GUIDELINE FOR TEACHING AND WRITING ESSAYS ... - Thutong

3.6 Reflective essay (Home and First Additional Language)
In a reflective essay the writer contemplates an idea and gives his or her emotional reactions
and feelings. The writer could, for example, reflect on dreams or aspirations.
Examples topics:
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This is how I remember the best teacher I ever had.
Give your views on life and how it should be lived.
Consider the following when writing a reflective essay:
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A reflective essay is subjective.
Feelings and emotions play a major role.
A substantial part of the essay may be descriptive. These descriptions should be vivid
and aim to recreate recollections or feelings of the writer in the reader.
The ideas, thoughts or feelings expressed should reveal sincerity and personal
involvement.
Food for thought:
While the various essay kinds seem independent of each other, it would be interesting to
follow how the stages involved to produce one could be the brainstorming sessions for the
subsequent ones. For an example, should the narrative not form the base for a description?
Could one not argue in favour of one’s description of an item, or, having compared one’s
description of the same to another’s, come to an evaluation of some sort?
Taking it into the transactional texts, could a newspaper article not be a result of an interview,
a dialogue a result of a speech, a diary entry a summary of all that took place during the day,
among others?
The moral of the story:
Although all texts have each, their own identity, they are each a product of a spread of other
texts.
The challenge is for learners and teachers to put this in practice.
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