Welcome to our new series of Friday Teacher Scenes where Ethical ELA features teachers’ stories from their classrooms and experiences to contribute to and shape the public narrative of what it means to be an English language arts teacher in today’s sociopolitical climate. We hope to center and uplift one another by featuring the professional, informed, intentional work that drives and makes possible inclusive-affirming critical language arts learning spaces. We welcome your stories in the comments or contact Sarah if you’d like to contribute a blog post.
Reflective Writing in the ELA Classroom
by Amanda Austin
As English teachers we are tasked with teaching a packed curriculum and meeting state learning standards. Even though we barely have enough time to cover the core curriculum, I believe making space for reflective writing is beneficial for students to examine their own individual learning, to nurture agency and autonomy. It’s status quo sometimes for students to power through the school year focused only on getting it over with and getting a desired grade. They can easily miss the opportunity to celebrate their successes, consider obstacles, and imagine plans to grow as learners and human beings that comes from intentional reflection throughout the year.
Benefits of Reflective Practice in the Classroom
According to The University of Cambridge’s Reflective Practice Toolkit, reflective practice is ‘the act of thinking about our experiences in order to learn from them for the future’ (“Reflective Practice Toolkit”). Engaging in reflection is helpful for students in enabling them to think through their learning experiences, examine their successes and failures, and develop a plan for improvement (“Reflective Practice Toolkit”).
There are several ways a reflective writing practice can be beneficial to students in the ELA classroom such as students developing
- stronger self-reliance with regard to their academic performance and future goals
- the ability to think critically and try new approaches
- an increase in emotional intelligence and healthier ‘self-talk’ (“Reflective Practice Toolkit”).
Self-Reliance
Research suggests that developing a metacognitive focus in the classroom (encouraging students to think about their thinking) leads to greater achievement (Price-Mitchell). Reflective writing assignments give students the space to examine, monitor, and evaluate their learning strategies, leading to greater self-reliance, flexibility, and productivity (Price-Mitchell).
Metacognition plays an important role in the quarterly reflective writing I’ve integrated into my curriculum. In one of my quarterly reflection assignments, I ask the students to examine their growth as readers and writers and what they learned about the reading/writing process during the quarter.
Below is an example of how a student gained self-awareness and greater insight into his learning process through this reflective practice:
“This quarter I have learned to understand and analyze rhetoric in literature, which allows me to understand persuasive works more effectively and deeply. This has made me a more effective writer because I know how to use rhetoric to write persuasive essays…Because of this, I have started to plan my essays more effectively before beginning writing in order to plan to add complexity into writing.”
Critical Thinking
Purposeful reflective writing can lead students to think more critically by analyzing and investigating their own thoughts, ideas, and assumptions. Students consider their learning practices, enabling them to solve problems and refine their learning goals.
At quarterly intervals in the semester, I ask students to articulate what went well or didn’t go well for them during a unit or major writing assignment. Below is an example of how a student reflected on her learning and how she could improve her mindset and learning habits.
“Some struggles I went through this year in English was keeping track of my projects. Throughout the year we had at home projects to do while we were doing something else in class. Even though the due date seemed far away it really wasn’t. I decided to split up the project weekly to help me stay on track. So the due date wouldn’t sneak up on me and I wouldn’t have to do it all in one night.”
Emotional Intelligence
Often students are not familiar with the fact that difficulties and setbacks are part of the learning process. Consequently, students can easily believe that they are inherently not intelligent enough to meet their goals, leading to a negative self-perception. Purposeful reflective writing that guides students to engage in positive self-talk can enable students to develop self-compassion and resilience.
At the end of the first semester, I ask each student to write a letter to her past self and her future self, giving advice and encouragement – focusing on being self-aware, but not critical. Below is an example of a student developing greater emotional intelligence through self-compassion.”
Dear Future Self,
Buddy, how’s it going? Are you having an absolutely awesome and tremendous second semester of this school year? I sincerely hope your work ethic has improved because last semester it was kinda yikes. In addition to that I really hope you find much less issues in communicating with others this semester. Not even just for the sake of not being a complete and utter wreck when it comes to literal basic human interaction, but this lack of genuine communication does also make you kinda completely unable to get the help for the things you need help with. And please pretty please have an actual good grade in english dude if not you are going to get cooked. But, brother, have a good fun learning-filled semester.
Sincerely (and slightly redundantly),
Present Self
Incorporating Reflection into Your Teaching Practice
One of the most simple models of reflection is the ERA cycle (“Reflective Practice Toolkit”). This framework has three steps that can be incorporated into a reflective writing assignment: experience, reflection, and action (“Reflective Practice Toolkit”).
A purposeful, guided writing assignment can encourage students to consider their learning experiences such as reading, writing, and collaborative practices as well as their mindset and work/study habits.
To remove any barriers to engaging in the reflection process, students should not be worried about describing an event or experience in detail. Grammatical errors should not be a concern and the writing should be free-flowing and in first person.
Cambridge’s Reflective Practice Toolkit includes the following questions that can be incorporated into reflective writing assignments:
- What did I learn?
- What do I need to learn more about?
- What was easy?
- What was difficult?
- What went well?
- What went badly?
- Why did I feel the way I did?
- How can I improve in the future?
- I wonder what would happen if…?
Also included in the toolkit are phrases that can be helpful for students to use in their reflections and action steps:
The most important thing was…
- At the time I felt…
- This was likely due to…
- After thinking about it…
- I learned that…
- I need to know more about…
- Later I realized…
- This was because…
- This was like…
- I wonder what would happen if…
- I’m still unsure about…
- My next steps are…
Once a student has reflected on her experience, she can consider action steps to take to reach a different outcome, if necessary. This doesn’t necessarily mean a different outcome is needed – sometimes celebrating success is just as valuable. (Also see this post on grade reflection.)
Celebrating Their Success and Yours
Student reflections are my favorite writing assignments to review; I love to see the students making connections about their attitude and habits and consequences and outcomes. But most importantly, I get to celebrate their successes and growth with them and know that the long days are not in vain. They are learning, growing, and becoming better humans which is ultimately what we strive for as teachers.
Works Cited
Price-Mitchell, Marilyn. “Metacognition: Nurturing Self-Awareness in the Classroom.” Edutopia, 7 Apr. 2015, www.edutopia.org/blog/8-pathways-metacognition-in-classroom-marilyn-price-mitchell.“Reflective Practice Toolkit.” LibGuides at University of Cambridge Subject Libraries, libguides.cam.ac.uk/reflectivepracticetoolkit/whatisreflectivepractice. Accessed 10 July 2023.
Our Colleague
Amanda Austin teaches Sophomore English at Edmond North High School and was recently awarded the Rees ELA award for excellence in teaching. She holds a master’s degree in Education from the University of Oklahoma.
As I am about to start a new school year, I like this reminder to incorporate reflective writing into each unit of study. Thanks!
Thank you so much for sharing your thinking with us! I regularly incorporate reflective writing in my English 10 classes, and the research and tips you’ve shared will help me be even more intentional about that work. I also feel that what you’ve shared will help me in my instructional coaching work as I nudge colleagues to engage in this same type of writing to examine and improve instructional practices.
I always try to incorporate reflection at the end of a writing assignment, but my students don’t seem to take that learning and use it for the next assignment. These action steps will help me! Thank you for this post!
Amanda,
I agree w/ your analysis about reflective practices and think the questions help students see and reflect. I’m curious about the image that looks like a pie chart slice. It has me thinking. One thing I’d add is this: Students need to learn to think and reflect the way teachers do. I often spoke to students about putting themselves in the mind of the person assessing them. This is what kids in speech and debate, e.g. must learn to do, and it’s important in the classroom, too.
Sending good thoughts for the upcoming school year.