The purpose of this form of writing is to provide an opportunity for reflection on your work. This is a scholarly essay — not a simple‘diary’ or anecdotal retelling — in which you should elaborate upon and contextualise on your experience within the current cultural context. Through this assessment you will develop skills in critical reflection, academic and media research, documentation, and writing.
Task Description ✏️
For your Reflective Essay, you will reflect on an experience or situation from this unit, answering the following questions:
What happened?
Why is it important or interesting? Why do you need to reflect?
What action do I take to improve the situation or make a good situation even better?
As part of this task, you must also:
Outline any additional requirements
e.g. Draw from the readings provided to you throughout the semester
e.g. Use at least 5 academic sources to support your arguments
Additional Information 📚
To help you complete this task successfully, the following resources are provided:
Marking Rubric — refer to this to understand how you will be assessed
Checklist: How to write a Reflexive Essay — use this to help you complete the task
Example: Reflexive Essay — review this to see a completed example of the task
List any additional resources and how students should use them here
Checklist: How to write a Reflexive Essay ✅
Tip: copy and paste this checklist into your Notes section, ticking off step as you go.
Step 1: Task Understanding
To help you understand what you need to do for this task and how will be assessed, you must:
Read the instructions and checklist carefully
Read your Marking Rubric
Step 2: Plan Essay
To help you plan your Reflexive Essay, use this structure, adding dot points under each heading:
Introduction
Focus: state the focus of your reflection
Lessons: share the main lessons you learned from this experience
Main themes: introduce the main themes that you will address in the body
Suggestions: offer suggestion as to what you learned from the experience and how you may move forward
Body
For each theme, you should:
Identify: the theme, as introduced in the introduction
Personal experience: share a personal experience/s that supports each theme
Alignment: connect your experience clearly to course material, research, or other experiences to support the theme
Conclusion
Review: the importance of your experiences within the context of learning
Restate: how you will move forward from this specific experience
Suggest: additional opportunities for future growth or engagement
Step 4: Write Essay
Building on your plan, write your Reflexive Essay. Things to remember:
Purpose 🎯
Task Description ✏️
Additional Information 📚
Checklist: How to write a Reflexive Essay ✅