11b Reflect.
Research demonstrates a connection between careful reflection and learning: thinking back on what you’ve learned and assessing it help make that learning stick. As a result, first-year college writing courses are increasingly encouraging students to take time for such reflection. Whether or not your instructor asks you to write a formal reflection, whenever you finish a major piece of writing or a writing course, you should make time to think back over the experience and see what lessons you can learn from it.
Reflecting on your development as a writer
Here are some questions to get you started reflecting productively on your writing:
- What lessons have you learned from writing—from an individual piece of writing or from an entire writing course?
- From what you have learned, what can you apply to the work you will do in other classes?
- What about your writing do you feel most confident about—and why? When did you begin to develop this confidence?
- What about your writing do you find needs additional work, and what plans do you have for improving?
- What confusions did you have while writing, and what did you do to resolve them?
- What major questions do you still have about writing or about an individual piece of writing?
- How has writing helped to clarify your thinking, extend your knowledge, or deepen your understanding?
- Identify a favorite passage of your writing, and then try to articulate what about it pleases you. Can you apply what you learn from this analysis to other writing situations?
- How would you describe your development as a writer?
Portfolios
You may find it useful—or you may be required—to select samples for inclusion in a print or online portfolio of your written work. In preparing a portfolio, use these tips:
- Consider your purpose and audience. Do you want to fulfill course requirements for an instructor, show work to a prospective employer, keep a record of what you‘ve done for personal reasons, or something else? Answering these questions will help you decide what to include in the portfolio and whether it should be in print or electronic form.
- Based on the portfolio’s purpose, decide on the number of entries. You may decide to include a wide range of materials—from essays, problem sets, and photos to Web texts, multimedia presentations, a résumé, or anything else that is relevant—if readers can select only the pieces that interest them. For a portfolio that will be read from beginning to end, however, you should limit yourself to five to seven examples of your writing. You might include an academic essay that argues a claim, a personal essay, a brief report, writing based on research, significant correspondence, timed writing, or other work that you think shows your strengths as a writer.
- Consider organization. What arrangement—in chronological order, by genre, by topic—will make most sense to readers?
- Think carefully about layout and design. Will you include a menu, a table of contents, or appendices? How will you use color, font and type size, and other elements of design to enhance your portfolio (see Chapter 9)? Remember to label and date each piece of writing in the portfolio to help readers follow along easily. For print portfolios, number pages in consecutive order.
- Edit and proofread each piece in your portfolio and the reflective statement. Ask for responses from peers or an instructor.
Reflective statements
One of the most common writing assignments today is a reflective statement—often in the form of a letter, memo, or home page—that explains and analyzes the work a student has done in a writing course.
To create a reflective statement, think carefully about the impression it should give, and make sure your tone and style set the stage appropriately. Reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of your writing, using specific examples to provide evidence for each point you make. What are the most important things you have learned about writing—and about yourself as a writer—during the course?
If the reflective statement introduces your portfolio, follow your instructor’s guidelines carefully. Unless asked to do otherwise, describe the portfolio’s contents and explain why you have chosen each piece.
STUDENT REFLECTIVE STATEMENT
Here is a shortened version of the cover letter that James Kung wrote to accompany his first-year writing portfolio.
December 6, 2011
Dear Professor Ashdown:
“Writing is difficult and takes a long time.” This simple yet powerful statement has been uttered so many times in our class that it has essentially become our motto. During this class, my persuasive writing skills have improved dramatically, thanks to many hours spent writing, revising, polishing, and thinking about my topic. The various drafts, revisions, and other materials in my portfolio show this improvement.
Student Writing
I entered this first-quarter Writing and Rhetoric class with both strengths and weaknesses. I have always written fairly well-organized essays. However, despite this strength, I struggled throughout the term to narrow and define the various aspects of my research-based argument.
The first aspect of my essay that I had trouble narrowing and defining was my major claim, or my thesis statement. In my “Proposal for Research-Based Argument,” I proposed to argue about the case of Wen Ho Lee, the Los Alamos scientist accused of copying restricted government documents. I stated, “The Wen Ho Lee incident deals with the persecution of not only one man, but of a whole ethnic group.” You commented that the statement was a “sweeping claim” that would be “hard to support.”
I spent weeks trying to rework that claim. Finally, as seen in my “Writer’s Notebook 10/16/11,” I realized that I had chosen the Lee case because of my belief that the political inactivity of Asian Americans contributed to the case against Lee. Therefore, I decided to focus on this issue in my thesis. Later I once again revised my claim, stating that the political inactivity did not cause but rather contributed to racial profiling in the Wen Ho Lee case.
I also had trouble defining my audience. I briefly alluded to the fact that my audience was a “typical American reader.” However, I later decided to address my paper to an Asian American audience for two reasons. First, it would establish a greater ethos for myself as a Chinese American. Second, it would enable me to target the people the Wen Ho Lee case most directly affects: Asian Americans. As a result, in my final research-based argument, I was much more sensitive to the needs and concerns of my audience, and my audience trusted me more.
I hope to continue to improve my writing of research-based arguments.
Sincerely,
James Kung