The purpose of reflection is to acknowledge what it is you are doing and then apply this newfound knowledge to future decisions. Reflection engages your intellect.
In her article “Writing on the Bias,” Linda Brodkey reflects on the development of her written literacy. She begins her story in kindergarten, pinpointing the moment she began the writing process. She continued to trace her written literacy throughout her life expanding on pivotal moments that heavily impacted her writing journey.
By the end of her reflective essay, Brodkey comes to many conclusions about not only herself but about the different ways in which your environment shapes your specific literacies. Brodkey reflected on her literacy in order to engage in her intellect and apply this knowledge to future decisions that she makes about her personal life and her life as a writer.1
As literate citizens, we must reflect on our literacies, writing in particular. Linda Adler-Kasner explains that reflection on writing allows “[…] writers to recognize what they are doing at a particular moment (cognition), as well as consider why they made the rhetorical choices they did (metacognition).”2 This reflection helps students understand themselves as writers as they move forward with their literacy. Reflection is imperative in the development of literacy because it creates a deliberate system of recalling experiences that reframe a current situation.
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Read More:
- Brodkey, Linda. “Writing on the Bias.” College English. Vol. 56. No. 5 (1994): 527-547. Print.
- Adler-Kasner, Lisa. Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts of Writing Studies. University Press of Colorado, 2015. Print.
My Jesuit education 