Your professor has probably assigned a reflection essay to include with your portfolio. This essay serves as a statement that discusses how you’ve developed as a writer over the past semester, as well as what revisions you’ve made to your major assignments. Specifically, you should describe what changes your instructors and peers have recommended and what steps you’ve taken to incorporate their feedback into your final drafts.
The reflection statement can take several forms, and it may range in length. A typical reflection runs 1,000-1,200 words.
Some instructors may ask you to include a short reflection statement for each major paper, or they may want you to compose a single essay that reflects on your work over the course of the semester. Either way, the reflection component should follow these criteria:
You should reference key concepts from the course objectives and WPA Outcomes Statement 3.0. You don’t need to specifically mention the WPA statement by name, but you need to demonstrate a vocabulary for discussing writing. For example:
- rhetorical knowledge (audience, thesis statements, claims, evidence)
- genre awareness (academic essays, newspaper articles, documentaries, PSAs, etc)
- conventions (style, grammar, formatting, citation)
- process (brainstorming, outlining, revision, peer review)
- critical thinking (inquiry, debate, analysis, multiple perspectives)
- information literacy (source types and evaluation, library database use, search tools)
- electronic literacy (website construction, use of hyperlinks, Adobe Programs, etc)
- modality (visual, textual, aural)
Write a general statement about what major improvements and developments you’ve undergone as a writer. Try to be specific and genuine. For example, you may have learned to start your drafts earlier, or developed the ability to break down the writing process into smaller units and keep an organized writing schedule. You may have also learned to write for a wider range of genres. If so, lead with these major points about your growth as a writer.
Support these assertions with concrete examples from class discussions, or your own experiences writing in and outside of class. Pinpoint key “turning” points tied to major writing assignments or readings that influenced your approach or perceptions about writing.
You may want to describe any misconceptions or attitudes toward writing that you held at the beginning of the semester. How did they change? Why? What is your new attitude toward these aspects of writing?
Provide clear statements about how you revised your papers based on feedback from peers and instructors. You should also describe any Writing Center visits, or other activities that helped you draft and revise your papers.
Give specific examples of how you revised per instructor and peer feedback, with evidence from your own papers in the form of direct and indirect citations.
Summarize the feedback you received from your instructor and your peers in detail. You can even quote from their comments to provide a specific account of their reaction.
Focus your discussion on global or higher order revisions first, then discuss any changes you made regarding formatting and sentence-level editing.
You can integrate excerpts from your papers to show “before” and “after” portraits of important passages you revised.
Describe what specific additions or extra research you did after receiving feedback on your first draft.
Reflect on research skills (broadly defined) that you developed and deployed during at least one assignment. Familiarity with library search tools plays a key role here.
Explain and justify your revisions and composing choices, including any feedback you did not understand or agree with.
Describe the process of composing the portfolio itself, including design choices regarding layout, file arrangement, font, color, use of hyperlinks, and choice of platform (Google Sites, Weebly, Wix, WordPress, etc).
Tips & Advice
You don’t need to provide in-depth discussion of every single writing project you completed. In fact, doing that would probably result in a much longer reflection.
Spend some time brainstorming and freewriting about your projects. You may feel overwhelmed or stuck at first. The earlier you start reflecting, the more material you’ll have for the essay.
Open an electronic document on MS Word or Google Docs and simply type thoughts and feelings that occur to you, which you can develop later.
Your instructor may have encouraged or required you to keep a journal or blog on your writing throughout the semester. This would be an excellent source to re-read and draw from when outlining your reflection essay.
Focus on 1-2 key assignments where you think you grew the most as a writer and developed new abilities or outlooks.
Do your best to avoid cliches and platitudes. At first, you may feel compelled to spend some time praising the course or the instructor. While that may be true, a reflection essay should focus on your own intellectual development.
A List of Reflection Questions
- How much did you know about writing at the beginning of the semester?
- How much did you know about a specific topic before you researched it for one of the assignments?
- What process did you go through to finish this draft?
- How did this writing assignment differ from others you’ve done in the past?
- What problems did you encounter while working on this draft? How did you solve them?
- What resources did you draw on while working on this draft? Were they helpful?
- How do you feel about this piece of writing, or your writing in general?
- What aspects of your writing did you struggle with the most–brainstorming, research, revision, proofread, procrastination, block, etc?
- What challenges did you overcome as a writer on a given assignment, or throughout the semester?
What challenges remain for you to address next semester? - What standards do you hold for yourself and your own writing? Do you feel like you meet these standards?
- How did you define good writing at the beginning of the semester? Has that changed since then?
- When you compare first and final drafts of your writing, what are the changes that stand out most to you?
- What aspects of the writing process work well for you? Which don’t?
What did you learn about writing, research, and revision from other people in the class? Did they share tips or strategies during peer review workshops? - What did your peers say about your first drafts?
- What did your instructor say about your first drafts?