Please make the reflection the last page of the essay, not a separate file.
Why Reflect?
Reflections on your writing are critical to the growth process. The process of thinking about your own thinking and learning is called "metacognition" and is recognized as a fundamental tool in long-term mastery of material. Your reflection helps me really understand what you were thinking throughout your paper. This can be a conversational tone, but that is not an invitation to write poorly. "Conversational" can and should be written just as well as formal writing. The more you practice great writing, the more likely it will become a life-long habit.
This reflection employs the same rhetorical analysis concept of the SAT essay.
Reflections on your writing are critical to the growth process. The process of thinking about your own thinking and learning is called "metacognition" and is recognized as a fundamental tool in long-term mastery of material. Your reflection helps me really understand what you were thinking throughout your paper. This can be a conversational tone, but that is not an invitation to write poorly. "Conversational" can and should be written just as well as formal writing. The more you practice great writing, the more likely it will become a life-long habit.
This reflection employs the same rhetorical analysis concept of the SAT essay.
The Big Idea:
Write about:
- Your reflection should comment on your development of the piece and on specific rhetorical purposes of your development (why you made the choices you made).
- I expect that you put a lot of time into an essay and that you “worked hard,” so don’t tell me that in a reflection. Your “effort-o-meter” has an indirect impact on your grade. The standards determine your grade.
- Type it like a discussion, NOT a list.
- This is your chance to tell your end of the story, so tell it.
- As with all writing, it should be written well.
- All writing scales continue to apply to the reflection.
Write about:
- USE THE SCALES TO GUIDE YOUR REFLECTION!
- SPECIFIC strategies you want me to notice that you used to improve your writing on this piece.
- If you “broke a rule,” a specific explanation of why you chose to do so.
- A discussion of your strongest and weakest areas and explain that area and what could improve it.
- A discussion of yourself in the context of the scales and as a writer now that you have completed this essay and corresponding writing instruction (your evolution as a writer).
- Imitated sentence (if required): include the original you modeled and your own in the reflection.