You know by now that every essay needs some type of supporting information. Persuasive essays need support for an argument, descriptive essays use imagery to describe an event, and expository essays include details that analyze a topic. In a reflective essay, the supporting details help tell a riveting story and share the writer's thoughts, feelings, and insights.
Unlike some types of essays, reflective essays don't require any trips to the library or Internet searches. Instead, you must carefully reflect on an event in your own life and try to understand what it means to you. Once you set your mind to remembering the specifics of an event, you're likely to remember more details than you could or should include in a reflective essay. For this reason, you will need to weed out the unimportant details from the details necessary to tell your story. The best way to do this is to keep in mind your reasons for writing. Remember that the goal of a reflective essay is to share what you've learned from an experience. Below are some basic guidelines to help you identify essential details and toss the ones you don’t need.
Provide just enough background so that your readers understand the context of the story, including the setting and who is involved. Be sure to only focus on the most important people in the story. In reflective essays, the background information typically is just a few sentences or, at most, a short paragraph.
Your reflective essay will need to focus on one important incident in your life. If you must include related incidents, make sure that they are essential to your story.
As you consider whether to add a descriptive detail to your reflective essay, ask yourself, "Will this detail help make the situation seem more real to readers?" You can also ask, "Is this detail vitally important to the story I'm telling?" and "If I leave out this information, will the reader still understand what is happening?"
Your reflections answer the "so what?" of your narrative. You may incorporate them at the beginning and end, at the end only, or throughout the essay. The important thing is to clearly communicate your insights by telling your readers what you felt, thought, believed, and learned. Keep in mind that your reflections, while essential, should not make up the bulk of your essay. Instead, most of your essay should describe and recount the event on which you are reflecting.
Sometimes you will have learned several things from one incident. But just as you can overwhelm readers with descriptive details, you can also overwhelm them with too many insights. Choose one or two important things you learned from the experience and focus on those.
Now look at a rough draft of a student's reflective essay. Read this excerpt and then see if you can identify details that should be added and those that should be left out.
Towards the end of 8th grade, I realized that I would need 100 volunteer hours to graduate high school, and I had to start soon if I was to get ahead of the game. It seemed as though I was running out of ideas. Then, it came to me; why not work with Spanish-speaking immigrants? I was learning Spanish at the time, and I figured it would be a great way to pursue academics while helping the community in Richmond, Virginia, where I lived.
After doing some research, I found the Sacred Heart Center, which helps Latinos learn English and become citizens. There were many ways I could have lent a hand to this organization, but being a camp counselor for younger kids seemed like the best choice. At the time, I only knew a little Spanish, so this age group (5–10) seemed like a good way to improve may ability to speak the language without being too overwhelmed.
Before I knew it, the time came to pack my bag, fill my water bottle, and embark for the day. After a brief skirmish with the locked front door, I was finally inside the church, ready for whatever chaos would ensue. Not long after though, the little niños strolled in one by one. I felt out of place, largely because everyone had already met each other the day before. To make matters worse, I was also the youngest counselor and the one who knew the least Spanish. However, I began to make some simple conversations, draw pictures, and make paper airplanes for the kids. (I became known for my paper airplane making and flying, which meant I had to fold sheet after sheet in the coming weeks to appease over a dozen eager children.) As noble as I had thought it would be, my work consisted mostly of simple tasks, such as taking kids to the bathroom and asking, ¿te lavaste las manos? (Had they washed their hands?) As time progressed, though, I began to feel more comfortable in my environment, both with the children and the other counselors. Some of the younger ones started calling me "Mr. Henry," which would make my heart melt.
To start off each morning, we would eat bananas, draw pictures of submarines, race each other with paper airplanes, and argue about whose Pokémon was better. Afterward, we would start the day's main activity—a trip to the collegiate Olympic swimming pool nearby. On the first bus ride, I lent a boy named Jesus my phone so he could play Temple Run. This drove everyone who didn't get to play off the rails. Needless to say, fights over who would get access to my phone became routine. Though these bus trips happened a lot, they didn't make up every day I volunteered.
To add more background information, which sentence, if any, should be added?
- "I really did not want to complete this part of my education. It seemed like a silly thing to do which had nothing to do with my grades."
- "All my friends were taking the summer off or going to camp; I planned to join them once I finished this project."
- No additions are needed.
Make sure your narrative sticks with the facts of the story rather than exploring other tangents.
Make sure your narrative sticks with the facts of the story rather than exploring other tangents.
Make sure your narrative sticks with the facts of the story rather than exploring other tangents.
Which detail, if any, is essential to helping you better understand the story?
- "Soon I was scheduled to offer my services every Tuesday for the month of July."
- "I have always enjoyed foreign languages and was thrilled to begin learning Spanish in the 8th grade."
- No additions are needed.
Including a time for when the writer would begin his volunteer work is important to the story.
Including a time for when the writer would begin his volunteer work is important to the story.
Including a time for when the writer would begin his volunteer work is important to the story.
Which details, if any, should be added after this sentence to show more of the writer's reflection?
- "Some of the children were very shy, so they didn't interact with me much. They played well with each other, though."
- "I may talk a lot about serving the community and being kind to everyone, but in all honesty, I care much more about things like being "Mr. Henry" to a group of admiring kids than doing good for the sake of doing good.
- No additions are needed.
The details that talk more about the writer's thoughts and feelings are most appropriate here.
The details that talk more about the writer's thoughts and feelings are most appropriate here.
The details that talk more about the writer's thoughts and feelings are most appropriate here.
What details should be added to the end of this paragraph?
- more details about the daily activities
- more details about how the kids playing with the phone
- more details about the trips the kids took
A brief summary about what kinds of trips the kids took would help further the narrative.
A brief summary about what kinds of trips the kids took would help further the narrative.
A brief summary about what kinds of trips the kids took would help further the narrative.
If the writer wants to discuss one of the children in particular, what should he do?
- Add everything about the child to this essay.
- Mention the child briefly in this essay.
- Add this information to the end of the essay.
Getting bogged down on one aspect of a story, such as one person, can derail the narrative.
Getting bogged down on one aspect of a story, such as one person, can derail the narrative.
Getting bogged down on one aspect of a story, such as one person, can derail the narrative.
Summary
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