“The Blueprint”: A Way to Think Through Structuring Reflection
By Mo Lotif
I.
Intro Activity/Ice Breaker
a. The intro activity can be something that breaks the ice, and doesn’t
necessarily have to relate to the rest of the activity (e.g. Human Knot). Or
it can be something that breaks the ice and relates to the rest of the
activity (e.g. Daisy’s reproduce the abstract picture warm up).
II.
Grounding “Text”
a. This can be a movie/documentary/video, an (scholarly or news) article, a
song, a prompt—essentially something that you can use to center and
focus your conversation.
III.
Main Activity
a. This heart of your reflection. The main activity can consist of art projects,
discussions, various interactive activities—many possibilities here.
Oftentimes, this may be grounded by, well, your grounding “text.”
IV.
Generating an “Artifact”
a. Generating an “artifact,” is another way of saying, “What’s the outcome of
your reflection”? This can be tangible or intangible. A tangible outcome
can be a group poem, a graphic representation of a brainstorm session, a
written reflection/evaluation piece, a video—once again, the possibilities
are many. Intangible outcomes can refer to a lesson or idea that’s
conveyed through the reflection (e.g. an enriched understanding of a
particular social or political issue, ideas on troubleshooting program
related problems, an exploration of one’s thoughts or emotions etc.) The
key point is to have something concrete at the end of a reflection
activity that you, or your participants, can point to and say, “That’s
what we walked away with from this session.”
b. The main activity can also serve to generating an “artifact”—there doesn’t
have to be a boundary between these things.
V.
Conclusion
a. Debrief: This is the opportunity to tie all the different elements of the
reflection session together cohesively. In especially difficult conversations,
this can serve as a moment for a sense of closure. During more planningorientated session, debriefing can be about definition the steps moving
forward. Think of this as the capstone of your reflection.