Reflective writing focuses on the goal of metacognitive thinking and provides a method for students to pause and reflect

on their learning. Used at

key points during the course of a unit of study, reflective writing may also
be used as a tool for gathering on-going assessment information.
Steps in the Process:
1. Give students a focus question related to the topic of study. Tell them
the time allotment for their reflective writing. A minimum of 4 minutes
is recommended.
2. Reflective writing is not graded and therefore students should be encouraged to write freely. This is not an exercise where students should
edit anything, including their thoughts. Thus, if a seemingly unrelated
thought pops up their minds, students should put it in their reflective
writing. The reason behind recording all thoughts is that the brain is
making connections.
3. As students participate in a reflective writing, there may be times when
they cant think of anything to write. When this happens, students
should write the following phrase: I cant think of anything to write
and repeat it until their brains interject something to write.
4. Reflective writing has a variety of applications. It may be used periodically during a difficult lesson to help students synthesize information. It
may be used prior to class or group discussion to help students think
about a concept independently before sharing their ideas with others. It
may be used at the start of a lesson to help students recall information
from previous lessons.