Reflective Essay Assessment

ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS

For this assignment, write a reflective essay based on a personal experience regarding inclusion and diversity or organisational change within the workplace. If you have not had a personal experience with either, you may select a relevant inclusion and diversity, or organisational change issue reported in the media or within your subject.

Reflective writing is documenting the thinking process or revisiting a practical situation and reviewing your experiences through the lenses of the concepts or theories you are studying. In other words, reflective writing is recounting a particular experience and explore how you have changed or learned from those experiences.

When engaging in reflection, you begin by recalling a situation and the thoughts and feelings you encountered during the experience. From there, you explore your beliefs, values, and attitudes that underpin these thoughts and feelings. Lastly, as you study the subject, identify one or two salient points, concepts, or theories that you can relate to your situation and discuss your insights.

It is essential to realise that while you are writing your reflection, the story of the incident or event is not the focus. Instead, you should focus on the insights you gained from re-examining and documenting your reactions and connecting the salient points, concepts or theories to real-life situations.

When writing your reflective essay, you are not expected to review all the chapters in the subject before completing this assignment but rather focus on the relevant chapters indicated in the Key Information section of this brief. Additionally, a reflective essay consists of a balance between your personal observations, opinions, feelings, and beliefs and conventions of academic writing, such as crafting a thesis statement and using the salient findings, concepts, or theories to support or further explain your reflection.

Reflection Essay Format

When writing your reflective essay, we suggest using the 4Rs Model to Reflective Writing (Moon, 2006; OUT, 2010) to guide your thinking.

1. Introduction Paragraph

For your introduction paragraph, you should include the following:

1. Provide a hook. A hook is the first sentence that sets the tone for your report. The hook should give the reader a sense of the topic you are writing about and why it is interesting.
2. Write one or two sentences providing background information, specific context, or any salient points, concepts, or theories you will use.
3. Include a thesis statement stating an overview of the lessons learnt from your experience.
4. Reporting and Responding - Report your experience or explain what issues were involved
5. Explain the chronological story of your inclusion or diversity experience. In your explanation, include any initial thoughts, feelings, or perspectives you had during the experience.
6. Describe why your experience or issue is relevant in the modern workplace.
7. Connect any salient points, concepts or theories that are relevant to your experience.