The Use of Reflective Writing to Improve Students’ Writing and
Critical Thinking Skills
Siti Mutiara Sani, Nia Kurniawati and Dahlya Indra Nurwanti
UIN Sunan Gunung Djati Bandung, A.H. Nasution street no.105,Cibiru, Bandung, Indonesia
Keywords: Writing Skills, Reflection, Reflective Writing, Indonesian Context, EFL Students.
Abstract: Writing represents individual's way of thinking. Grammar and style are important in writing, but it is also
necessary to focus on the value that flows through every sentence and paragraph. Both writing and thinking
could be practiced through Reflective Writing (RW). RW facilitates the individual to sharpen general writing
and writing reflection. The research aims to describe and analyze the students’ writing skill by making RW.
Specifically, this research is conducted to find out whether or not Reflective Writing (RW) could improve
students both in the aspect of general writing and writing reflection. This is qualitative research, particularly
a case study. The three participants are selected purposively by considering the first draft of RW. The
instruments to collect the data are document analysis and interview. The result shows that all participants
improved in their general writing, especially on content, organization, grammar, vocabulary, and mechanics.
In making reflection, two participants improve to the higher level of reflection. The research is necessary for
teaching EFL writing in Indonesian context in which RW is still considered a new way to teach the students
writing and thinking skills.
1 INTRODUCTION
Writing depicts someone’s mind and attitude about
something. At the same time, writing forms thinking.
This complex activities of representing individual
thought and shaping individual thought (Beed, 2005)
about something in writing makes it a challenging
activity. Moreover, this writing activity is found to be
more challenging for EFL (English as Foreign
Language) learners who need to consider both content
and linguistic aspects of English language in their
writings at the same time (Adas and Bakir, 2013;
Faraj, 2015; Mohammad and Hazarika, 2016).
Therefore, the continuous writing practice is
necessary for EFL students not only to improve their
writing skills but also to promote their thinking
capacity.
To practice writing, Reflective Writing (RW) is
considered to be the gate to sharpen general writing
skill and encourage thoughtful and balanced level of
thinking (“Students - Reflective Writing and
Thinking,” n.d.). RW helps students to process and
explore ideas, and analytical skill about their own
thoughts, opinions, and experiences (Moon, 2006a, p.
36). Moreover, making RW involves students in
doing self-assessment (Yazım, 2014) and evaluating
their experiences, beliefs, values, and behaviors
(Roberts and Westville, 2008). In the scope of
education, involving the students in writing
reflectively opens widely a chance to reflect and
record concrete experiences, to improve writing
ability, to encourage observational, critical and
creative skills (Dyment and O’connell, 2003).
In addition, thinking reflectively is considered as
important as writing reflectively. For the university
students, thinking reflectively or doing reflection is
an important activity (Burdina, 2013) that helps them
find out meaningful learning based on their daily
experience (experiential - learning) (Benne et al.,
2016). Thinking by writing is an effective way to
make decision carefully and deeply, and it can also
improve awareness to the environment, situation,
experience, and themselves in order to act better in
the future life.
A number of research regarding RW have been
conducted. However, this research is focused on the
students’ general writing skill that could be assessed
by making RW. In addition, this research tries to find
out whether RW facilitates students in making a
reflection by focusing on the students’ improvement
in the level of reflection.
Sani, S., Kurniawati, N. and Nurwanti, D.
The Use of Reflective Writing to Improve Students’ Writing and Critical Thinking Skills.
DOI: 10.5220/0007166903310335
In Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference
on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education (CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017) - Literacy, Culture, and Technology in Language Pedagogy and Use, pages 331-335
ISBN: 978-989-758-332-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
331

2 WRITING SKILL
Writing becomes an incisive weapon for the writer in
expressing oneself and conveying thought through
words. Writing enables the writer to share meaning
and understanding (Hyland, 2002). There are three
ways of evaluating writing. They are teacher
evaluation, self-evaluation, and peer evaluation
(Rothschild and Klingenberg, 1990).
Rubrics are used as alternative instruments for
evaluation because it helps the students to understand
expectations, it provides the students to evaluate own
performance, and it establishes a range of
performance categories (O’Neill and Gately, 2014).
In this research, the rubric from (Brown, 2007) is used
as an instrument to assess students' improvement in
general writing aspect. This rubric consists of Content
(topic and details), Organization (identification and
description), Grammar (Agreement), Vocabulary,
and Mechanics (spelling, punctuation, and
capitalization).
3 REFLECTION
Brockbank and McGill (1998:94) define reflection as
a part of reflective practice, and it is divided into two
parts. First, reflection takes the cognitive and
affective experience into consideration. Second, the
reflection is the process of converting and creating the
meaning of experiences. According to Illeris
(2007:65) reflection is defined as an afterthought
activity.
Four scheme of (Kember et al., 2008a) could be
used as a rubric to identify students’ level of
reflection. The four level of reflections are from the
lowest is non-reflection level, the understanding
level, reflection level and the highest level is a critical
reflection. Each of the levels has its indicators that
help the identification.
4 REFLECTIVE WRITING (RW)
The use of RW in education is not a new case. It
facilitates students to practice writing. Reflective
writing formed from the process of reflections or
reflective thinking. Moon (2006) considers the
reflective writing involves a conscious and stated
purpose, a specified learning outcome, and an action
or clarification. The outcome is mostly represented in
a written form that can be seen and assessed by others.
Meanwhile, according to Chinniah and Nalliah
(2012), the common types of assignment that have
been used for reflective writing are portfolios,
learning journals, log book, case summary, web-
based learning, peer review, and self-assessment.
Reflective Writing helps the students in personally
engaging in the learning process through writing.
The form of Reflective Writing is based on the
reflective cycle theory by (Gibbs, 1998). In a
classroom situation, the structured RW is preferable
because it keeps students on the topic and guides the
students decide what to write. In the Reflective Cycle
by Gibbs, there are seven steps in making the
reflection. They are Description, Feeling, Evaluation,
Analysis, Conclusions (general), Conclusions
(specific), and Personal Action Plans. In addition,
every step has detailed description that could guide
students in making reflection from their real-life
experiences.
5 METHODS
This qualitative research particularly a case study
research aims to focus on students' general writing
skill improvement such as in term of grammar,
vocabulary, and mechanics. In addition, this research
tries to identify students’ level of reflection. The
rubric from (Brown, 2007) is used as an instrument to
assess students’ general writing skill and the four-
category scheme from (Kember et al., 2008a) is used
as a rubric to identify students’ level of reflection.
The participants of the research are three students
that selected purposively from the first draft of RW.
They are Andine, Tari, and Fia and the students come
from one of the Islamic University in Bandung,
Indonesia. The participants were given the template,
the example, and the explanation related to the
process of making RW. They have been making RW
for three weeks, and three RW was collected. The first
and the third of RW became the source of data.
6 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
This section explains the purpose of the research that
is to find out the students’ general writing
improvement and the level of reflection in Reflective
Writing.
6.1 Students’ General Writing Skill
The purpose of this section is to know students'
improvement of writing skill in general aspects. The
CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology
Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
332

rubric from (Brown, 2007) is used and three assessors
are chosen based on their skill in writing to assess the
participants' general writing skill. They are A1, A2,
and A3.
Figure 1: Andine’s general writing skill.
The first participants, Andine gains an
improvement in general writing. A1, A2, and A3
agree that Andine improves general writing skill in
term of content, grammar, and mechanics.
Figure 2: Tari’s general writing skill.
The second participant is Tari. A1 gives an
improvement in content and vocabulary. A2 increases
score in the organization. Moreover, A3 gives an
improvement in grammar.
Figure 3: Fia’s general writing skill.
The third participant is Fia. A1 gives an
improvement in grammar and vocabulary aspect. A2
gives the improvement in mechanics. A3 gives an
improvement in mechanics, organization, and
vocabulary aspects. Fia can write properly from the
first week making RW.
All the three participants gain an improvement in
general writing skill by making reflective writing.
The result shows that students improve in content,
grammar, mechanics, organization, and vocabulary.
6.2 Students’ Level of Reflection
This section would reveal whether or not students
increase their reflection after doing reflective writing
during three weeks. In this research, four-category
scheme from (Kember et al., 2008a) used as a rubric
to analyze students’ reflection and to reinforce the
identifications.
6.2.1 The First and the Third Week of
Doing Reflective Writing (RW)
The three participants did not describe and develop
their experience in detail. This situation creates the
limitation to their reflection. According to the
indicators from (Kember et al., 2008b), the three
participants are in the level of non-reflection because
of not showing evidence that they are trying to
understand the topic and they are not seriously
thinking about the topic. This attitude could be seen
from their vague sentences in RW. This situation
makes them difficult to realize new knowledge from
experience. The vague sentences show the writer's
inability to gain the essence or core point of learning
activity (Ash and Clayton, 2009).
Table 1: Level of reflection on the first RW based on
(Kember et al., 2008b).
No
Participant
Level of Reflection
1
Andine
Non-reflection; there is no
evidence that the writer tries to
understand the topic and
interpret the experience into the
new knowledge.
2
Tari
Non-reflection; there is no
evidence that Tari is trying to
understand the underpinned
topic and she is not interpreting
the topic seriously.
3
Fia
Non-reflection; there is a
sentence showing that Fia tries
to do introspection, but there is
no details evaluation from her
understanding of the
underpinned topic.
The Use of Reflective Writing to Improve Students’ Writing and Critical Thinking Skills
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In the third week of RW, the participants show the
different result in making the reflection. Andine and
Fia move to higher level. However, Tari is still in the
same level. Unlike Andine and Fia, Tari did not write
weakness or negative side of the experience that limit
her reflection. According to Wilson et al. (2001)
negative experience provides individual to think and
recall about the weakness in doing something and this
activity is useful to prevent the similar bad event
happen in the future.
Table 2: Level of reflection on the third RW based on
(Kember et al., 2008b).
No
Participant
Level of Reflection
1
Andine
Understanding; there is
evidence that Andine
understands the topic by
mentioning the details of the
underpins topic.
2
Tari
Non-reflection; the evidence of
understanding the topic could
not be found in the text.
3
Fia
Reflection; the personal
perspective appears that is
related the subject matter or
information.
In conclusion, Andine and Fia improve
reflection. Andine improves from non-reflection level
to understanding level, and Fia moves from non-
reflection level to reflection level. However, Tari did
not show improvement. She keeps in non-reflection
level in the first and third RW.
7 CONCLUSIONS
Reflective Writing could be the alternative tool to
assess general writing aspect and reflection. By
gradually making RW, students sharpen general
writing skill such as grammar, mechanic, and
vocabulary. In addition, they practice making the
evaluation and doing the assessment. This attitude
helps students to strengthen writing and thinking
skills. RW also becomes a witness of self-
improvement.
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