THE CEA FORUM - Winter/Spring 2011 - Using Reflection to Promote Students’Writing Process Awareness

Oct 15, 2026

Winter/Spring 2011 issue of THE CEA FORUM presenting Ann N. Amicucci’s argument that reflection-based writing assignments can strengthen first-year composition students’ ownership of their writing processes. The article critiques early teaching methods that frame “the writing process” as a fixed formula and explains how reflective practice helps students engage, commit, and make future-oriented decisions. Drawing on theoretical foundations from Janet Emig and Donald Murray, it then uses students’ voices to show process awareness.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages23

Reading Time58 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Reflection and Student Learning: Theoretical Roots

Writing as a Mode of Learning

Success and Engagement Through Reflection

THE CEA FORUM Winter/Spring 2011 Using Reflection to Promote Students’Writing Process Awareness ANN N . AMICUCCI Indiana University of Pennsylvania Introduction Writing in a process is an ongoing and integral part of every writing course, but when I was anew teacher, I also saw it as a subject in its own right: “the writing process,” a topic to whose explicit discussion I would devote one day early in the semester of each first-year writing course I taught. Though I envisioned myself as a teacher who let students make their own choices, my classroom method of talking about writing processes did not allow for as much student agency as I would have liked. In those classes, I would begin the designated process day by telling students what “the writing process” is: a way of thinking about writing as a collection of activities rather than as one activity that results in a final written product. I would draw a diagram on the board that included column headings for prewriting, writing, and revising, and I would ask students to help me fill in strategies in each column. And then I would start disclaiming. I would explain that such a writing process is not linear. I would explain that each writer’s process is different. I would stress that the list we were compiling on the board was a suggestion, not a prescription. Yet these disclaimers weren’t enough to overshadow the overall message I was sending: that “the THE CEA FORUM Winter/Spring 2011 writing process”was a formula to follow, a set of steps to which student writers either did or did not adhere. I knew my students knew about writing in a process already because they had things to say when I asked for their contributions to the list on the board. But I began to see that these students lacked a sense of ownership of their own writing processes. They were enacting what Nancy Sommers would call the role of the Everystudent and playing to the Everyteacher (“Between” 29) . These students were repeating what past teachers had told them a writing process should consist of in order to placate their current teacher’s questioning about the same. I began using reflection in the first-year writing classroom to remedy this situation and to get students thinking about the idea of a writing process in ways that would inform the investigation of their own processes. When I asked students to reflect on their writing processes, I started to see a level of engagement with the idea of a writing process that I had not been able to achieve by hosting discussions of “the writing process” in an abstract sense. In this article, I demonstrate how the use of reflective writing assignments in first-year composition facilitated students’understanding of their own writing process strategies. I first discuss the theoretical roots from which reflective practice among student writers grows. Next, I employ my students’voices to demonstrate that reflection allowed these students to become aware of and to make decisions about their own writing processes. Finally, I offer tips for teachers who wish to bring reflective writing into their classrooms. THE CEA FORUM Winter/Spring 2011 Reflection and Student Learning: Theoretical Roots Composition teachers recognize that writing and thought are inextricably linked, and scholars in the last few decades have paid particular attention to this connection. Janet Emig’s discussion in “Writing as a Mode of Learning” exposes the connection between writing practice and the exercise of thought. Emig demonstrates how tenets of successful learning, such as engaging in activities related to the material being learned and reproducing that material in someway, are emphasized in writing, an activity that combines both a product and the process necessary to achieve that product (124). Emig’s discussion relates to learning of any kind: by writing about a subject—by engaging with that subject in writing’s various forms and activities—students can learn about th

FAQs

Why does the author critique teaching “the writing process” as a formula?

The author notes that disclaimers about nonlinearity and individual differences were insufficient because students still received an overall message that the writing process was a set of steps to follow.

How does reflection help students develop awareness of their writing processes?

By asking students to reflect, the author observes greater engagement and emphasizes reflection as a way for students to think about, comment on, and make decisions about their own process strategies.

Which scholars and ideas does the article rely on for theoretical support?

The article builds on Janet Emig’s connection between writing, thought, and learning, and on Donald Murray’s view of writing as an act of thought, supporting the role of writing as a vehicle for reflection and learning.

Oct 15, 2026

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