The Positive Contributions Of Reflective Writing

Many people have a habit of writing differently and it can be good or bad. In the essay “The Importance of Writing Badly,” Bruce Ballenger encourages students to write spontaneously without any rules or “error-free sentences.” He believes that there are no wrong way to express how a person feel. It may not be the correct way to write it but it still allows a person to write continuously. Ballenger allows students to write badly because he is more interested in encouraged thinking.

Prior to my development of routine introspection and, consequently, maturation, I wrote not to encapsulate my ever-growing discomfort towards life, but rather to gain praise and acknowledgement for my efforts in writing. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I sat on the floor of my kindergarten classroom criss-cross applesauce-style as my teacher, Mrs. Glickman, asked the class to write a short story and to provide an illustration to accompany it. With smudged and disorderly speckles of graphite sprawled across my paper, I managed to write a story in my signature chicken-scratch handwriting. The story was relatively simple, about a girl who had thought she was a hideous monster until she looked into a river reflection and realized she was beautiful. I even drew (or attempted to draw) a beautiful girl for the second part of the assignment. At the next school assembly, Mrs. Glickman granted me a sky-colored paper, reading “Award of Recognition: Kiana Lucin, for her creative writing and exemplary drawing skills.” From this point on, I prided myself in writing, and excelled

In the 2011 article “Helping Students Meet the Challenges of Academic Writing”, educators Linda Fernsten and Mary Reda offer innovative self-reflective writing exercises that post-secondary instructors can employ to help students improve writer self-image and academic writing. The authors’ rationale for reflective and practical writing strategies were developed from direct classroom experience, and are based on four (4) assumptions. Their claim that self-reflective writing can aid student writers in overcoming conflict (due to dominant culture, upbringing, former writing experiences, gender, and other marginalizing factors) to improve writer self-identity is plausible. However, their argument that cross-curriculum academic writing can be improved through self-directed, self-reflective writing requires further investigation.

Writing is a practice that most of us were taught when we were young. We were taught the basics of grammar, how to form a sentence, conjunction words, how to write paragraphs and more. Although we have learned this skill while growing up and have used the skill every year after entering kindergarten, this does not mean our writing process will ensure the best work. The authors that I chose each encourage their audience to excel in the art of writing in their own way to help with the writing process.

Writing may be an enthralling experience for one and a clever way to decompress for another. In general, however, writing has different purposes for a variety of people. “Why I Write,” written in the late 20th century by Terry Tempest Williams, describes various reasons for writing narrated from a female’s perspective. The short essay begins in the middle of the night with a woman engulfed in her own thoughts. She abruptly goes forth by reciting the multiple reasons why she continues to write in her life. Through a variety of rhetorical devices such as repetition, imagery, analogies, and symbolism, Terry Tempest Williams produces an elegant piece of writing that offers the audience insight into the narrator’s life and forces the audience to have empathy for the narrator with the situation she is incurring.

In believing that writing have soothing effects to “the fabric of personality (p. 4)” Karen Cangialosi targets anybody with an emotional problem to settle down and create a “cohesive personal narrative (p. 2).” As a result, people will make sense of their lives through their writings and truly experience the “healing through the written word.” Having her target be people with instability, Cangialosi’s article serves the purpose to a remedy for them.

The beauty of writing is that we all have the power to write down how we feel about things in our daily lives or things that are occurring in our world. This is the most vital reason to why I love the concept of writing. Being able to write down how you feel about a specific thing without having to worry about anyone else judging your opinions is liberating. I view writing as a blank canvas. Something that's blank is empty or undecorated. A blank canvas hasn't been drawn or painted on yet, it's clean and unmarked. We have the power to decorate, personalize, and create whatever we desire on a piece of paper. When I become suppressed with negative emotions, I tend to write or type out what’s bothering me and by doing so, it helps me break down everything that’s making me upset or angry and figure out possible solutions to fix the problem or problems that are going on in my

Numerous people can't convey what needs be through verbal communication, so they write. Some of them compose lyrics, books or possibly tunes as method for cure. Writing is a skill, a specialty of expressing ones identity, an art of demonstrating to themselves proper methodologies to be happy. From personal experience, I have been through a stage where I was not myself, and writing was a piece of my mending: I used to write letters and burn them as if I was discarding the pain, discarding memories. "Depression is one of the most prevalent mental disorders and carries the fourth greatest burden disease" says Ellen C, Flannery-Schoroeder (Article 1, page 1, introduction, first 3 lines).

An experiment that demonstrated the benefits of expressive writing did so by measuring the health of participants when they were told to write about a trauma, a positive experience, or a control experience for two minutes for two days, (Burton &

     One of the techniques I am going to use through out college is talking to

Writing is way that we can express ourselves, it is a way to interface ideas and thoughts and to prove a point. Throughout my writing experience or process I have struggled with writing especially using details or really expressing myself my work. In this course Facts & Fiction: Portraits in World Art I expect to gain more knowledge on how to write a perfect essay, story, letter, and assignment. I expect to learn new genres and rhetorical situations. I also think my writing will improve academically and I will develop my skills in writing. Also taking my writing to a different point of view, level, and writing something different rather than the usual. I look forward to getting feedback from my peers and learning their thoughts on my writing and how they can help me improve.

Furthermore, this reflection will examine how ‘Life and Journal writing can have therapeutic and psychological benefits, and be salutary to personal, and professional development. In addition, it will discuss how writing in this genre can add a psychotherapeutic dimension to aid the grieving process for people facing this difficult situation.

1. Students will work as a class to come up with ideas ideas about possible meanings and definitions of the main idea of an essay. All students will be encourage to participate in the class discussion.

Journaling is a way to improve one’s language. It has been studied that writing has a clear connection to speaking. Over the course of the last six journals, I have noticed that the level of my interpersonal competence has strongly improved. McCornack states that interpersonal communication competence is evaluated by one’s “ability to communicate consistently in appropriate, effective, and ethical ways” (G-6). Therefore, when one has competence, he/she is able to choose what type of communication is best suited for any given situation. I have seen my interpersonal competence grow through the journal in my emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and communication skills.

It is my belief that through this class and the tools provided, that my growth as a writer has grown through leaps and bounds I would never have assumed possible. It is not so much the skill I refer to, although I would think skill has gone up in some levels as well, but more so the appreciation for the craft of writing itself. Intially, at the start of this class my sole goal was to further my understanding and appreciation of the writer's and books that I so love to read. Through further evaluation within the first week, a few other goals came to mind, of which were, making writing a habit, finishing what I start, stop second guess my writing skills and making effective use of detail and description. Through the use of the many articles, various reading materials, whether poems or short stories, and especially through the workshop, I feel I was able to really push myself to accomplishing these goals. I have thus far learned how important it is not to be skilled at writing per say, but to have the will to write, that poetry is as much about it's sound as it is about it's subject, just how important character development is, how the narration and point of view of a story is essential to the way the story is told, and just how much of a difference peer's critiques can make to your writing.