ENGL&101 (Jewell) – Reflective Commentary
2 pages, typed, 12 pt Times New Roman, double-spaced, 1” margins
Due Monday March 21 by 8pm. Email submissions will be accepted.
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 the 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 101?
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 highlight 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 101.