Guide to Writing a Reflective Essay for English Class
Although it may seem simple, writing an English class reflection essay often proves daunting for many students. This is often due to the difference of a reflective essay from typical academic writing assignments and poor exposure of students to reflective essay writing rules.
This guide will highlight various tips, the parts, and the necessary steps for writing a reflective essay for English.
What is an English reflective essay?
A reflection English essay is a paper that recounts a life experience or event that led to personal transformation. When writing this kind of essay, you should highlight:
- The discovery you made from the experience
- Highlight the improvement you gained from the experience
- Cover the actions you could do differently if you were to relive the phenomena
- Gauge the decisions you made at the moment under study
Parts of an English reflective essay assignment
Like other writing tasks, a reflective essay is divided into the introduction, the body, and a conclusion. However, a reflective essay differs from other writing assignments in the type of content covered within the paper.
Reflective essay introduction
The introduction to a reflective essay comprises a hook to reel your reader into reading your paper and the interesting part of a story. This can be presented in a short narration covering the overview of your experience.
The introduction's end is a thesis statement clearly showing your paper's key idea.
An example of a quality introduction:
Last summer, a bunch of friends and I set out to experience the vibrant nightlife of Las Vegas. After a brawl with local drunks and an encounter with authority, we gained more than we had bargained for.
This example piques your reader's interest in discovering the turn of events that resulted in the brawl and how this experience transformed you.
The body
Employ a chronological approach to reduce confusion when recounting your story when covering the body. An outline can help this as a map; the outline helps you keep track of ideas and trim your essay of redundant information.
The outline ensures that you are not trapped in a spiral as you cover a passionate experience. This, in turn, ensures your paper's coherence and offers a flow that leads towards your main lesson.
However, unlike other papers, paragraphs in a reflective essay should have a topic sentence, a critique, and a reflection. This helps you piece up the article and tie each idea to the thesis statement, ensuring a foolproof paper.
The conclusion
The conclusion is a major part of an English course reflection essay. Like the introduction, the conclusion summarizes the points and lessons gained from your experiences and highlights how these experiences transformed your attitude and character.
Like other papers, however, avoid introducing new ideas in this section. Limit your conclusion to the ideas you have already covered within your body.
Tips for writing an AP English reflection essay
Besides mastering the structure and style of your essay, these tips may come in handy to help you maneuver an English reflective essay assignment.
- For each point, highlight how you felt. Descriptive words immerse your reader into the story, making your paper more captivating and adding more credence to your experiences.
- Use the first-person tone to narrate a story on a phenomenon you partook in.
- Be honest regarding your opinions and lessons learned from an event.
- Highlight your turning point in the conclusion
- Maintain a formal tone as it is an academic task
- Consider covering the introduction after completing the body to understand the lesson of your reflection essay better
- Start early on your paper and chunk tasks into small manageable portions.
Final take
Writing a reflective essay for English class need not be a daunting task. These tips should come in handy to ensure a smooth experience as you approach your reflection essay assignment. If you are still having a challenge, please consult our experts for custom help.