After reading and discussing some examples of educational writing that make use of vignettes (brief, vivid descriptions
of real-life situations), you will write a short essay of this kind that draws on personal experience or observation.
This will involve submitting a draft and rewriting the essay based on feedback (25%).
The three reflective essays provided in the courseware package are intended as models:
“The Green Monongahela” by John Taylor Gatto;
“Death at an Early Age” by Jonathan Kozol;
“Making Words Count” by Susan Ohanian.
Intentionally, these three essays have quite different moods and styles. Gatto’s is autobiographical, and inspirational;
the central story concerns his interaction with a young female student called Milagros, which confirms his decision to
become a teacher. Kozol’s is observational, and tragic: he focuses on a small African-American boy called Stephen, and
his soul-destroying experiences in art class. Ohanian’s is told in the wry voice of a practitioner, an experienced
teacher with a good sense of humour; the central story describes her interactions with Tiffany, a particularly difficult
Grade 7 student. Each of these essays provides a good model for your own reflective essay: they are filled with
interesting detail, have a strong central storyline, and contain insightful comments on the meaning of the events they
describe.
To provide you with more help, a six-page handoutView in a new window is available that analyses a couple more reflective
essays, by Eleanor Duckworth and Parker Palmer, both of them famous education writers. It’s recommended that you read
through the handout carefully.
Essentially, the reflective essay tells a story of an educational experience, good or bad, that you have had, and uses it
to help us understand a bigger idea about education. Gatto’s essay is about the importance of teaching who you are;
Kozol’s, about the cruelty schools can inflict on children from backgrounds of poverty and marginalization; Ohanian’s,
about the need for teachers to display creativity and responsiveness to individual students and situations; Duckworth’s,
about the value of creating teaching situations where children are free to experiment and make discoveries of their own;
and Palmer’s, about the need for teachers to accept their own vulnerabilities and weaknesses in order to connect with
their students.
Thus to write a good reflective essay you need (a) a good story, and (b) a good idea about what the story means. Your
work will be graded on those two elements plus your ability to weave them together into a coherent whole.
As the handout says, a good maximum length of the reflective essay is 1500 words. If it is longer, try to simplify.
Drafts are due in class on May 20.
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