Reflective writing in Arts

What is reflective or reflexive writing?

Reflective writing is examining the knowledge acquired through reading or through an
experience and making connections with other concepts that you have encountered in your
learning.

Reflexive writing is a deeper, self-critical practice, that examines your underlying

assumptions and attitudes and how they have been impacted by your learning. It is more
personal than reflective writing.

Both are descriptive but also analytical, drawing on your knowledge base and experiences.

 Descriptive: A factual account of a concept, experience or observed behaviour

 Analytical: A discussion of the ‘how and why’ of a concept, experience or observed
behaviour, possibly comparing theory with reality and considering the reasons behind
discrepancies

Why do lecturers set reflective or reflexive essay tasks?

Lecturers have a number of reasons for setting reflective/reflexive writing tasks. They can be
used to:

 check your understanding of the course content and how your thinking has developed
 encourage you to make connections between topics, theories or practices
 develop your skills as an active learner who thinks critically and asks questions.

How is this different to other academic writing?

Academic writing in argumentative or research essays does not usually involve a personal,
first-person voice and is much more analytical than descriptive in its tone. These forms of
academic writing attempt to make an authoritative analysis of an issue through a defined
method that is recognised by peers in the same subject area.

When writing an argumentative or research essay, students are required to adopt an objective,
impersonal style of expression. In contrast, reflective/reflexive writing urges students to
explore subjective thoughts and feelings, while drawing on their personal experience.

Correct citation method is essential in all academic writing, including reflective/reflexive

writing. The difference is that reflective/reflexive writing draws primarily on the experiences
and knowledge base of the author.
Activity

Read each of the following six sentences and consider whether they are reflective, reflexive
or academic (argumentative or research).

You can be asked to reflect on a variety of learning activities, including:

 readings and texts - for example, you may be required to reflect on how an article
changed the way you think about an issue
 an experience or observation - for example, you may be required to attend an ANZAC
day service and reflect on your observations of the event
 a theory in practice - for example, you may be asked to reflect on how a theory
studied in class applies to an experience, observation or text
 a learning process - for example, after working collaboratively on a group project, you
may be asked to reflect on the group work process.

Each of these reflection types requires a different way of thinking. For example, reflecting on
theory in practice requires you to critique and break down the established understanding
while reflecting on how it was taught (learning process) and can lead to recommendations for
future study. Being able to identify the type of reflection enables you to provide the
appropriate discussion.
Activity

Identifying learning activities can be difficult. In order to reflect quickly, you need to
recognise the appropriate type of reflection. Look at the following learning activities and drag
and drop each one onto the appropriate example from above (Experience or Observation;
Learning Process; or Reading or Text). 
Note: Some elements will appear in multiple sections.
A note on notes

To be able to look back and reflect, it is important to take extensive notes during the process
of reading or observing. Referring back to your notes will jog your memory so that you can
reflect in an insightful way. 

One tip for note taking is to use different colors for ideas from the text and your own
thoughts. For example, use blue for descriptions of an event, and red for your own thoughts
about it.
Activity

Click on the icons for more information about writing notes.

Approaching a reflective or reflexive writing task

Slow down

Reflection is a process that cannot be done in a rush. It needs time and thought.

To do this well, you cannot just describe what you have learned, you need to take a
stance on how and why you have learned it.

Try thinking about:

 what people have said

 what you have read
 what you yourself are thinking
 how your thinking has changed.

The key point - thinking.

Take notes on the themes of your readings.

Consider:

 what you knew about them before (or thought you knew)
 what you learned in the course
 things of note from your point of view.
When completing your reflection, keep the subject of the unit in mind. Reflective and
reflexive writing should link to the larger themes and topics of the unit and your reflections
should be relevant to the course.

Here is an example:

I knew (or thought I knew): Witchcraft involved the burning of thousands

of women, and that it was a terrible thing. Likewise there were trials to try and
prove witchcraft, ridiculous things like weighing them down and I thought that
it was to do with a lot of burning of poor and defenceless women at the mercy
of the Catholic Church, who were either pursuing their own belief practices or
were caught being outspoken. I had some idea that there were different
approaches to the 'persecution' of the witches, but not the depth of the judicial
response and sometimes the caution.

I learned: That I had assumed a lot of knowledge from popular culture about
a) gender in the early modern period; b) the relationship of church and state;
c) what witchcraft was. The gendered element of witchcraft then is complex in
its own right. History is not static and there were continuing reforms and
debates going on the whole time and so everything was in transition.

I want to keep learning: What witchcraft as 'inversion' meant for

understandings of gender, and how these bigger concerns in society translated
into a fixed judicial system.

A quality piece of reflective writing will have the following attributes:

Self-assessment and self-understanding:

 evidence of awareness of personal learning processes

 consideration of how and why learning changed
 evidence of appropriate and honest appraisal
 articulation of personal learning and limits.

Making connections:

 articulation of connections between prior and current knowledge

 evidence of capacity to form connections across the unit’s themes and topics
 integrating prior knowledge with new knowledge
 providing relevant examples to prove knowledge.

Your reflective writing will be based on the notes you made. Look at the example below,
which is based on the notes we made above.

Click the icons next to each paragraph to see the lecturer's feedback on this reflective
journal entry. Click again to hide the comment.

Legend:
GoodProblemSuggestionQuestion
Assignment: Reflective Journal 
Each week, identify what seemed to you the most important, interesting or challenging theme
from your tutorials, readings or lectures. Reflect on what you learnt about Renaissance
Europe and its relevance to you. Be self-reflective: What did you learn about the topic? What
did you learn about yourself? Did anything presented challenge your thinking?

Show/hide lecturer's comment 1This week I struggled with the fact that everything I knew
about witchcraft was based on caricatures of feminism and gender studies. Show/hide
lecturer's comment 2By presuming that accusations of witchcraft were just about oppressing
women, I missed the way that new ideas around witchcraft had fed into an existing tradition
around women (‘the scold’) but also related to larger concerns around unrest and instability in
society, making it a much wider issue as well.
Show/hide lecturer's comment 3The complexity of the situation was illustrated in 1592 by
Thomas Marshall who attacked a woman called Maude who had ‘bewitched’ him, and then
assaulted two other women, calling them “witch and prostitute”. Maude was arraigned for
witchcraft, and was tried under the new statute criminalising witchcraft as treason. She was
found guilty and was to be hung, but was eventually exiled instead, whereas Thomas was
never charged for any crime. 
Show/hide lecturer's comment 4I found fascinating the clear concerns of the justices when
meting out judgement under a new set of statutory laws, and the legal connection of
witchcraft to treason against the Queen. My mistaking the period as ‘barbaric’ according to
my own preconceptions hid connections between contemporary gender constructs, social
change, and how justice was decided at a judicial level. Show/hide lecturer's comment 5This
is something I would be interested in researching more.