ENGL&102 (Jewell) – Reflective Commentary
2 pages, typed, 12 pt Times New Roman, double-spaced, 1” margins
Due by 12 noon on Monday December 10 – email your completed essay to Jim.Jewell@seattlecolleges.edu
In this class, we have talked at length about purpose, both as intention and as the guiding force behind product, and the
writing process. At this point I ask you to step back from that writing for the same reasons athletes watch game films and
performers solicit feedback: to view what you have done and reflect on it so you can become a better “performer.”
Following are points for you to consider in drafting and developing your reflective essay. You do not have to use all or
any of them. They are here to help you think about presenting your writing and learning in this essay form. Things you
might wish to consider:
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What have you learned about your writing process and what skills or habits are you still working to master?
What choices have you made as a writer in the drafting and revision processes?
How do you see yourself as a reader, writer, and thinker after English 102?
What elements of the course helped your writing the most? What parts didn’t help you understand writing with
greater expertise?
The reflective essay testifies to your skill and awareness as a writer just as much as your revised essays do. It is important
to consider the concepts you’ve learned, the different kinds of writing and thinking you did, the very experience of being
in this course as ways of segmenting and sequencing this essay. Persona becomes much more visible in a reflective essay
like this because you are writing about yourself (think back to the different personas represented by the writers in our
sample essays). But writing only to your instructor traps you into “proving” what you have learned instead of
communicating your knowledge and experience to a reader. So while you want to appear thoughtful and informed about
your own writing and the properties of academic prose, the purpose of the reflective essay is not to strike a pose to
convince your teacher how smart he is but to show others what you understand about academic writing and your own
practice of it. Flattery or excessive self-criticism can get in the way of your own analysis of what you have written and
learned in English 102.