Miakara Belanger journal 5

For this journal, please read the pdfs labeled “Yancey_On Reflection” and “Taczak_Reflection” in our Google folder. Yancey provides a brief overview of the scholarship and research that has facilitated our current understanding of reflection. She also explicitly defines the term, and writes about three different kinds of reflection. Taczak provides a slightly different definition of reflection and writes about its usefulness for writers. For this journal, please respond to the following:

How do Yancey and Taczak each define reflection? How does Yancey build on others’ scholarship to define reflection? According to both Yancey and Taczak, what does reflection enable writers to do? How might we understand reflection in connection with each of the key terms we have discussed so far—genre, audience, purpose, and discourse community?

Finally, please compose (as opposed to merely finding) a visual that you believe will help us to better understand reflection. This can be an image, a chart, a gif, video, etc. that you have created. Write a few sentences about what you hope readers will understand about reflection by looking at your visual.

Yancey defines reflection as "the process by which we know what we have accomplished and by which we articulate accomplishment and the products of those processes" (p.6). Taczak says reflection is " a mode of inquiry: a deliberate way of systematically recalling writing experiences to reframe the current writing situation" (para 1). Yancey talks about how using students as research subjects to understand their writing process and how reflection is used, we can understand how to use reflection in the teaching process and what benefits it has to the writing process. She cites many researches about the writing process for students and compares how many authors have spoken about reflection. She creates an assemblage of opinions and knowledge on the subject and adds her own experience in to the mix to create her own text. Yancey and Taczak believe that reflection enables the writing process to become more fine tuned and is an important part of making the writing process successful. They talk about how reflection should occur within the writing process and not just as an after thought. They say how reflection is a way of understanding what you have learned and revising your thoughts to fit your goals. Reflection is one of the key terms for our theory of writing because it is an important step in being a successful writer. Just like recognizing your audience, tailoring your style to a discourse community, understanding the purpose of your writing, and creating the right genre format, reflecting is another key step in the process that betters the writers work and should not be skipped. All of these things help make a better writer and are important things to spend time on. 

   

This visual is a composition of the writing process and how reflection is involved. I intend it to portray a writer who stops to reflect on his work, understands what he has learned, changes according to new ideas and revisions, and repeats this throughout the writing process.