The following suggestions provide ways to focus your work on a reflective essay or another type of reflective document.

Suggestions for Essays

1. REFLECT ON A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

Write a reflective essay about something you’ve done, or something that happened to you, within the last month or so. Support your reflections with personal observation and reasoning. You might also consider discussing the experience with friends or family members to gain their perspectives on it. If the experience was of a public nature or was related to a public event, consult news reports for background information and alternate perspectives.

2. REFLECT ON A PUBLIC EVENT

Reflect on a recent event covered in your local newspaper. In your essay, describe the event, and offer your reflections on its significance for you and your readers. Support your reflection with examples from personal experience, information published in the newspaper, or an interview with someone associated with the event (see Chapter 6). If you participated in the event yourself, be sure to include your observations of what happened.

3. REFLECT ON A POEM, SHORT STORY, OR NOVEL

Respond to a work of literature that you’ve read recently. Support your reflection by describing your reactions to and understanding of the work. You might also read published reviews or analyses to get an idea of other readers’ reactions. In your essay, briefly describe the work to which you’re responding. Then offer your reflections on it: share with your readers why it affected you the way it did, and consider how it relates to your own experiences or beliefs.

4. REFLECT ON A PLAY OR MOVIE

Attend a play or movie and reflect on it. Support your reflection by drawing on your reactions to the play or movie, relevant personal experiences, and your own reasoning. You might also discuss the play or movie with a friend, a family member, a classmate, or an instructor who has seen it, or read other viewers’ responses posted to online forums. In your essay, identify the subject of the play or movie, briefly summarize the plot and any key themes, and offer your reflections on the meaning or emotional impact of what you viewed.

5. REFLECT ON AN ISSUE OF INTEREST

Reflect on an issue in a discipline or profession in which you have an interest. For example, a writer interested in nuclear technology might reflect on the political or environmental implications of plans to store nuclear waste in Nevada. Support your reflection by drawing on your personal knowledge, experiences, and concerns, referring to information or arguments from published sources as necessary to inform your readers of the issue at hand. If appropriate, you might also interview an expert on the issue or conduct an observation to get a firsthand look at your subject. In your essay, introduce the issue and offer your reflections on it, but don’t compose an argument. Instead, focus on how the issue affects you and your readers.

Suggestions for Other Genres

6. WRITE A MEMOIR

Write a brief memoir that reflects on a key event in your life. Carefully describe the event and offer your insights into its meaning and significance, keeping in mind the need to help readers understand, connect to, and benefit from your reflections. Your memoir should be based primarily on your memories. If you like, you might also discuss the event with a friend or family member and include some of their recollections and insights, or draw on published sources to give readers background information and context.

7. CREATE A PHOTO ESSAY

Take or gather several photographs that illustrate an important aspect of your life or a public issue that intrigues you. The pictures might be from your personal collection of photographs or from published sources such as history books, magazines, or Web sites. Select five to seven images that create a dominant impression of your subject. Then introduce them with a few paragraphs that reflect on what they show, or else write an introduction along with a sentence-length caption for each image. The final mix of images and words should lead your readers to think about the subject from a perspective they wouldn’t have developed on their own.

8. WRITE A SHORT STORY

Choose a personal experience or a recent public event, and write a fictional story about it. You can use real-life episodes and examples, or you can make up elements (the characters, the specifics of what happened, the dialogue) as necessary to make the story lively and to draw readers in. Build your story around a central conflict and its resolution, and give readers a main idea to think about when they’ve finished reading the tale.

9. WRITE A COMPREHENSIVE LITERACY NARRATIVE

Write a literacy narrative that reflects on your overall attitudes toward literacy. Do you enjoy reading and writing, avoid them, struggle with them, find strength from engaging with them? Support your reflections by drawing on your personal experiences and insights into several events that have shaped your attitudes, as well as an assessment of your current relationship with writing and reading. To support your reflections, try to include a few telling comments made by family members or teachers about your experiences with literacy.

10. WRITE A LITERACY NARRATIVE ABOUT A KEY EXPERIENCE

Write a focused literacy narrative that identifies and reflects on a personal experience (or a series of closely related experiences) that strongly influenced you as a writer or reader. Shape your reflection as a story, building to a moment of insight to which your readers will relate. Conclude with a brief assessment of your current relationship with literacy.