Task 2B - Reflective Writing

The handbook suggests many ways to record the events of your day; I thought I would attempt them all, to discover the ones that best suited my writing style.

Description

This style of writing came most naturally to me. It enables you to clearly see your day, the events, time and what occurred. I could describe each detail thoroughly and remember how I felt at the time. This is the style I enjoyed using most and will continue to practice it as I believe it gave me a true representation of my day. It also gave me more of a chance to reflect on my behaviours.

Initial reflection

I find reflective writing difficult so I struggled using this method of writing. I felt that I spent more time thinking, what does that mean? Am I doing this right? as opposed to just writing about what my day entailed. However, when I discussed this method with the tutor, I realised I practiced this technique every day at work when evaluating a lesson. It is definitely a useful tool in my professional practice but I didn’t enjoy using daily, I think this would be more beneficial over a longer timescale e.g. a week.

Lists

I am a HUGE fan of lists; I make packing lists, to do lists, shopping lists. I am quite an organised person so I find that a list helps me prioritise and ensure that tasks are completed. However, when it came to writing about my day in list form, I did not find it sufficiently focused enough as it kept merging into mind maps/spider diagrams. It was challenging to write one word to describe what happened or how I felt and consequently I don’t think that this particular technique worked for me.

Evaluation

I didn’t really understand the purpose of evaluating your journal. Before putting pen to paper I feel I had already conducted an evaluation so this technique added no value.  However, for some people evaluating their journal would give them a clear understanding of how they felt during the day and helped them to focus their ideas.

Graphs, Charts and diagrams

Having a love for maths and numbers, I thought that I would really enjoy putting the data into a graph or a chart but it was completely the opposite, I didn’t enjoy it in the least. I felt it didn’t give me a clear reflection on my feelings during the day, the events that happened and what the reasons could have been for this. It gave me an overview but didn’t allow for any explanation of why I was feeling that way.  I thought that it was more time consuming and less effective for me than writing it down.

What if?

Now this a tricky one, I personally feel I am a huge ‘What If’ person and continually ask myself, ‘what if I had done this, said this, would it have turned out differently?’ This then conflicts with my, ‘everything happens for a reason’ mind set. The handbook says to think about what you would LOVE /HATE to happen and says to use your imagination. This led me to consider how powerful your imagination can be and how it can take you anywhere you want to go sometimes consciously but sometimes subconsciously.

By adopting this form of writing, I stopped thinking about using the ‘What If’ for the past and instead focused on what could happen if I applied it to the future. What if, next time I did that task I used this instead of that, would the results be any different? There is little point in dwelling on the past which you cannot change and focus on improving your future. I really enjoyed writing in this style because it came naturally as I already use ‘What If’ in my daily life.

Stream of Consciousness

This was something that was mentioned in a Skype call with Paula. I mentioned I found it hard to express my ideas, thoughts and feelings on paper. I think, maybe, I worry about other people’s opinions or spend too much time on wording. She suggested that I try using ‘Stream of Consciousness’. This is a popular technique to break down that barrier against writing; you have to write for a continuous five minutes without allowing your pen to leave the paper.

This I LOVED!! I highly recommend this technique to anyone that struggles to get ideas onto paper. It is a great way to get everything out and then pick out the key points of that day. I also feel this would be something I will take on board when writing an essay to find an idea or if I get sad or angry, a kind of way to de stress.

Images

I love looking through Instagram and Pinterest, I could do it all day. I am constantly finding pictures to describe my mood or a situation I find myself in. I am quite a visual person and forever doodling so I thought I would include some images or quotes that may have resonated with me that day. I feel like this really helped me when I looked over my journal as it reiterated how I was feeling at that moment.