails to question our advantage. And it leads to a different kind of shame carried by privileged individuals, too.   Value for self and others:   All of this, as Brown (2003) documents, is exacerbated by silence. Thus, the next step for me is to not only question privilege internally, but to publicly question covert bias and oppression. If I do, I may very well be shamed for speaking out. But my actions might just encourage other people to speak up as well.

Sample paragraphs adapted from James C. Olsen's Teaching Portfolio from Georgetown University .

• TemplateLab

Reflective Essay Examples

50 best reflective essay examples (+topic samples).

If you have ever read reflective essay examples, you would know that these types of written works examine the writer’s life experiences . When you write a reflective paper example, you write about your own experiences and explore how you’ve changed, grown or developed because of those experiences. There’s no standard format for this essay as it may vary depending on the target audience.

Table of Contents

• 1 Reflective Essay Examples
• 2 What is a reflective essay?
• 3 Reflective Paper Examples
• 4 Format of reflective essay
• 5 Creating the outline of reflective essay examples
• 6 Reflective Paper Samples
• 7 Tips for writing reflective essay
• 8 Reflective Essay Samples

What is a reflective essay?

A reflective essay is a type of written work which reflects your own self. Since it’s about yourself, you already have a topic to write about. For reflective essay examples, readers expect you to evaluate a specific part of your life. To do this, you may reflect on emotions, memories, and feelings you’ve experienced at that time.

Since you’re writing reflection essay samples about yourself, make sure that they’re interesting and exciting. This is very important so that your readers don’t get bored with what you’ve written. Reflective essays are very personal thus, they’re a special type of essay. As you write one, you need to reflect, think, and explain.

In the essay, you should demonstrate and describe different feelings or emotions which you’ve felt in the past. These statements breathe life into your essay as your readers start picturing what you’ve written in their minds. Reflective essays are very honest, personal, and emotional, especially those which describe painful experiences.

Reflective Paper Examples

Format of reflective essay

As aforementioned, reflective essay examples don’t have a standard format. They seem easy enough to write but once you’ve sat down to start writing, you may suddenly find the task very challenging! Besides the format, you must think about the life experience you want to write about and remember everything about it.

A reflective paper example is a lot like a personal journal or diary. Of course, the difference is that other people will read your essay. Therefore, you must write it with good structure and coherence. In this regard, reflective essays are a lot like the other types of essays too.

When writing a reflective essay, you will have to examine your own life experiences. The purpose of writing such an essay is to provide yourself with a platform to share your most meaningful life experiences with other people. You can also use it as a way to explore how your experiences have changed you as a person.

You can present reflective writing in different formats. Most of the time though, people use a learning log or a diary entry format. You can use these formats and others. Just make sure that your essay has a good flow and that it’s easy for other readers to understand.

The format to use for your reflection essay samples would depend on your target audience. You can make an academic reflective essay or you can make it as a general and informal piece of writing. If you need to write the essay for a class assignment, follow the format given to you by your teacher.

No matter what format you choose, you may write an essay which:

• Focuses on your personal growth Such an essay helps you learn how to evaluate and analyze the experiences you have had in your personal life. This helps promote emotional development and growth. It also helps you understand yourself and your behaviors better.
• Focuses on literature For this type of essay, you may have to include references to literature and apply these to your own life experiences. Such essays are commonly given as assignments to students in school.

Creating the outline of reflective essay examples

Before you write your reflective essay examples, you must create an outline for them. Although you’d write about your own life, creating an outline gives structure to your essay to serve as a guide for what you want to write about.

Whether you need to write an essay for school, for a magazine or for any other reason, creating an outline is the very first step. With a good outline, you have a better idea of how your essay will flow from one paragraph to the next all the way to the conclusion.

When creating the outline of your reflective paper example, keep it organized. Develop the outline gradually and put a lot of thought into it. In doing this, you make the writing process much easier. Here is a rundown of the steps involved in the essay-writing process:

• Choose a topic (a significant life experience you want to write about)
• Gather information
• Create an outline
• Write a draft
• Finalize your essay

Reflective Paper Samples

Tips for writing reflective essay

As you think about the content of your reflection essay samples, remember that the important thing is that such an essay must be highly personal but also engaging to readers. There’s so much more to reflective essays than just writing your story. You must also reflect on your experiences to engage your audiences.

For your starting point, think about the most significant experiences you had in your life. Those which had either a negative or a positive impact on you as a person. If the reflective essay is a school assignment, your professor would probably specify what you must write about. Here are some tips for you for writing your reflective paper example:

• Reflection The most important part of writing your reflective essay is the reflective process. Think about the personal experience you want to write about. Focus on what happened, how this experience made you feel, and how it affected your life. Explore your memories and emotions for this part of the process. As you’re recalling and reflecting on your life experience, take a lot of notes . Write down all the details you remember and try to be as clear and as detailed as you possibly can. Take as much time as you need for reflection. You can even close your eyes as you try to remember those experiences vividly. When you’re confident that you have recalled all of the details of your life experience, it’s time to write your essay. To make it more meaningful, try to answer some important questions about your life experience including: Did you learn anything new about yourself because of this experience? Have you grown or developed because of this experience? If so, in what way? Did this experience impact your life positively or negatively? If you had the chance to experience this all over again, would you do anything differently? Why did you behave in such a way at the time of this experience? Did you make the right choices? What are your general thoughts and feelings about this experience? Can you say that you learned from this experience? Did you gain any new perspectives or skills because of this experience? These are “signpost questions” which can help you write a more meaningful essay. These are just some examples, you can also think of your own questions to ask yourself. The point of these questions is to make sure that you think critically and deeply about the experience you’re writing about.
• Planning After you’ve reflected on your life experience, it’s time to start planning your essay. When it’s time to start, you might feel as if you’re not adequately prepared even though you’ve done a lot of reflection. This is a normal feeling, especially if you want to create a written piece which people will love reading. To ease your anxiety and doubt, come up with a well-rounded and comprehensive plan. The best way to do this is through an outline. With an outline to guide your writing process, you can come up with an essay that’s more coherent and which has a clear structure. An outline or plan is important for reflective essays. Since you’re writing about an emotionally-charged topic, you might find yourself getting “lost” along the way. This is especially true if you’re writing about a painful experience which still affects you until now. The outline serves as a map for you to keep your thoughts organized. In your outline, make sure to establish all of the fundamental details you wish to include in your essay. This helps you pick out and remove any superfluous information to make it easier to read and understand. Planning the points you want to write about makes it easier for you to stay on point. As such, your writing becomes a lot clearer and your readers can follow your line of thought. An outline also prevents you from missing out any relevant information. It’s very difficult and frustrating to go back after you’ve written the whole essay just to fit in this information! Planning your essay also saves you a lot of time. Coming up with the structure makes you more familiar with your essay even before you start writing it. Thus, you can spend more time writing, revising, and proofreading your essay to make it the best version possible.

Reflective Essay Samples

More Templates

Binder Cover Templates

Graph Paper Templates

Cover Page Templates

Essay Outline Templates

Statement Of Purpose

Persuasive Essay Examples

Reflective Writing

“Reflection is a mode of inquiry: a deliberate way of systematically recalling writing experiences to reframe the current writing situation. It allows writers to recognize what they are doing in that particular moment (cognition), as well as to consider why they made the rhetorical choices they did (metacognition). The combination of cognition and metacognition, accessed through reflection, helps writers begin assessing themselves as writers, recognizing and building on their prior knowledge about writing.” —Kara Taczak, “Reflection is Critical for Writers’ Development” (78) Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies

Reflective writing assignments are common across the university. You may be asked to reflect on your learning, your writing, your personal experiences in relation to a theory or text, or your personal experiences in an internship or other type of experience in relation to course readings. These are assignments, as Kara Taczak notes, that offer opportunities to solidify knowledge about our experiences and how they might relate to others’ experiences and existing research. Moreso, reflection can lead to more informed understandings of our own experiences and course content in ways that may make that knowledge more useful in future classes and practice. However, often  reflective writing  is not taught as an explicit writing skill and can be problematically treated as a less rigorous form of writing. Below are some broad writing tips that can help not only your reflective writing to be stronger, but also the reflective inquiry to be more meaningful.

Collect relevant evidence before you start writing.

Yes–we recommend using  evidence  in reflective writing! When connecting personal experiences to the readings, that means selecting quotes from the readings and then coming up with specific moments in your life that relate to those quotes. When reflecting on learning or growth, that might mean locating evidence (quotes) from your previous papers that showcase growth.

Be specific.

It’s really easy to see reflective writing as more informal or casual, and thus, as requiring less attention to details; however, strong reflective writing is very precise and specific. Some examples of statements that are too vague and meaningless include, “I learned a lot about writing this semester.” Or, “I feel like my experiences are exactly as Author B says in this quote.” Neither of these statements tells us much–they are a bit devoid of content. Instead, try to name exactly what you learned about writing or exactly how your experiences are related to the quote. For example, you might reflect, “At the beginning of the semester, unsure of how to summarize a text well, I was just describing the main the idea of the text. However, after learning about Harris’ concept of capturing a writer’s “project,” I believe I have become better at really explaining a text as a whole. Specifically, in my last essay, I was able to provide a fully developed explanation of Author A’s argument and purpose for the essay as well as their materials and methods (that is, how they made the argument). For example, in this quote from my last essay,...”

Focus on a small moment from your experiences.

It’s hard to not want to recap our entire childhood or the full summer before something happened for context when sharing a personal story. However, it’s usually more effective to select a very specific moment in time and try to accurately describe what happened, who was involved, and how it made you feel and react. When writing about a moment, try to place readers there with you–help readers to understand what happened, who was involved, where it happened, why it happened, and what the results were. If this is a more creative assignment, you might even include some sensory descriptions to make the moment more of an experience for readers.

Fully explain the quote or focus of each point.

In reflective writing, you are usually asked to share your experiences in relation to something–a perspective in a text, learning about writing, the first-year experience, a summer internship, etc. When introducing this focal point, make sure you fully explain it. That is, explain what you think the quote means and provide a little summary for context. Or, if you’re reflecting on writing skills learned, before you jump to your learning and growth, stop to explain how you understand the writing skill itself–”what is analysis?,” for example. Usually, you want to fully explain the focus, explain your personal experiences with it, and then return to the significance of your experiences.

Use “I” when appropriate.

Often, in high schools, students are taught to abandon the first-person subject altogether in order to avoid over-use. However, reflective writing requires some use of “I.” You can’t talk about your experiences without using “I”! That being said, we’ve saved this advice for the bottom of the list because, as we hope the above tips suggest, there are a lot of important things that likely need explaining in addition to your personal experiences. That means you want to use “I” when appropriate, balancing your use of “I” with your explanation of the theory, quote, or situation you were in, for example.

Reflection conclusions can look forward to the future.

In the conclusion, you may want to ask and answer questions like:

• What is the significance of my experiences with X?
• What did I learn from reflecting on my experiences with Y?
• How might this reflective work inform future decisions?
• What specific tools or strategies did this activity use that might be employed in the future? When and why?

Write the reflection introduction last.

We always recommend writing introductions after you’ve drafted your entire essay–this allows you to actually introduce the specific essay you’ve already written (it’s easier to do and more likely to be strong). Reflective introductions have a little bit more flexibility. You do want to introduce the focus of your essay right away–and you might do that by naming it, by sharing a related anecdote, by naming a previously held idea/belief that has changed through learning happening during this course, or by explaining a reading or class discussion that make you curious about the focus you selected.

A Link to a PDF Handout of this Writing Guide

• Academic Skills
• Reading, writing and referencing

Reflective writing

Advice on how to write reflectively.

Reflective writing gives you an opportunity to think deeply about something you've learned or an experience you've had.

Watch the video below for a quick introduction to reflective writing. The video includes an example of reflecting on practice, but the approach is equally useful when reflecting on theory.

Video tutorial

Reflecting on practice.

Reflective writing may ask you to consider the link between theory (what you study, discuss and read about at university) and practice (what you do, the application of the theory in the workplace). Reflection on practical contexts enables you to explore the relationship between theory and practice in an authentic and concrete way.

"Yesterday’s class brought Vygotsky’s concepts of scaffolding and the ‘significant other’ into sharp focus for me. Without instruction, ‘Emily’ was able to scaffold ‘Emma’s’ solving of the Keystone Puzzle without directing her or supplying her with the answer – she acted as the ‘significant other’. It really highlighted for me the fact that I do not always have to directly be involved in students’ learning, and that students have learning and knowledge they bring to the classroom context."

What this example does well:

• Links theory to practice.
• Clearly states where learning occurred.

De-identify actual people you have observed or dealt with on placement or work experience using pseudonyms (other names, job titles, initials or even numbers so that real identities are protected). E.g.:

• "It was great to observe ‘Lee’ try to..."
• "Our team leader’s response was positive…"
• "I observed G’s reaction to this..."
• "Student Four felt that this was…"

"The lectures and tutes this semester have broadened my views of what sustainability is and the different scales by which we can view it . I learned that sustainability is not only something that differs at an individual level in terms of how we approach it ourselves, but also how it differs in scale. We might look at what we do individually to act sustainably, such as in what and how we recycle, but when we think about how a city or state does this, we need to consider pollution, rubbish collection and a range of other systems that point to sustainability on a much larger scale."

• Clearly states where learning occurred
• Elaborates on key issues
• Gives examples.

"On the ward rounds yesterday, I felt Mr G’s mobility had noticeably improved from last week. This may be due to the altered physio program we have implemented and it allowed me to experience a real feeling of satisfaction that I had made a real difference."

Action verbs are usually expressing feelings and thoughts in reflective writing, e.g. felt, thought, considered, experienced, wondered, remembered, discovered, learned.

Reflecting on theory

Some reflection tasks are purely theoretical, where you are asked to consider texts you have read, or ideas you may have discussed in tutorials, and reflect on them.

"Comparing the approaches of Mayr and Ulich (2009) and Laevers (2005) to what 'wellbeing' means for the early childhood setting was very illustrative in that I discovered they seek to do similar things but within different frameworks. Analysing the two constructs highlighted that the detail in Mayr and Ulich’s framework provided a much richer framework in defining and measuring wellbeing than Laevers’ does."

• References correctly.
• Considers what the theory has shown.

Using the DIEP model

When writing reflectively for the first time, it’s not uncommon to produce a summary or description of the event or experience without deeply reflecting on it.

Reflective writing needs to go beyond simply summarising what happened. Your reader needs to gain an insight into what the experience meant to you, how you feel about it, how it connects to other things you’ve experienced or studied and what you plan to do in response.

To be sure you don’t leave out any of these critical elements of reflection, consider writing using the describe, interpret, evaluate, plan (DIEP) model to help.

DIEP approach adapted from: RMIT Study and Learning Centre. (2010). Reflective writing: DIEP .

You can and should refer to yourself in your reflection using personal pronouns, e.g. I, we...

Begin by describing the situation. What did you see, hear, do, read or see? Be as brief and objective as possible.

Starting phrases:

• The most interesting insight from my lecture this week is ...
• A significant issue I had not realised until now is ...
• I now realise (understand ...) that ...

Interpret what happened. What new insights have you gained? How does this experience connect with other things you’ve learned or experienced before? How did the experience make you feel?

• This experience idea is relevant to me because…
• This reminded me of the idea that…
• A possible implication could be…

Make a judgement. How useful was this experience for you? What is your opinion? Why do you think this might be?

• Having realised the importance of ..., I can now understand…
• This experience will change the way I view ...
• Being able to see… in this way is extremely valuable for me because…

Comment on how this experience might inform your future thoughts or actions. How could you apply what you’ve learned from the experience in the future? How might the experience relate to your degree or future professional life?

• This is beneficial to me as my future career requires…  
• In order to further develop this skill…I will…
• Next time…I will…by…

[TS] The most surprising insight I have gained so far is how important recording and distributing succinct and accurate information is to the success of the project. [D] In the first week of my internship, I was asked to record some meeting minutes and distribute them to the project team and the client. [I] I initially felt offended as the task appeared trivial to me; it was something we rarely did during team meetings at university. [E] However, after speaking with my industry supervisor, I began to understand how important it is to keep a clear record of the meaningful points raised during meetings. [I] Making accurate notes of the key outcomes was harder than I expected as the rest of my team was relying on my minutes to know what they needed to do. [D]After reviewing my minutes, my supervisor agreed that they were sufficiently clear and accurate. [I] I’ve realised that poorly recorded minutes could have resulted in missed deadlines, miscommunication and costly implications for our contract. [P] To improve my ability to take notes I plan on reviewing the minutes made by my colleagues for other meetings and to investigate note taking techniques such as mind mapping (Trevelyan, 2014). Mind mapping uses links and annotations to record relationships between words and indicate significance. [I] This will help me to continue to develop my skills in this area and develop my ability to “prepare high quality engineering documents” as part of attaining the Stage 1 competency of written communication (Engineers Australia, 2018).

Trevelyan, J. P. (2014).  The making of an expert engineer: How to have a wonderful career creating a better world and spending lots of money belonging to other people . Leiden, The Netherlands: CRC Press/Balkema.

Ask yourself:

• Have I based my reflection on a specific incident, activity, idea or example?
• Have I sufficiently critically analysed the situation?
• Have I integrated theory in a meaningful way? Can I elaborate further to demonstrate the relevance of the idea and my understanding of it?
• Are my plans specific enough? Can I be more concrete?

When editing your draft, try colour coding each element of DIEP to be sure you have a balance of elements.

Looking for one-on-one advice?

Get tailored advice from an Academic Skills Adviser by booking an Individual appointment, or get quick feedback from one of our Academic Writing Mentors via email through our Writing advice service.

Go to Student appointments

• Cambridge Libraries

Study Skills

Reflective practice toolkit, introduction.

• What is reflective practice?
• Everyday reflection
• Models of reflection
• Barriers to reflection
• Free writing
• Reflective writing exercise
• Bibliography

Many people worry that they will be unable to write reflectively but chances are that you do it more than you think!  It's a common task during both work and study from appraisal and planning documents to recording observations at the end of a module. The following pages will guide you through some simple techniques for reflective writing as well as how to avoid some of the most common pitfalls.

What is reflective writing?

Writing reflectively involves critically analysing an experience, recording how it has impacted you and what you plan to do with your new knowledge. It can help you to reflect on a deeper level as the act of getting something down on paper often helps people to think an experience through.

The key to reflective writing is to be analytical rather than descriptive. Always ask why rather than just describing what happened during an experience. 

Remember...

Reflective writing is...

• Written in the first person
• Free flowing
• A tool to challenge assumptions
• A time investment

Reflective writing isn't...

• Written in the third person
• Descriptive
• What you think you should write
• A tool to ignore assumptions
• A waste of time

Adapted from The Reflective Practice Guide: an Interdisciplinary Approach / Barbara Bassot.

You can learn more about reflective writing in this handy video from Hull University:

Created by SkillsTeamHullUni

• Hull reflective writing video transcript (Word)
• Hull reflective writing video transcript (PDF)

Where might you use reflective writing?

You can use reflective writing in many aspects of your work, study and even everyday life. The activities below all contain some aspect of reflective writing and are common to many people:

1. Job applications

Both preparing for and writing job applications contain elements of reflective writing. You need to think about the experience that makes you suitable for a role and this means reflection on the skills you have developed and how they might relate to the specification. When writing your application you need to expand on what you have done and explain what you have learnt and why this matters - key elements of reflective writing.

2. Appraisals

In a similar way, undertaking an appraisal is a good time to reflect back on a certain period of time in post. You might be asked to record what went well and why as well as identifying areas for improvement.

3. Written feedback

If you have made a purchase recently you are likely to have received a request for feedback. When you leave a review of a product or service online then you need to think about the pros and cons. You may also have gone into detail about why the product was so good or the service was so bad so other people know how to judge it in the future.

4. Blogging

Blogs are a place to offer your own opinion and can be a really good place to do some reflective writing. Blogger often take a view on something and use their site as a way to share it with the world. They will often talk about the reasons why they like/dislike something - classic reflective writing.

5. During the research process

When researchers are working on a project they will often think about they way they are working and how it could be improved as well as considering different approaches to achieve their research goal. They will often record this in some way such as in a lab book and this questioning approach is a form of reflective writing.

6. In academic writing

Many students will be asked to include some form of reflection in an academic assignment, for example when relating a topic to their real life circumstances. They are also often asked to think about their opinion on or reactions to texts and other research and write about this in their own work.

Think about ... When you reflect

Think about all of the activities you do on a daily basis. Do any of these contain elements of reflective writing? Make a list of all the times you have written something reflective over the last month - it will be longer than you think!

Reflective terminology

A common mistake people make when writing reflectively is to focus too much on describing their experience. Think about some of the phrases below and try to use them when writing reflectively to help you avoid this problem:

• The most important thing was...
• At the time I felt...
• This was likely due to...
• After thinking about it...
• I learned that...
• I need to know more about...
• Later I realised...
• This was because...
• This was like...
• I wonder what would happen if...
• I'm still unsure about...
• My next steps are...

Always try and write in the first person when writing reflectively. This will help you to focus on your thoughts/feelings/experiences rather than just a description of the experience.

Using reflective writing in your academic work

Many courses will also expect you to reflect on your own learning as you progress through a particular programme. You may be asked to keep some type of reflective journal or diary. Depending on the needs of your course this may or may not be assessed but if you are using one it's important to write reflectively. This can help you to look back and see how your thinking has evolved over time - something useful for job applications in the future. Students at all levels may also be asked to reflect on the work of others, either as part of a group project or through peer review of their work. This requires a slightly different approach to reflection as you are not focused on your own work but again this is a useful skill to develop for the workplace.

You can see some useful examples of reflective writing in academia from Monash University ,  UNSW (the University of New South Wales) and Sage . Several of these examples also include feedback from tutors which you can use to inform your own work.

Laptop/computer/broswer/research by StockSnap via Pixabay licenced under CC0.

Now that you have a better idea of what reflective writing is and how it can be used it's time to practice some techniques.

This page has given you an understanding of what reflective writing is and where it can be used in both work and study. Now that you have a better idea of how reflective writing works the next two pages will guide you through some activities you can use to get started.

• << Previous: Barriers to reflection
• Next: Free writing >>
• Last Updated: Jun 21, 2023 3:24 PM
• URL: https://libguides.cam.ac.uk/reflectivepracticetoolkit

© Cambridge University Libraries | Accessibility | Privacy policy | Log into LibApps

In-verse reflection: structured creative writing exercises to promote reflective learning in medical students

• Open access
• Published: 20 May 2022
• Volume 43 , pages 493–504, ( 2022 )

Cite this article

You have full access to this open access article

• David McLean 1 ,
• Neville Chiavaroli   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1488-9747 2 , 3 ,
• Charlotte Denniston   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3654-6721 3 &
• Martin Richardson 1  

4112 Accesses

Explore all metrics

Medical educators recognize the value of reflection for medical students and the role creative writing can play in fostering this. However, direct creative writing tasks can be challenging for many students, particularly those with limited experience in the arts and humanities. An alternative strategy is to utilize an indirect approach, engaging students with structured tasks that obliquely encourage reflection. This paper reports one such approach. We refer to this approach as in-verse reflection , playing on both the structure of the writing and its novel approach to reflection. Students were invited to write, in verse-like structures, about their personal and clinical experiences as medical students. Thematic analysis of their creative outputs and reactions identified four principal themes: the challenges of life as a medical student, the emotional demands of the medical course, a sense of connectedness and solidarity with fellow students, and a sense of marginality within the hospital system. Students generally found the tasks highly engaging and conducive to reflection, producing texts representing significant insights into their experiences as medical students. The reported method offers a relatively simple, structured, and guided approach to reflective writing, adding to the repertoire of methods available to educators in the medical humanities.

Similar content being viewed by others

The Reflection Competency: Using Narrative in Remediation

Reflection and Narrative in Remediation

“Where Does the Circle End?”: Representation as a Critical Aspect of Reflection in Teaching Social and Behavioral Sciences in Medicine

Explore related subjects.

• Artificial Intelligence

Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.

Introduction

Reflective writing is increasingly seen as an important educational practice in medical and health professional education to help achieve desired learning outcomes such as communication, empathy, and professionalism (Moniz et al. 2015 ). Medical educators may use a variety of writing tasks and forms to engage students and foster reflection, including focused essays, journal entries, and creative writing tasks (Green et al. 2016 ; Kerr 2010 ). While the potential value of reflective writing is widely acknowledged, unstructured approaches may be hampered by student reluctance or hesitation to engage or participate meaningfully (Aronson 2011 ; Sandars 2009 ). In particular, the individual free writing approach typical of many written exercises may not align with contemporary students’ preference for group-based and creative activities (Sandars 2009 ). On the other hand, tightly structured or focused reflective writing tasks, especially those that are summatively assessed, may be viewed cynically by students, who often aim to give teachers the responses they think educators are looking for (Belling 2011 ; Birden and Usherwood 2013 ).

In our second-year medical program, we initiated an approach to guide and promote student reflection of their clinical learning experiences, the implementation of which was feasible for educators and genuinely engaging for students. To do so, we drew on short and structured creative writing exercises with the aim of guiding and prompting students to think about their professional journeys and experiences. Our approach is based primarily on the first author’s educational practice of using such activities in English classes in a secondary school setting (McLean 2020 ). This approach has been relatively under-utilized in the creative writing practices currently employed and represented in medical education (Bolton 1999 ; Cowen et al. 2016 ; Kerr 2010 ; Morris 2001 ). As many educators have pointed out, explicit creative writing tasks can form barriers for students for several reasons, including the belief that they do not have the necessary writing skills, an unease about exercises that have no single correct response, or a discomfort with emotionally laden issues (Kerr 2010 ; Sandars 2009 ; Shapiro et al. 2009 ). This arguably applies even more so to poetic writing, where the ambiguity and fluidity of language and meaning can significantly deter students unfamiliar with the genre (Wellbery 2006 ). However, as Johanna Shapiro has shown in her book The Inner World of Medical Students ( 2009 ), there are numerous medical students who are (or become) very comfortable and proficient in reflecting through poetry and verse and who derive great benefit and meaning from engaging in this format. For them—and potentially their peers—the poetic form can be liberating and enabling.

Our approach aims to draw on the power of poetic form and ideas while attempting to address the challenges it can present to medical students. We generate short, simple, and structured tasks which, while not presented as poetry as such, do produce writing with a poetry-like structure. We refer to this method as in-verse reflection , playing on both the structure of the writing and its indirect approach to reflection. In this method, the focus is (seemingly) on the structured sequence of instructions rather than the creative process/product; the reflective component occurs almost incidentally, although no less significantly, through both the activity itself and the ensuing collaborative discussion. Through such seemingly trivial writing tasks, we engage students who are usually outcome-oriented and assessment-driven in creative and fun activities that can, nevertheless, lead to insightful and often quite profound writing and reflection. Essentially, we aim to awaken reflection in students instead of attempting to guarantee it through more direct and potentially constrained approaches (Saeverot 2022 ). It is, in some ways, a form of gentle misdirection—or, speaking more pedagogically, it uses indirection as a way of fostering reflection.

The use of indirect techniques and pedagogies has a strong base in both education and humanities disciplines, where indirection is defended as frequently desirable, if not necessary, to generate reflective insights and meanings that may be limited by direct communication or transmission of knowledge (Fraser 2020 ; Saeverot 2022 ). The theory of indirection is notably, and more popularly, represented in the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards ( 1979 ), which teaches drawing through the strategy of turning the figure upside down and forcing the brain to forego the assumptions and expectations of conventional orientation, bringing intuitive and spontaneous elements to the fore. The use of indirection is also not new in medical education. Both Bleakley ( 2015 , 146) and Belling ( 2011 ) report on the use of indirection in “art rounds” in medical contexts. As Belling explains, commenting on the research study of Gaufberg and Williams ( 2011 ), museum objects were used to promote reflection in medical students by focusing primarily on the art object itself rather than the transferable skills. While such skills-based approaches are not uncommon in the medical humanities (Blease 2016 ; Chiavaroli et al. 2018 ), they can come unstuck in the context of teaching for reflection. As Belling argues, “authentic personal responsiveness” is integral to reflection ( 2011 , 580), and overly didactic approaches to teaching it, even when using creative products, can inadvertently elicit superficial or even cynical responses. Furthermore, drawing inspiration from Emily Dickinson’s notion of telling the truth slant , some medical educators seek to use poetry’s natural affinity for indirection to enable students to produce experiential insights about their professional development (Gaufberg and Batalden 2007 ; Shapiro and Stein 2005 ). Such an approach, Shapiro and Stein write, “allows learners to more easily examine intangible aspects of their relational experiences in medical school. Issues that seem straightforward when organized through the well-defined and prescribed formulas of the case presentation yield other interpretations when explored in verse” ( 2005 , 279). In the study reported here, we sought to utilize these very advantages of verse writing and indirect reflection by using creative tasks that were more guided and structured than might typically be the case with poetry sessions.

The second year of the medical course marks the transition from a pre-clinical campus-based first year to clinically based learning for the graduate-entry Doctor of Medicine (MD). The Epworth Hospital is one of the smaller clinical schools of the Melbourne University Medical School, with approximately 15–20 students based at the hospital for their second-year clinical rotations (from a full second-year cohort of approximately 350 students). As such, there was an opportunity to engage with students in creative reflective exercises that may not have been possible in larger cohorts. Our aim was to enable reflection on clinical learning experiences through creative exercises and to balance the otherwise dominant science basis of the clinical curriculum while introducing students to alternative ways of knowing in medicine, such as those associated with the medical humanities (Chiavaroli et al. 2018 ; Jones et al. 2019 ). The cohort of second-year MD students from the Melbourne University Medical School based at the Epworth Hospital was invited to participate in four one-hour workshops. The workshops reported in this paper were conducted throughout the course of 2019. Ethics approval for the study was obtained from the Human Research Ethics Committee, Melbourne Medical School, University of Melbourne.

The workshops consisted of several writing tasks designed to stimulate creative responses about students’ clinical education experiences. They were not cumulative or sequential in orientation, though each provided an opportunity for students to take a more holistic view of their experience. Participation was entirely voluntary, and there was no assessment attached to the workshops. Sessions were scheduled during March, May, August, and October to coincide with the timing of different clinical rotations (namely, Foundation, General Medicine, Surgery, and Emergency Medicine). Table 1 below outlines the nature of the tasks used in each workshop.

At the completion of each session, students were invited to share with the group the writing they had produced. Not all students chose to do so, but the majority at each workshop did. Students were also asked to provide a few lines reflecting on the nature of the activity in which they had participated. These reflections were anonymously written and collected in such a way that would not identify students while still providing useful evaluative reflections about the activities for us as educators. Each workshop, therefore, produced both creative products and explicit reflections from each student on the activities by way of workshop outputs.

The authors analyzed the collected data for prevalence and significance, following the protocol for qualitative thematic analysis outlined by Braun and Clarke ( 2006 ). All authors read through the data independently, coding for significant ideas and collating relevant data into key themes, and then met to compare and discuss codes and resultant themes. All authors discussed and debated the allocation of codes and their merging into broader themes until agreement was reached on the main themes presented below (Table 3 ). Although analysis commenced at the end of the first task, results were not used to modify subsequent tasks, which had already been planned and developed.

Fifteen medical students from the 2019 cohort participated in at least one workshop; eight students attended two sessions, and four attended three sessions. No student attended all four sessions. In total, 51 discrete creative products were generated by the participating students. Sample creative pieces are shown in Table 2 below. These are presented here solely as examples of the kind of writing produced through each task rather than as representing any particular theme or quality.

Alongside the creative pieces, the students also provided 32 anonymous comments about their experiences in participating in the workshops. This provided evaluative data about the impact of the workshop, albeit at the level of student reactions only (Kirkpatrick 1996 ). Through the thematic analysis of students’ written products and reflections on the activities, we identified four key themes about students’ clinical learning experiences:

the challenges of life as a medical student;

the emotional demands of the medical course;

a sense of connectedness and solidarity (with fellow students); and

a sense of marginality (within the hospital system).

In addition to the above course-related themes, students’ evaluative comments on the nature of the creative activity itself were collated into a separate theme of Student Reactions. These themes are illustrated in Table 3 , with representative comments drawn from students’ evaluative comments. Again, these examples are intended as illustrative only.

For many medical educators with backgrounds in the humanities or a deep appreciation of the arts, the idea of using creative activities to help students write and reflect seems quite intuitive. This works well for the many medical students who have experience in such curricula and activities; for other students, however, the road to medical school has been paved with scientific textbooks and long hours of rote learning. Creative writing or reflection may not feel or come naturally in such a context. As many educators have noted (Kerr 2010 ; Sandars 2009 ; Shapiro et al. 2009 ), many students do not see themselves as writers or struggle to know what to write about in conventional reflection exercises. And, of course, the verse form itself is an unfamiliar and potentially intimidating genre for many medical students. In presenting the verse structure in such a structured and somewhat mechanical way, we encouraged and enabled our students to write and think quite differently from the objective, convergent ways more commonly utilized in the medical curriculum, aided by the apparent freedom of the indirect approach to reflection.

Despite some initial hesitation and uncertainty, students engaged positively and collaboratively with the activities. Part of this engagement is undoubtedly attributable to the voluntary nature of participation in the workshop, but the challenge and unfamiliarity posed by these tasks should not be underestimated. Both the nature of the activities and openness of the tasks were very different from the type of logico-deductive ways of thinking and factual scientific content that dominate the medical curriculum (Bleakley 2015 ), and several students noted this in their evaluative comments (e.g., “I have not approached reflection in this format before. … reflection does not have to be incredibly time consuming or daunting” [I19]). We believe the constrained and structured set of instructions provided important focus and guidance to the students (Aronson 2011 ), enabling them to overcome initial uncertainties and produce verse-like compositions that appeared to meaningfully represent their own clinical experiences while also resonating deeply with their peers. Many of the students’ verses were insightful and highly evocative; we would even say poetic , though this was not the point of the exercise.

From the students’ evaluative comments, it was clear that the commonality of their experiences and reactions evoked a strong sense of solidarity and relief, as others were experiencing similar feelings about the course and their sense of emerging professional identities. Many students mentioned the sense of camaraderie among the students during the exercise, and several comments related to the affective dimension of the exercise. As one student remarked: “The thought-provoking nature of these sessions has allowed me an opportunity to re-appreciate the exquisiteness of abstraction. I forgot how interesting things are” (B19). Many students reported that the tasks were actually fun —certainly more fun than they had anticipated—and something not necessarily associated with a medical course. Even those students who struggled somewhat with the indirectness of the tasks (e.g., students D19 and O19 in Table 3 ) still generally responded positively to the sessions.

We see other connections between the in-verse reflection approach and the broader project of the humanities in medical education, besides the use of indirection. The humanities continue to be a source of renewal and diverse pedagogies for medical curricula, being utilized in various ways and for different purposes. Initially, its primary role was to support the learning of clinical skills (Blease 2016 ), such as communication, empathy, and teamwork. Medical humanities scholars have extended this scope to more epistemological rationales that include clinical reasoning and personal identity formation (Bleakley 2015 ; Boudreau and Fuks 2015 ; Chiavaroli 2017 ; Moreno-Leguizamon et al. 2015 ) as a counterbalance to the dominant scientific and technological foundation of medical practice (Montgomery 2006 ; Whitehead 2013 ). We see the in-verse reflection approach as applicable to both instrumental and epistemological orientations depending on the emphasis placed on the activities as either a means of facilitating reflection or a broader way of prompting students to think differently about their clinical learning experiences.

Another connection with pedagogical practice in the humanities is the notion of “playful learning,” a relatively well-utilized pedagogy in school contexts (Kangas et al. 2017 ; Mardell et al. 2019 , 232) and one that is emerging in higher education (Forbes 2021 ), especially in the humanities disciplines (Jensen et al. 2022 ). We had certainly hoped that our students would find the activities fun, but we were surprised at the number of comments that reflected enjoyment even alongside confusion or bewilderment. Some students even appreciated the humor inherent in the approach (e.g., “Adding humor is therapeutic in reflection and allowed me to overcome thoughts and experiences that were previously avoided or swept under the rug” [F19]). Of course, ours is not the only method to draw on this element of humanities pedagogy; a similar underlying spirit can also be seen in the successful use of comics and other creative practices in medical education (Green 2013 ; Shapiro et al. 2021 ; Maatman et al. 2021 ). Such playful learning can be a valuable counter to the typical emphasis on the “logics of efficiency, competition and achievement” (Jensen et al. 2022 , 206) that can characterize many medical courses, while other research suggests that play promotes learning and engagement and helps create relational safety and positive affect and motivation (Forbes 2021 ). Jensen et al. ( 2022 ) go further to draw more direct links with humanities pedagogies:

Addressing teaching activities as playful relates to broader aspects of humanities in higher education that aim to support the students’ development of judgment and active engagement in learning; of their individual, professional and social identity; and of meaningful life choices within and beyond their education. (199)

These are exactly the kind of broad epistemological perspectives and cognitive skills we want our medical students to acquire, alongside the necessary and obviously important scientific and clinical knowledge required for good medical practice. The in-verse reflection method appears to tap into this vein of playful learning, providing an adaptable and useful framework for incorporating such an approach into medical education. Even with the relatively limited sessions and non-compulsory participation, the mix of serious insight with lighthearted and occasionally wry sentiments is a marked feature of the students’ outputs.

Nonetheless, we recognize that many students may find the indirect and playful nature of the tasks potentially irrelevant or even disconcerting. While this can be a useful source of “creative tension” in reflective activities (Wald 2015 , 702), it may also point to the challenges of trying to balance an entire science-focused curriculum with a few short voluntary creative sessions. As educators, we certainly need to acknowledge and respect that not all students will warm to such activities, but our results encourage us that most students are prepared to give it a genuine try. Ultimately, though, we see the in-verse approach as an additional method for engaging students in reflective practice to be used alongside more direct and conventional approaches to facilitate reflection in medical students.

Several other limitations of this study are also acknowledged. The number of participants was relatively small and limited to a single clinical learning site. The site itself may also limit generalizability in the sense that, as the most recently instituted clinical school of the MD program, there may well be an openness to innovative approaches that may not be easily adopted at larger, more well-established clinical schools. The evaluation component of the workshops, of course, only gathered immediate responses, and further systematic follow-up is planned. Finally, we did not attempt to compare our approach with more conventional, direct methods for reflection, which could be expected to yield useful insights. Our primary aim in attempting this novel and alternative approach was to encourage busy and assessment-focused medical students to take time out from their clinical schedule and, through fun, collaborative, and relatively efficient creative activities, explore the potential of reflective practice in all its guises. We believe our findings, however early and provisional, offer considerable promise when it comes to the value of such indirect and playful approaches to reflection through writing. To be able to generate such profound and relatable themes in a few sessions with very brief writing tasks was a significant outcome.

The in-verse reflection approach appears to offer a feasible and stimulating opportunity to engage students with reflection about their learning while providing a sense of connectedness and an invaluable opportunity to share and discuss their clinical experiences and the process of professional identity formation. It does so through short, enjoyable, and structured creative exercises. The highly relevant and insightful nature of the creative outputs produced by the students point to the potential value of indirectness and playfulness when utilizing humanities approaches in medical education contexts. The described method adds to the repertoire of techniques to facilitate genuine reflection in medical students and can potentially assist medical schools in finding the necessary space in the curriculum for such activities.

Aronson, Louise. 2011. “Twelve Tips for Teaching Reflection at All Levels of Medical Education.” Medical Teacher 33 (3): 200–205. https://doi.org/10.3109/0142159X.2010.507714 .

Article   Google Scholar  

Belling, Catherine. 2011. “Finding Resonance: The Value of Indirection in a Reflective Exercise.” Journal of Graduate Medical Education 3 (4): 580–581. https://doi.org/10.4300/JGME-D-11-00215.1 .

Birden, Hudson H., and Tim Usherwood. 2013. “‘They Liked It If You Said You Cried’: How Medical Students Perceive the Teaching of Professionalism.” Medical Journal of Australia 199: 406–409. https://doi.org/10.5694/mja12.11827 .

Bleakley, Alan. 2015. Medical Humanities and Medical Education: How the Medical Humanities Can Shape Better Doctors . London: Routledge.

Book   Google Scholar  

Blease, Charlotte. 2016. “In Defense of Utility: The Medical Humanities and Medical Education.” Medical Humanities 42 (2): 103–108. https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2015-010827 .

Bolton, Gillie. 1999. “Reflections through the Looking-Glass: The Story of a Course of Writing as a Reflexive Practitioner.” Teaching in Higher Education 4 (2): 193–212. https://doi.org/10.1080/1356251990040204 .

Boudreau, J. Donald., and Abraham Fuks. 2015. “The Humanities in Medical Education: Ways of Knowing, Doing and Being.” Journal of Medical Humanities 36 (4): 321–336. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-014-9285-5 .

Braun, Virginia, and Victoria Clarke. 2006. “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology.” Qualitative Research in Psychology 3: 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa .

Chiavaroli, Neville. 2017. “Knowing How We Know: An Epistemological Rationale for the Medical Humanities.” Medical Education 51 (1): 13–21. https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.13147 .

Chiavaroli, Neville, Chien-Da Huang, Lynn Monrouxe. 2018. “Learning Medicine With, From and Through the Humanities.” In Understanding Medical Education: Evidence, Theory and Practice, edited by Tim Swanwick, Kirsty Forrest, and Bridget O’Brien, 223–237. 3rd edition, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.

Cowen, Virginia, Diane Kaufman, and Lisa Schoenherr. 2016. “A Review of Creative and Expressive Writing as a Pedagogical Tool in Medical Education.” Medical Education 50 (3): 311–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.12878 .

Edwards, Betty. 1979. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain . Los Angeles: J. P. Tarcher.

Google Scholar  

Forbes, Lisa K. 2021. “The Process of Playful Learning in Higher Education: A Phenomenological Study.” Journal of Teaching and Learning 15 (1): 57–73. https://doi.org/10.22329/jtl.v15i1.6515 .

Fraser, Benson P. 2020. Hide and Seek: The Sacred Art of Indirect Communication. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books.

Gaufberg, Elizabeth, and Maren Batalden. 2007. “The Third Thing in Medical Education.” Clinical Teacher 4 (2): 78–81. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-498X.2007.00151.x .

Gaufberg, Elizabeth, and Ray Williams. 2011. “Reflection in a Museum Setting: The Personal Responses Tour.” Journal of Graduate Medical Education 3 (4): 546–549. https://doi.org/10.4300/JGME-D-11-00036.1 .

Green, Michael J. 2013. “Teaching with Comics: A Course for Fourth-Year Medical Students.” Journal of Medical Humanities 34 (4): 471–476. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-013-9245-5 .

Green, Michael J., Kimberly Myers, Katie Watson, M. K. Czerwiec, Dan Shapiro, and Stephanie Draus. 2016. “Creativity in Medical Education: The Value of Having Medical Students Make Stuff.” Journal of Medical Humanities 37 (4): 475–483. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-016-9397-1 .

Jensen, Julie Borup, Oline Pedersen, Ole Lund, and Helle Marie Skovbjerg. 2022. “Playful Approaches to Learning as a Realm for the Humanities and Culture of Higher Education: A Hermeneutical Literature Review.” Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 21 (2): 198–219. https://doi.org/10.1177/14740222211050862 .

Jones, Elizabeth K., Arno K. Kumagai, and Anne L. Kittendorf. 2019. “Through Another Lens: The Humanities and Social Sciences in the Making of Physicians.” Medical Education 53(4): 328–30. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.13817 .

Kangas, Marjaana, Pirkko Siklander, Justus Randolph, and Heli Ruokamo. 2017. “Teachers' Engagement and Students' Satisfaction with a Playful Learning Environment.” Teaching and Teacher Education 63: 274–85. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2016.12.018 .

Kerr, Lisa. 2010. “More than Words: Applying the Discipline of Literary Creative Writing to the Practice of Reflective Writing in Health Care Education.” Journal of Medical Humanities 31: 295–301. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-010-9120-6 .

Kirkpatrick, Donald L. 1996.  Evaluating Training Programs: The Four Levels . 1st edition, San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Maatman, Theresa C., Lana M. Minshew, and Michael T. Braun. 2021. “Increase in Sharing of Stressful Situations by Medical Trainees through Drawing Comics.” Journal of Medical Humanities,  December 03, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-021-09717-y .

Mardell, Ben, S. Lynneth Solis, and Ollie Bray. 2019. “The State of Play in School: Defining and Promoting Playful Learning in Formal Education Settings.” International Journal of Play 8 (3): 232–236. https://doi.org/10.1080/21594937.2019.1684157 .

McLean, David. 2020. “Workshops: Instant Poetry.” Idiom 56 (1): 27–29. https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.087314121942377 .

Moniz, Tracy, Shannon Arntfield, Kristina Miller, Lorelei Lingard, Chris Watling, and Glenn Regehr. 2015. “Considerations in the Use of Reflective Writing for Student Assessment: Issues of Reliability and Validity.” Medical Education 49 (9): 901–908. https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.12771 .

Moreno-Leguizamon, Carlos J., Jennifer J. Patterson, and Alexander Gómez Rivadeneira. 2015. “Incorporation of Social Sciences and Humanities in the Training of Health Professionals and Practitioners in Other Ways of Knowing.” Research and Humanities in Medical Education 2: 18–23.

Montgomery, Kathryn. 2006. How Doctors Think: Clinical Judgement and the Practice of Medicine . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Morris, Carl. 2001. “Why Does So Much Depend Upon a Red Wheelbarrow? What Is the Point of a Medical Writing Option?” Medical Education 35 (12): 1155–56. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2923.2001.01110.x .

Saeverot, Herner. 2022. Indirect Education: Exploring Indirectness in Teaching and Research. Oxford: Taylor & Francis.

Sandars, John. 2009. “The Use of Reflection in Medical Education: AMEE Guide No. 44.” Medical Teacher 31 (8): 685–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/01421590903050374 .

Shapiro, Johanna. 2009. The Inner World of Medical Students: Listening to Their Voices. Oxford: Radcliffe Publishing.

Shapiro, Johanna, and Howard Stein. 2005. “Poetic License: Writing Poetry as a Way for Medical Students to Examine Their Professional Relational Systems.” Families, Systems, & Health 23 (3): 278–292. https://doi.org/10.1037/1091-7527.23.3.278 .

Shapiro, Johanna, Jack Coulehan, Delese Wear, and Martha Montello. 2009. “Medical Humanities and Their Discontents: Definitions, Critiques, and Implications.” Academic Medicine 84 (2): 192–198. https://doi.org/10.1097/acm.0b013e3181938bca .

Shapiro, Johanna, Juliet McMullin, Gabriella Miotto, Tan Nguyen, Anju Hurria, and Minh Anh Nguyen. 2021. “Medical Students’ Creation of Original Poetry, Comics, and Masks to Explore Professional Identity Formation.” Journal of Medical Humanities 42 (4): 603–625. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-021-09713-2 .

Wald, Hendy S. 2015. “Professional Identity (Trans)Formation in Medical Education: Reflection, Relationship, Resilience.” Academic Medicine 90 (6): 701–706. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000000731 .

Wellbery, Caroline. 2006. “On the Use of Poetry in Medical Education.” Journal for Learning through the Arts 2 (1): 1–13. https://doi.org/10.21977/D92110070 .

Whitehead, Cynthia. 2013. “Scientist or Science-Stuffed? Discourses of Science in North American Medical Education.” Medical Education 47 (1): 26–32. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2923.2011.04136.x .

Download references

Acknowledgments

We thank the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and constructive comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.

Open Access funding enabled and organized by CAUL and its Member Institutions Epworth Medical Foundation Research Grant

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Epworth Clinical School, Melbourne, Australia

David McLean & Martin Richardson

Australian Council for Educational Research, Melbourne, Australia

Neville Chiavaroli

Department of Medical Education, Melbourne Medical School, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

Neville Chiavaroli & Charlotte Denniston

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Contributions

DM and MR conceived and implemented the method described in this paper. NC and CD supported the educational application of the approach and its theoretical framework. The collected data were jointly analyzed and interpreted by all authors. The paper was drafted by DM and NC and revised critically by all authors for intellectual content. NC and DM completed the final draft. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David McLean .

Ethics declarations

Conflicts of interest/competing interests.

Not applicable

Ethics approval

Ethics approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee, Melbourne Medical School, University of Melbourne. Ethics ID 1852687.1

Consent to participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Additional information

Publisher’s note.

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ .

Reprints and permissions

About this article

McLean, D., Chiavaroli, N., Denniston, C. et al. In-verse reflection: structured creative writing exercises to promote reflective learning in medical students. J Med Humanit 43 , 493–504 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-022-09740-7

Download citation

Accepted : 05 May 2022

Published : 20 May 2022

Issue Date : September 2022

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-022-09740-7

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Reflective writing
• Indirection
• Medical Humanities
• Medical Students
• Playful learning
• Find a journal
• Publish with us
• Track your research

Essay Papers Writing Online

A personal reflection on the art and craft of writing.

In the realm of creative expression, writing stands out as a powerful tool for introspection and self-discovery. Through the act of putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, individuals are able to delve into the depths of their own minds, uncovering hidden thoughts and emotions that may have otherwise remained buried. Writing allows for a cathartic release of feelings and a means of processing complex experiences, making it a deeply personal and transformative practice.

As I reflect on my own writing journey, I am struck by the ways in which it has served as a mirror to my inner self. Each word, sentence, and paragraph I produce reveals a little more about who I am and what I value. Through writing, I have come to understand my strengths and weaknesses, my fears and dreams, and my unique perspective on the world.

Moreover, writing has been a vehicle for growth and development, pushing me to challenge my assumptions, explore new ideas, and refine my communication skills. The act of crafting a well-written piece forces me to think critically, revise continuously, and strive for clarity and coherence. In this way, writing has not only honed my ability to express myself effectively but has also deepened my capacity for empathy and understanding.

Reflective Essay on Writing

Writing has always been a powerful tool for self-expression and personal growth. As I reflect on my journey as a writer, I can see how my skills have evolved and my perspective has expanded.

Through writing, I have been able to explore new ideas, challenge my beliefs, and communicate my thoughts effectively. It has allowed me to delve deep into my inner thoughts and emotions, helping me better understand myself and the world around me.

• One of the most significant aspects of my writing journey has been the development of my voice and style. I have learned to embrace my unique perspective and use it to create authentic and engaging pieces.
• Writing has also been a cathartic experience for me, providing a creative outlet for my emotions and experiences. It has allowed me to process my feelings and gain clarity on complex issues.
• Moreover, writing has strengthened my critical thinking skills and helped me become a more effective communicator. I have learned to analyze information critically, present my arguments persuasively, and engage with diverse perspectives.

Overall, writing has been a transformative journey for me, shaping me into a more confident, introspective, and creative individual. It has not only improved my writing skills but has also enriched my personal and professional development.

Exploring Personal Development

Throughout my writing journey, I have witnessed significant personal growth in various aspects. Writing has allowed me to delve deep into my thoughts and emotions, helping me understand myself better. By reflecting on my experiences through writing, I have gained insights into my beliefs, values, and goals.

Moreover, writing has enabled me to explore new perspectives and challenge my existing beliefs. As I engage with different topics and genres, I have expanded my knowledge and understanding of the world around me. Through research and introspection, I have broadened my horizons and developed a more nuanced approach to the issues I care about.

Furthermore, writing has been a crucial tool for self-expression and creativity. I have learned to channel my emotions and experiences into words, creating pieces that reflect my unique voice and vision. Writing has empowered me to share my ideas with others and connect with a diverse audience, fostering a sense of community and belonging.

In conclusion, my writing journey has been instrumental in my personal development, allowing me to grow intellectually, emotionally, and creatively. Through writing, I have discovered new aspects of myself and the world, cultivating a deeper sense of self-awareness and fulfillment.

Uncovering Creative Expression

Exploring my own writing journey has allowed me to uncover different aspects of my creative expression. Through the process of reflecting on my writing, I have discovered new ways to express my thoughts and emotions. Writing has become a powerful tool for me to convey my ideas and connect with others on a deeper level.

I have learned that creative expression is not limited to just writing; it can take many forms. Whether through storytelling, poetry, or visual art, I have found that there are endless ways to express myself creatively. Each medium offers a unique opportunity to showcase my creativity and share my perspective with the world.

As I continue to delve into my writing practice, I am constantly uncovering new ways to enhance my creative expression. Whether through experimenting with different genres or techniques, I am always searching for innovative ways to push the boundaries of my creative abilities. Writing has given me the freedom to explore my creativity and embrace my unique voice.

Challenges and Breakthroughs

Throughout my writing journey, I have encountered numerous challenges that have pushed me to grow and develop as a writer. One of the biggest obstacles I faced was writer’s block. There were times when I struggled to find inspiration and motivation to write, leading to frustration and doubt in my abilities. However, through perseverance and experimentation, I discovered creative exercises and techniques that helped me overcome writer’s block and reignite my passion for writing.

Another challenge I faced was self-doubt and fear of failure. I often questioned whether my writing was good enough or if I had anything valuable to say. This fear held me back from taking risks and fully expressing myself in my writing. Through reflection and practice, I learned to silence my inner critic and embrace vulnerability in my writing. This breakthrough allowed me to write more authentically and connect with readers on a deeper level.

Overall, facing these challenges has been instrumental in my growth as a writer. Each obstacle I overcame has strengthened my writing skills and fostered a deeper sense of self-awareness. Through perseverance and a willingness to confront my fears, I have developed a greater sense of confidence and creative freedom in my writing. I look forward to continuing my writing journey, knowing that challenges will always be present, but that they serve as opportunities for growth and breakthroughs.

Discovering Writing Style

When I first started my writing journey, I struggled to find my own unique style. I often found myself imitating the writing of others or trying to conform to certain norms. However, as I continued to write and explore different genres and forms of writing, I began to discover my own voice and style.

• I realized that I was drawn to more descriptive and poetic language, rather than straightforward and technical writing.
• Experimenting with different techniques and approaches helped me uncover my love for weaving imagery and emotions into my writing.
• Through practice and feedback from peers and mentors, I honed my style and grew more confident in expressing myself authentically.

Ultimately, discovering my writing style was a journey of self-discovery and self-expression, allowing me to connect with my inner thoughts and emotions in a meaningful way.

Impacts on Self-Discovery

Throughout my writing journey, I have discovered a deeper connection to myself and my inner thoughts. The process of putting my thoughts into words has allowed me to explore my emotions and beliefs in a way that I had never done before. Writing has served as a tool for self-reflection, enabling me to gain insight into my own values and aspirations.

By engaging in creative expression through writing, I have uncovered new aspects of my personality and capabilities. It has pushed me to step outside of my comfort zone and challenge myself to think in new and innovative ways. Writing has helped me to tap into my creativity and imagination, leading to a greater sense of self-discovery.

Moreover, writing has provided me with a platform to share my unique perspective with others, fostering connections and interactions that have enriched my understanding of myself and the world around me. Through the act of sharing my writing, I have been able to receive feedback and engage in meaningful conversations that have broadened my horizons and deepened my self-awareness.

Growth in Communication Skills

Through the process of writing and reflecting on my experiences, I have witnessed significant growth in my communication skills. Writing has allowed me to articulate my thoughts and feelings more effectively, enabling me to express myself clearly and succinctly. I have learned the importance of choosing the right words and structuring my ideas in a coherent manner to effectively convey my message.

Moreover, writing has enhanced my ability to listen and engage in meaningful conversations with others. By honing my writing skills, I have become more attentive to the perspectives of others and have learned to communicate with empathy and understanding. This growth in communication skills has not only enriched my personal relationships but has also helped me in professional settings, where effective communication is essential for success.

Overall, the journey of writing has not only honed my writing abilities but has also nurtured my communication skills, empowering me to express myself confidently and connect with others on a deeper level.

Applying Lessons Learned

Throughout my journey in honing my writing skills and exploring personal growth through creative expression, I have learned many valuable lessons. One of the most important lessons I have acquired is the significance of self-reflection and feedback. By consistently revisiting and revising my work, I am able to identify areas for improvement and refine my writing style.

Additionally, I have discovered the power of embracing vulnerability in my writing. By allowing myself to be open and honest in my work, I have found that I can connect with my audience on a deeper level and evoke genuine emotions.

Furthermore, I have learned the importance of experimentation and taking risks in my writing. By stepping out of my comfort zone and trying new styles and techniques, I have been able to expand my creative horizons and discover new ways to express myself.

Overall, the lessons I have learned in my writing journey have not only enhanced my craft but have also had a profound impact on my personal growth. I will continue to apply these lessons as I strive to further develop my writing skills and communicate my unique voice to the world.

Related Post

How to master the art of writing expository essays and captivate your audience, convenient and reliable source to purchase college essays online, step-by-step guide to crafting a powerful literary analysis essay, unlock success with a comprehensive business research paper example guide, unlock your writing potential with writers college – transform your passion into profession, “unlocking the secrets of academic success – navigating the world of research papers in college”, master the art of sociological expression – elevate your writing skills in sociology.

Writing for Research, Analysis, and Reflection

While WRIT 125 covers the basics of academic essay writing, WRIT 225 will allow students to work on more complex types of assessments in academic writing. A basic understanding of essay-writing is therefore required and expected at the same time. 

WRIT 225 invites students to expand their skills and try their hand at a variety of writing forms organized into four modules: Critical Thinking and Writing, Research Skills, Reflecting Writing Skills, and Presentation Skills. Within each module, Students will be able to choose their individual assessments, which include but are not limited to critical reviews, lab reports, and reflective essays.  Learning will also be facilitated through peer feedback and discussion activities.

Learning Outcomes

• Demonstrated ability to write for a range of audiences in both academic and workplace environments
• Consolidated knowledge of the mechanics of writing such as grammar, syntax, diction, and sentence structure
• Developed and applied critical thinking skills through writing, constructive peer evaluation, and online discussion
• Strengthened teamwork skills by working in the online community to create writing that communicates a message to a larger audience
• John J. Ruszkiewicz (4th edition).  How to Write Anything: A Guide and Reference with Readings . Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.
• 5% - Critical Thinking Discussion Activity
• 15% - Choice of: Website Analysis OR Critical Review OR Position Paper
• 15% - Grammar Test
• 10% - Annotated Bibliography Peer Feedback Activity
• 15% - Choice of: Research Proposal OR Lab Report OR Informational Interview
• 5% - Reflective Thinking Peer Discussion Activity
• 15% - Choice of: Personal Essay OR Travel Writing OR Writing Portfolio
• 15% - PowerPoint Presentation (Group)
• 5% - Reflective Response (Individual)

*Evaluation Subject to Change*

Live Sessions

This course has required live sessions (e.g. webinars, synchronous activities). Please consult the Timeline in the first week of class.

Department of English, Queen's University

Watson Hall 49 Bader Lane Kingston ON K7L 3N6 Canada

Undergraduate

Queen's University is situated on traditional Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe territory .