Silent Seed of Growth: Unleashing the Power of Contemplative Pedagogy in A Mindful

Classroom

Can I see a show of hands, how many of you have tried meditation before? And how

many of you have taken writing classes before? I’m sure all of you had taken writing classes, but

now, have any of you done a Mindfulness Journal Assignment? It’s not surprising if you haven’t.

Let me explain. Mindfulness Journal Assignment, abbreviated as MJA, has three parts:

mindfulness meditation instruction, journal entries, and a cumulative reflective essay that is

spread over a semester(Featherstone, 2020, p. 23). Jared Featherstone, who is the associate

professor coordinator of the University Writing Center in James Madison University, identifies

MJA with the three features above, and conducted a “qualitative study [that] examines the effects

of… MJA”(p. 19). Featherstone conducted his one semester long research through integrating

MJA into five different university courses. He ends up with the conclusion that “using an

assignment that includes both mindfulness and reflective writing [can reinforce] the development

of metacognition, [and establish] the ground for development and learning”(p. 27).

So, now you may be confused. What is all this about? Why should I care about it? Let’s

step back and see the big picture here. Featherstone’s implementation of MJA is an approach to

contemplative writing pedagogy. Contemplative pedagogy is a part of contemplative study, a

relatively new study field. Contemplative pedagogy often refers to “teaching informed by a

teacher’s personal contemplative practice; a course that features contemplative practices such as

meditation; a course that takes as its subject contemplative traditions, practices, and/or

experiences”(Kinane, 2019, p. 7). It is believed that contemplative pedagogy can offer a holistic

and integrative approach to education, enhancing students’ personal and academic growth.

 Before Featherstone’s study, there were a number of studies on contemplative pedagogy,

particularly the teaching of writing. The two that are noteworthy are Kinane’s and Chaterdon’s

study.

Karolyn Kinane, Associated Director of Pedagogy in University of Virginia, designed her

courses to practice contemplative pedagogy. She provides a personal approach to contemplative

pedagogy. Kinane claimed that such practice can be applied to other subjects besides writing and

benefit students' overall development. Kinae’s study is the introduction into the specialized

course design that leads into the research on MJA. When talking about MJA, one of the

prominent feature is the inclusion of meditation, a practice that is believed to be deeply

associated with metacognition. That’s where Chaterdon’s research comes into the light. Kate

Chaterdon, the assistant professor of English Marist College, also implemented contemplative

writing practices in her course and found that they could foster students’ metacognition and helps

them to develop into strong writers. Now you have heard metacognition for several times. What

exactly is it? Metacognition is the ability to think about one's own thinking, learning, and

problem-solving processes. It’s usually broken down into two concepts: metacognitive

knowledge and metacognitive regulation. The former refers to the individual’s awareness of their

own cognitive process and the latter refers to the control and management of such processes. At

that time, Chaterdon proposed that there’s deeper connection between students’ academic

performance, metacognition, and contemplative writing. Building on the foundation of

Chaterdon’s and Kinane's work, Featherstone came up with his study and proposed the

systematic approach to contemplative writing through MJA. Building on Featherston’s study,

Dina Ramadhanti and Diyan Permata Yanda’ carried out research to investigate students'

 metacognitive awareness level and how different level of awareness affect students’ writing

performance. They found that the majority don’t have such awareness. Their data showed that as

the level of metacognitive awareness increases, the students’ writing performance significantly

increase. Despite the existence of other factors, metacognitive awareness affects student’s writing

ability by 66%, which echos with Featherstone and Chaterdon’s research(Ramadhanti & Yanda,

2021, p.193). At the end of their essay, Ramadhanti and Yanda discussed about the effect of

teaching on raising students’ metacognitive awareness. They believe that the application of

cognitive process and metacognitive strategies are the solutions (2021, p. 203).

Let’s sum up this conversation between the writing scholars. Chaterdone and Kinae tested

on the performance of contemplative writing separately. Their approach to contemplative

pedagogy is limited to the small number of samples and their personal approach. The advantages

they observed in their practices are credible but obviously not convincing enough. Based on their

study, Featherstone conducted his quantitative research and put forward the universal approach

to contemplative writing—MJA. He has made an integration on the past studies and confirmed

the close relationship with metacognition, contemplative writing and transfer, which are all

factors that contribute to the positive student development. Featherstone also extended the

research over the writing teaching into other disciplines. However, Ramadhanti and Yanda’s

research has shown that the contemplative pedagogy, though proved to be beneficial to student’s

academic performance and personal development, is not yet widely implemented in the current

education system. Efforts need to be made to promote the integration of cognitive process and

metacognitive strategies in teaching to raise students' metacognitive awareness and improve their

writing performance. Getting back to the start of this speech, if there’s a writing class that

integrates meditation, would you like to give it a try?



 Works Cited

Chaterdon, K. (2019). Writing into Awareness: How Metacognitive Awareness Can Be

Encouraged Through Contemplative Teaching Practices. Across the Disciplines, 16(1).

Featherstone, J. (2020). Contemplative WAC: Testing a Mindfulness-based Reflective Writing

Assignment. The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning, 25(1),

16.

Kinane, K. (2019). The Place of Practice in Contemplative Pedagogy and Writing. Across the

Disciplines, 16(1), 1-10.

Ramadhanti, D., & Yanda, D. P. (2021). Students' Metacognitive Awareness and Its Impact on

Writing Skill. International Journal of Language Education, 5(3), 193-206.