Lifting the Hood: Drafting Your Reflective Essay
Background & Foreground: For today’s class you should have brought in 2-3 pieces of writing you have composed over the last 12 months. For part of class you are going to analyze and compare and contrast that writing in order to start drafting your reflective essay. The other part of class we are going to complete a peer review.
In the first draft of your reflective essay, you should compose at least three paragraphs that are exclusively about your writing: one about your best piece, one about your weakest piece and one where you compare the two. In your next draft, I will loosen up some, but in the first draft three paragraphs about your writing are required. Also, in the paragraphs where you discuss each of the pieces separately talk some about the course where the essay was assigned and how that class fits into your overall John Jay experience, or prepared you for college. Things to look for in the pieces you brought in today: strength of argument, use of sources, demonstration of critical thinking, experimentation with tone, voice, and mechanics (grammar).
Part I:
Write 2-3 sentences explaining why you chose to bring in each of your pieces.
What are the consistencies you see in your writing irrespective of the different nature of the assignments?
Identify the strongest passage in your favorite piece. Explain why you think that passage worked especially well.
Identify the weakest passage in your least favorite piece. Explain why you think that passage faltered.
Do you consider your favorite piece your best piece? Explain why or why not.
Evaluate your tone, voice and style in what you deem to be your weakest piece.
Compare a strong passage from one essay to a weak one in another. What’s the difference between the two?
- What did you think about your strongest and weakest pieces of writing respectively when they were first completed? What do you think about the pieces now? What feedback did you receive on the work? Was it helpful, or not? Explain.