1. Reflective Essay
Writing Guide

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

3. 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?

4. 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.

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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