So it’s been quite a while since my last blog and although it has slightly hindered my blogging process a lot has happened recently which has somewhat aided my journal writing experience. One of the main things being that I have been asked to choreograph a dance for a national schools dance competition. Whilst not the next ‘Ghost Dances’ it is a still “A new and exciting learning process for both me and my students” (Amy, 2013).
The first style of writing I tried was ‘Description’. I did what was asked and “described” the day in quite a detailed narrative, saying what had happened and what the main events had been, however, my account seemed to contain very little self-reflection of my own reactions. I would touch upon fragments of my emotions but would not continue to explore them further. As I researched more into this style of ‘Reflective Writing’ I found a quote that summed this up precisely, “There may be references to emotional reactions but they are not explored and not related to behavior”, (Moon, A Framework for Reflective Writing). This text further explores different methods of writing and separates, ‘Descriptive Writing’, ‘Descriptive account with some reflection’, ‘Reflective Writing (1)’ and ‘Reflective Writing (2)’.
Although I criticized the lack of reflection in my ‘Descriptive Account’, I do feel that out of all the styles, this is the one that came most naturally to me, as would it appear in many of the other blogs I have read on this topic. That being said, it could be further developed as a reflective method by incorporating more of my emotional reactions throughout the day.
The next style was ‘List’. This was a quick and straight to the point account of the day but consequently lacked detail you would get from a ‘descriptive’ journal entry. Looking back and reflecting on the journal entry I made in this particular style, I seemed to include lots of small occurrences that happened through the day. I did the lists in bullet point form and found that one bullet point would lead to several more. In some ways this would be a good choice of layout, for example, for an inquiry, but in terms of detailed account of my day, this method would not suffice. From reading the Handbook, I ‘googled’ the site www.listography.com, this is a site you can join and upload lists of whatever you want. One example I read was just a list of movies someone put up entitled, “Movies to watch”. This is a nice idea and another expansion of ‘Web 2.0’ with everyone sharing their opinions/views with, well everyone! However personally, this is not something that wold interest me because I do not feel that I would have a particular use for it.
From here, I went on to explore the style of ‘Evaluation’. What I thought went well. What I learnt/discovered. When writing this felt very similar to ‘Description’ and upon reflecting on this I think that when I wrote in the descriptive style, I was perhaps doing it in a more evaluative style anyway. I read some blogs of past students and one in particular stood out where he had stated that he was strict on himself in terms of what he wrote in his journal in order to stick to the style. I think I should have done this too. I found this style a lot more fluid as it enabled me to include how I felt the day went in both a productive and constructive way. “Today I taught a new warm-up involving different timings and change of direction. The students found this challenging at first but in a positive way and after doing it a couple of times, there was already a huge improvement. It also made me feel good as a teacher because I could see I was pushing them, but they were enjoying it at the same time”. (Amy, 2013). This is just one example of how, in my journal, I was evaluating the point I was making.
Moving onto, ‘Graphs, Charts and Diagrams’. For me, this in no way helped me reflect on any part of the day and when I look back, it hardly even makes sense! I wrote on one blog that I could perhaps use a graph or chart to represent my energy levels or stress levels in comparison to what it is I am doing, and on another blog I noticed they had drawn pictures and diagrams describing what had happened in their day. But to me, this just seems a very time consuming approach and would leave little in terms of detail when they go back and look at the events had taken place. On the other hand, many people find it soothing and relaxing and sometimes easier putting how they feel into a picture rather than writing down the words, there is also the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words” but I shall leave that one to your own interpretation as to whether or not you agree...
The idea of ‘What If’, was almost like writing a fairly tale as my brain seemed to forget about the bad side of things and always just wandered to what could be the best possible situation with the perfect “happily ever after” ending. As nice as it was to use my imagination and let my creativity flow, unfortunately, I was soon brought back to reality and well, that was the end of that!
Finally, writing in the style of, 'Another View’, I found very, very difficult. It’s hard to imagine how another person could view your day or, on a bigger scale, life and it felt really strange trying to see it from a different point of view. As I am currently teaching at a secondary school, I thought it may be quite interesting to write from the perspective of one of students. Or from one of my colleagues. On doing this it came to my attention that the majority of my day would be spent alone (when I am not teaching that is) and although that is not necessarily a bad thing, on a social front, perhaps a could make more of an effort to speak to people. This sounds silly writing it down but I think I could try this particular method again as it helped me learn something that I wouldn't usually even think about.
I think learning something about myself was definitely the main outcome from this task. Taking time to sit down and reflect is a huge part of learning and moreover without trying something new like this, I wouldn't have learnt anything. Out of all the styles, O would try ‘Another View’ again just as a kind of experiment but in terms of the style of will most regularly be writing in throughout my journal, I think would be ‘Evaluation’ just because it is what I am most used to and how I would naturally tend to write. I do like using lists and so would use them if making short points I wanted to remember but at this point in time I cannot see myself thinking to use the other styles of writing.
A Framework for Reflective Writing
Listography
Thanks for this Amy - yes it looks like you have reviewed the expertise about reflective writing. I think one of the benefits form examining 'how' we reflect is that the way we think about things becomes less generic and more specific - linked to experience and evidence that we have sensed (hearing, seeing, feeling, touching etc.). this means that we can see things better - identify - and decide. I was in a session yesterday with newly formed groups - and the aspects discussed seemed quite general - maybe too general. So finding things like - you spending the day alone - is a real finding! If yo were to go back to the above and pick out the things you found out about how your spend your working and social time - what would be the top 5 aspects about you and your work - so summarising the above - and yes great the social aspect is a big one to identify!
ReplyDeleteHi Paula, after our exchange of emails, I really looked into this. In terms of visual imagery, when I looked back over notes I'd made during a class - so separate to my journal - it appeared that I was drawing out choreography and formations with lots of different little pictures and diagrams. Like I said to you via email, it's funny what you don't realise until someone else points it out. So actually, I can now see relevance in the use of diagrams and it is a different way of storing information with out writing paragraphs and paragraphs.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing I found fascinating was the link to the 'psychology today' blog (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/beautiful-minds/201008/after-the-show-the-many-faces-the-performer) and as reading it just kept thinking "that's me", "that's what I do". I think especially how it says, "They consider the rhythym of activity followed by ideleness or reflection very important for the success of their work" links very nicely to this topic we are studying. And like you said to me, after the realisation of a lot of my time being spent alone, it is not necessarily a bad thing and energy is consequently focused in the right places. It then led me onto this, http://www.creativitypost.com/psychology/characteristics_of_highly_creative_people, another blog and if you read some of the comments it there are lots of agreements with what I said but also disagreements about scientific evidence backing up the points, one in particular questioning what "What biological adaptations enable a human to be creative?" This is a perfect example of how an inquiry can start, you have one question or are looking for one answer but that then leads to so many more questions and answers!