Elmhurst College   Reflective Writing for Purposeful Reflection Karin Evans and Bridget O'Rourke -- English Department, Elmhurst College You are probably used to setting goals about DOING something. Have you ever set goals about BEING something? A Model for Purposeful Reflection Find a focus event (it doesn't really have to be an event in any strict sense) for reflection. Your focus might be a recent decision, a conflict (either inner or interpersonal), or an experience that you are mulling over. Begin writing by describing the focus event. Freewrite for 5 minutes or more. Donít edit or censor your writing--just write what comes to you. When you are ready to stop freewriting, review what you have written. Underline anything that seems unexpected or important. Continue to freewrite with this idea as your new focus, if you like. Use some of the following questions, or adapt them, to reflect further on the focus event: What were the circumstances/context surrounding the focus event? How did the circumstances/context, including other people, shape it? What does the focus event reveal about you? What thoughts and actions are most revealing? How does the event relate to your goals for who you want to become? How does the event relate to your goals for what you want to do? Consider whether you might do something with regard to this event or this writing. (Remember that doing something is not always the point. The reflection can be an end in itself.) Ideas and Metaphors for Purposeful Reflection. Through reflection, you create your own curriculum. You transform the materials of classes, work, and other projects into something that you make yourself, ongoingly and dynamically, so that your curriculum belongs to you. It's no longer the same as anybody else's. It's no longer just a vague sense of growth or a general feeling that your experience counts for something. In reflection you make your own collage-- of color and light, shape and shadow, of lived experience and unexpected insight, of plan and serendipity, of movement and stillness.. Reflection is open-ended and open-minded. A reflective moment may be one in which thought takes a turn that you didn't ask for. Maybe that turn doesn't fit your plans. Maybe it says, "Hey, try not to be so sure of what you want for a change, ok?" You might learn something new about yourself. Reflection itself is a metaphor, if you think of it as a process of mirroring yourself. Of course, a mirror image is also a mirage.. Reflection demands a kind of discipline--but it is not about action. Reflection happens in the spaces between action and further action. When you forget to notice those spaces, action loses consciousness. Even when you notice the spaces, you might be tempted to glide over them.. Where you will find reflective space?. It's worth considering the question of how and whether and to what extent reflection can happen for you in dialogue with other people. In speaking or writing to an audience, the impulse to express yourself may lead you to say something you didn't know you knew. On the other hand, an audience may not share your reflective turn of mind... and may resist it, or misunderstand it, or not be willing to go there. Reflection can happen anywhere, anytime. But you might need to practice in order to get into a "reflective habit of mind". Where in your life can you find a bit of time and space to practice?