Reflective Essay Writing Guide

Overview Brainstorming/Developing “Anchors” or social topics Presenting an Experience(s) Developing Reflections Organizing Your Draft Using Topical Coherence

Developing Ideas/“Anchors” on social topics Turn over your ideas to see it from 6 different sides Generalize – Consider what you have learned; what ideas does this suggest to you? Examples – Use a specific experience to explore the topic Compare – Think of a subject that could be compared with yours; explore similarities and differences Extend – Speculate about implications of this issue Analyze – What are the different parts of your issue? Which are more important to the issue/you Apply – How is this issue used? How can people act on it? What difference does it make to you and others?

Presenting an Experience One-time events or observations Essay should have 4-5 different, specific experiences/observations (does not have to be huge, meaningful, in-depth) Use vivid imagery – specific details to “show” the experience Only needs to be 1-2 paragraphs for each experience Describe what you observed, what happened – this should be the descriptive part, where you explain with vivid imagery the people, places, and things dealing with each experience.

Developing Reflections For each experience you will need to provide a reflection How was that experience connected to the main “anchor”? How was it significant in teaching you something? This should be a narrative part where you explain the event and how it affected you and those around you. It should be about 1-2 paragraphs, and follows each experience

Organizing Your Draft Start with an experience (1st experience) Introduce your topic – general idea and explain why it is important 2nd Experience – vivid description Reflection of 2nd experience, connection to topic, discussion of affect 3rd Experience – vivid description Reflection of 3rd experience, connection to topic, discussion of affect 4th Experience – vivid description Reflection of 4th experience, connection to topic, discussion of affect Conclusion - possible solution, hope for moving forward, wrap up; perhaps a small, last experience

Topical Coherence What is it? Repetition of key words or phrases throughout the essay Why is it used? A way to maintain the topic throughout the essay; cues to remind reader of the topic