Reflective Essay Requirements and Rubric

Reflective Essay Requirements and Rubric

by Kathie Napholz

​Writing a title

• ​Try to make your title relate to your essay, not simply the topic

• ​For example, rather than calling a paper just "Reflection on Literary Magazine Discussion," you might call it something like "Learning to Ask Better Questions: Reflection on Socratic Discussions" or "Working on Follow-Ups: How to Be Better at Socratic Discussions" or "Speaking Loudly and With Confidence: Reflecting on Our Discussions"

​Sections of the Reflection Essay Rubric

• Depth of Reflection

• ​Use of Evidence

• ​Required Components

• ​Language Use

• ​Conventions

Depth of Reflection​

​Target goal:

​Demonstrates a conscious and thorough understanding of the writing prompt and the subject matter. This reflection can be used as an example for other students.

​

​To check yourself on this, read through your final draft and make sure everything you say connects with the prompt:

What have you LEARNED about being a discussion leader, discussion participant, question-writer, and chooser of materials to read and discuss?

​Use of Evidence

​Target goal:

​Uses specific and convincing examples from the discussions to support claims in your own writing.

​

​Use your notes from the discussions as well as your memory to address your own discussion as well as others that you participated in.

​Require Components

​Target goal:

​Makes insightful and applicable remarks on leading and participating in discussions, as well as developing quality questions and choosing texts well.

​

​Check your draft to make sure you have addressed all four requirement and that your writing is clearly organized to show your insightful and applicable understanding of all four requirements.

​Language Use

​Target goal:

​Uses stylistically sophisticated language that is precise and engaging, with a notable sense of voice, awareness of audience and purpose, and varied sentence structure.

​

​Apps like Paperrater may help with this area of the rubric. You will want to revise your writing so that it sounds both academic and authentic. This is where you are able to shine in terms of showing your skills as a writer.

​Conventions

​Target goal:

​Demonstrates control of the conventions with essentially no errors, even with sophisticated language.

​

​Once you are finished writing and you feel like your paper is flawless, proofread it once more, send it through a proofreading app, and ask a trusted friend to proofread for you. If you can learn to do this on your own, you will save a LOT of money. If you get good at this, you can make a lot of money. (I used to charge $10/page to proofread...in 1992.)

Multiple Choice

A good title for your essay should...

• be the same for every person in the class

• talk about the type of writing you are doing

• relate to what you have written in your essay

Multiple Choice

Some of the five parts of the grading rubric will be...

• Content

  Evidence

  Spelling

• Depth of Reflection

  Use of Evidence

  Required Components

• Grammar

  Organization

  Evidence

Multiple Choice

The target for "Depth of Reflection" includes...

• a thorough understanding of the writing prompt and subject matter

• writing at least 1-1/2 pages

Multiple Choice

The target for "Use of Evidence" includes...

• using at least three examples from discussions

• specific and convincing examples that support your claim

• quoting people word-for-word from the d

Multiple Choice

The target for "Required Components" includes all the following EXCEPT...

• qualities of a good discussion leader

• qualities of a good discussion participant

• qualities of good discussion questions

• qualities of a good choice of text

• qualities of appropriate leader attire

Multiple Choice

The "Language Use" target includes awareness and mastery of all the following EXCEPT...

• writer's voice

• audience

• purpose

• sophisticated language and sentence structure

• comma rules

Multiple Choice

The "Conventions" target includes writing with no errors, even with sophisticated language use.

• true

• false

Multiple Choice

While "Language Use" deals with the style and sophistication of writing, "Conventions" is about writing correctly and proofreading.

• true

• false