Insert Name of Service Learning Course Here
Reflection Writing Assignment Sheet
Guidelines for Writing Reflection Papers
The goal of writing reflective papers is to develop your capacity to learn from
experience, which some argue is a central element of leadership and professional
development.
Learning from experience requires the ability to:
1) Be Mindful. This means being observant of what is happening in a situation, even when
you are an active participant in that situation. It also means having a deeper sense of selfawareness. Reflective should result in your having a greater awareness of things like: who
you are, what your strengths are, what you are in the process of learning and how you are
perceived by others.
2) Make Connections. You need to be thoughtful about how your observations of situations
and awareness of your self relates to our course topics. Reflection papers are not free-flow
personal journals, but well-reasoned papers that show depth of thought about the
connections between scholarly work and your own lived experience.
A few important points about reflection writing:
1. Making an observation or stating an opinion is not the same as reflecting.
A good reflection paper does not simply relate an experience or declare a personal belief.
While it may include these elements, it must go much deeper. Use examples and evidence
to support your points. Identify the assumptions you are making, question them, and
explore where they have come from. Apply what you are learning in this course to explain
the situation or analyze your beliefs.
2. Make reflection a habit.
Learning to be a reflective practitioner and lifelong experiential learner is a habit I hope
you’ll gain in this course. I recommend you free-write a brief weekly reflection after your
contact hours, when your observations and thoughts are fresh. Jot down experiences that
stood out to you or questions you want to ask your site supervisor about. These thoughts
will be useful for class discussions and will result in reflection papers that are both higher
quality and easier to write.
3. When writing about potentially sensitive topics (e.g. explorations of racism, classism or
sexism or critiques of your service site or of the material presented in class), do your best
to be respectful, but don’t avoid controversy by just not writing about the issue.
If you catch yourself thinking, “Oh I shouldn’t say that,” that is exactly what you should
write about. Be brave and write it. Then write about why you initially considered avoiding
the topic. What are you wrestling with?
Wendy Wagner, Center for Leadership and Community Engagement
George Mason University
4. Start by free-writing whatever comes to mind, then go back and gather your thoughts
together into a well-organized paper.
If you find yourself struggling to know what to write about, try responding to one of the
following prompts. (Note: you are not required to specifically address any of these
topics. They are provided only to help you get a start). Once you have some thoughts on
paper, go back and make choices about the ideas you will focus on, and decide how you
present them so that your thoughts have a clear flow.
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Describe a specific moment at your site that struck you. What happened? What do
you think it means about your organization or the social issue it addresses? What
did you learn from it? Papers that analyze one or two moments or issues typically
have more depth than those that try to convey every interaction the student has had
on site.
What connections do you see between your experience at the site and the topics we
have read about and discussed in class? What does the organization staff think
about some of our class topics? How is reality similar or different to what is shared
in textbooks and what important lessons can be drawn from that?
What learning competencies from this course do you observe the staff and
volunteers at your site drawing from as they do their work? Are you learning these
competencies? How? How might you be more intentional about creating learning
opportunities for yourself?
What themes can you identify as major points of learning for you? By reviewing
your weekly reflections can you identify areas of development or areas in which you
have changed your mind?
Note: Here I typically insert the specific topic areas I would like each reflection paper to
explore – these are reflective of the course content that will have been covered when each
reflection paper is due, and what course topics I want the students to connect to the service
experience. - Wendy
Expectations and Evaluation
Please know that at 3-4 pages, these length requirements are considered quite short given
the amount of information that should be conveyed. Plan to revise at least a few drafts in
order to have a tightly written paper that is concise, makes your main points clear and uses
examples and evidence to support them. The quality of your writing (overall structure and
flow, grammar, spelling) is reflective of the complexity of your thinking. Please proofread.
Reflective writing will be evaluated on the extent to which it demonstrates that you are
learning from your experience. It should provide evidence that you have been a careful
observer during your experiences and have given considerable thought to making meaning
of what those experiences teach you. Reflection papers should articulate the connections
you are making between the on-site experience and our class discussions, assigned
readings, the learning competencies and your prior experience.
Wendy Wagner, Center for Leadership and Community Engagement
George Mason University
The following rubric will be used to evaluate this work.
Rubric for Assessing Service-Learning Reflection Papers
Excellent
Good
Average
Poor
Fulfills basic criteria.
Needs some
additional
work/articulation to
draw the relationship
between self, class
topics and service
experience.
Content is vague or
does not clearly
express a point of
view. Does not
create a strong sense
of purpose.
Reflection paper
inadequately or
incorrectly
completed.
Reflection
Clearly ties personal
knowledge,
attitudes and
behaviors into the
paper. Clearly
draws the
relationship
between self, class
topics and service
experience.
Demonstration of
Knowledge
The paper
demonstrates that
the author fully
understands and
has applied
concepts learned in
the course to
analysis of the
service experience.
Some reference to
course
readings/discussions/
experience.
Few references to
course
readings/discussions/
experience.
Little/no reference to
course
readings/discussions/
experience.
Depth of
Discussion
In-depth discussion
& elaboration.
Utilizes appropriate
reasoning and
evidence/examples
to explain point of
view.
Reasonably well
supported arguments
with some
elaboration.
Some discussion;
little elaboration or
illustrations.
Paper just covers
points without
elaboration or
illustration.
Paper follows
discernable logic flow
and incorporates
some class readings
and experiences.
Thought process is
difficult to follow.
Cohesiveness
Ties together
information from
prior experience,
readings and
service. Writing
flows through an
organized set of
ideas.
No discernable logic
flow; discussion
points are not related
or not in any
particular order.
No spelling and/or
grammar mistakes.
Some editing
required for
grammar, sentence
structure, or
organization.
Writing errors
distract or impair
readability.
Writing errors
repeatedly distract
reader.
Spelling,
Grammar,
Mechanics
Wendy Wagner, Center for Leadership and Community Engagement
George Mason University