What is a Reflection Paper?
You might have watched a number of movies during couple of years. Do you have an urge to share
your impression about it? If you like to do it, the best way is to write a reflective paper to tell your
friends and family about your emotions and feeling about that movie. Reflection papers are not
limited to movies; you can also elaborate your feelings about motion picture, event, a person, or
even your favorite trips. So what makes a perfect reflection paper?
A good reflection paper shows your thought process and analysis about an event you witnessed, a
book you have read, a motion picture you have viewed, or even, about a person you have observed.
A good reflection paper also shows your understanding of piece of work together with changes in
any of your ideas with possible implementation in future
You can also use the restorative questions for generation of some feelings and thoughts pertaining
to your experiences.
A good reflection paper can also engage the community as whole as well.
How to Start a Reflection Paper
Here is the basic process for starting a reflection paper:
A reflection paper starts with a basic outlook on different thoughts and it is usually about the film,
idea, lecture, or even a historical personality.
Prior to starting a reflection paper, you need to articulate and integrate your classroom experiences
and core theme of readings or observations.
Brainstorming of the key ideas is also quite an important step the allow jotting down of the key
ideas and thoughts based on thinking and reading. You will also need to determine what ideas can
stand out and help you support your opinions. For the lectures, the best way is to jot down direct
and indirect quotations. You can also summarize different passages in a book for the very same
purpose. For the reflection papers having personal experiences, you are going to make notes to
specific details pertaining to your experiences. What you can do about it? You can also write a small
story or even write a brief summary about an event. It could also be an experience that stands out.
It could involve sounds, images or even, sensory parts of your experience.
Once the ideas are articulated and brainstorming conducted, the essays could either be description
based or bearing a personal opinion.
Educational reflection paper is basically a response to the film, book, or even a lecture that is quite
commonly viewed based on academic setting to analyze the students’ competence.
Professional reflection paper requires a method for the analysis of professional behavior that is quite
commonly used among social workers as well as teachers.
Personal opinion based reflection paper have personal opinions and their assessments as part of the
paper.
One of the ways is to formulate the thoughts in the form of table or chart to greatly track your ideas
and thought process.
As part of the charts, mention the key experiences and points in the first column. These points can
also comprise of anything pertaining to the speaker or author that are of vital importance. It can
also involve specific details that are of particular interest to you. You can divide these core points
and ideas in separate rows as well
For the second column, you need to jot down your personal responses pertaining to the key points
that are mentioned in first column. Based on that, your subjective beliefs, values, and most
importantly, experiences that has influenced your specific response.
In the third column, you need to decide the degree to which you would like to share your opinion as
part of your reflection paper.
Questioning yourself for helping you in propelling your response is another key step. Sometimes,
you might feel that you are struggling in articulating your own thoughts and feelings. For that, you
can ask questions pertaining to your readings or experiences. It could include question that involve
the readings, experiences, or even lectures to challenge your developed emotional, social, cultural,
or even theological thoughts. Further it could involve the extent to which it has influenced your
thoughts. It could also involve conflicting norms and beliefs. Moreover, it can also leave you
questioning your pre-existing beliefs and norms. The ideas or issues that are presented in reading or
experience could intertwine with your previous readings or experiences. The contradicting or
supporting nature of the reading and experience, or lecture can further be elaborated as part of the
reflection paper.
REFERENCES
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