Author: Jacquelyn Blain

Reflective practice isn’t just for the writing classroom. Many if not most workplaces use a form of it, and it’s a common part of any internship you do in most disciplines, like nursing or human services. Here’s a visual way to think about it:

Reflective-Practice-in-the-Workplace

Compositionists think about writing as not just elimination of errors, or following a 5-paragraph template, or giving the instructor what they want. We believe:

1. Writing is not just about what you say (content) but
2. also how you say something (form),
3. how you come up with your ideas (invention),
4. how you go through the act of thinking and writing (process),
5. and whether what you’ve said or how you’ve said it successfully meet the current situation (rhetoric).

In other words, writing is about communicating in ways that work—that do something in the world.

Freewriting about your writing concepts

IDEA: Writing is impacted by prior experience

• Freewrite 1: Write about your most important memories of reading, writing, and speaking. What were your experiences at home and outside school? What were your experiences IN school? How do these experiences impact what you believe, feel, and do with writing and reading today?

IDEA: Writing helps people make meaning and get things done, but there are always constraints.

• Freewrite 2: Write about a time when you wrote something and it didn’t work at all – people didn’t understand it, thought you had made terrible mistakes, ignored it, whatever. And not just in school, either. Describe the experiences and your feelings about it.

Pair-share. Square up. Whole class.

IDEA: “Good” writing is dependent on Writers, Readers, Situation, Technology, and Use

• Think about a time when a rule or rules you were taught about writing by one authority (like a parent or teacher or boss) where changed or contradicted by another authority. What was the rule? Did you understand the reason for the change or contradiction? Were you bothered by it? Was the difference and the reasons for it explained to you?

IDEA: Schools are supposed to be places where the connection between literacy and democracy, between free speech and an informed citizen, is taught.

• How does the piece from Deborah Brandt connect with the freewrites and thinking you’ve done today?

HOMEWORK: Look back over your freewrites from today. Jot down the rules that you find you keep saying to yourself whenever you write, especially for school. Also note the things that make it hard for you to write in general.

Read Rose. Do U1 blog post 2.

Then do GUM blog post 1.