Do you know how to write a reflection statement? In this post, we give you a clear process for writing reflection statements.
Written by: Matrix English Team
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Do you know how to write a reflection statement? Reflection statements are tasks that will increasingly be part of your assessments. In the past, reflection statements were only set for Extension 2. Now they will be commonplace in Advanced English for both Year 11 and Year 12.
In this post, we will demystify reflection statements and give you a step-by-step guide to producing statements that will impress your teachers!
A reflection statement is a complementary task that will accompany other assessment types. A reflection statement requires students to discuss the process of producing the associated assessment task.
In a reflection statement, students need to explain why they made the decisions they did. The reflection statement also offers the student an opportunity to say what they think they did well, or did poorly. Students can reflect on what they would change if they could do it over.
If you want to learn more about why self-reflection is such an important skill for students, you should read this excellent article by Cathy Costello at Virtual library.
The exact nature of the reflection task will depend on the assessment task you’ve been asked to reflect on. To give you an idea of this, we’ll look at some examples of the tasks that reflection statements might accompany and what the reflection statements need to address.
| Reflection Statement Requirements | |
| Assessment Task | Reflection Statement Requirements |
| Non-Fiction Composition: | |
As you can see, there are a wide variety of tasks where you could be asked to provide an accompanying reflection task.
English Extension 2 reflection statements need to be 1500 words. If you’re not doing English Extension 2, it is unlikely that you will be required to produce something that long.
The tasks you will be set for English Advanced will range between 300 and 800 words. Most reflection tasks will be on the shorter side of things at around the 400-word mark.
Learn how to write insightful and constructive reflections with our structured online video lessons, quality resources, and forums to ask your Matrix teachers questions and feedback! Learn more about Matrix+ Online Courses now.
You will be set reflective statements throughout Years 11 and 12. They can be attached to any assessment task for any Module.
However, due to the nature of the Common Module: Reading to Write it is likely you will be set one to accompany the main writing task for that Module.
Similarly, in Year 12, Common Module: Texts and Human Experience and Module C: The Craft of Writing are the most likely Modules where you will be asked to reflect on your process of composing.
Remember, there is no limit on how many reflections you will need to produce as they supplement a larger assessment task. You may need to write as many as two in both Year 11 and Year 12.
In the HSC English Advanced Paper 2 (from 2019) and HSC English Extension 1 Paper, you may be asked to write a composition and a reflection statement.
If you study English Extension 2, this is a mandatory accompaniment for your major work. (Please note, while the process discussed in this post is similar to the one for producing an Extension 2 reflection statement, it does not discuss the research and referencing components that you need to complete for an Extension 2 work).
Clearly, it is important to be confident writing reflection statements. Matrix students learn how to produce reflection statements and get help refining them.
The secret to producing killer reflection statements is to follow a process when writing them.
What we’ll do now is look at the process for how to produce ace your reflection statement.
Like everything in English, there is a process you can follow to produce a reflection statement. Even though the specific task may vary. The process for writing the reflection will largely remain the same.
The process for writing reflection statements looks like this:
Reflection statements are never tasks in and of themselves, they supplement the main task. You will not be able to produce your reflection statement until you have completed and edited your main task.
If you are stuck on your main task and need help, you should read our Beginner’s Guide to Acing HSC English for detailed advice on all aspects of Year 11 and 12 English.
This can be useful. You may well discover that your reflection statement makes you reconsider some of your choices in your main task. In the process of writing your reflection statement, you may decide you need to redraft your main work.
This is one of the key purposes of writing a reflection statement. It forces you to consider what you have produced and the process of producing it. This is a key part of editing and improving your work.
Once you’ve produced your main piece of work, you need to revisit your assessment notification. A task that involves a reflection statement will come in two sections:
Rereading the notification is important as it will help you check that you have completed the main task correctly. It will also tell you exactly what you need to do for the second part of the task.
For every assessment task that you are given, you MUST be given accompanying marking criteria. Marking criteria are very important. They tell you explicitly what you need to do to get full marks for a specific task.
Reading through the marking criteria at this point serves two purposes:
Your reflection statement may have very different requirements for a Band 6 mark than your main task. It is important that you are aware of the differences.
Now you’re familiar with the notification and marking criteria for the assessment task, you need to get these understandings down in writing.
To do this, you need to take a few steps:
Now you’ve unpacked the question. This means you are now equipped to answer the question you’ve been set.
Next, you need to revisit your main task so you can see what you’ve done and evaluate how you’ve put it together.
Your reflection statement will require you to explain the choices you’ve made in your main composition.
You may not have thought too much about these things when you produced the work. And this is fine. It just doesn’t help you with the reflections statement.
If this is you, you need to read your work with an eye on how you have conveyed information. You must unpack how you have presented your ideas. Essentially, you need to reverse engineer your writing through textual analysis.
Some useful questions to ask yourself when doing this are:
Make notes while you do this. You want to be able to refer back to your findings in detail when you write the reflection statement.
Once you’ve finished this, you’re ready to start planning. By now you should have:
As with any task, you want to plan things before you get stuck in. Planning your work forces you to consider what information you must include and how you will structure that information in your response. This is an important part of the critical thinking process.
Reflection statements need to have structure, too.
You need to ensure that you introduce your ideas clearly, then expand on them, and, finally, summarise and conclude your statement. Even if you only need to produce a 250-word paragraph, you still need to ensure that it follows the conventions of composition structure. You will lose marks for presenting idea soup.
To plan your response, you’ll need to get your notes on the task and your notes on your response together. Then:
Once you’ve got your plan together, you’re ready to write. Matrix students get advice on their assessment tasks from their Matrix Tutors and Teachers. It might be helpful to ask a peer or parent for their thoughts if your school teacher can’t provide advice.
The length of your introduction will be contingent on the specifics of your task:
When writing your introduction, you must:
Once you have produced your introduction, you are now ready to develop your discussion and discuss the specifics of your main piece of work.
Now you’ve introduced your subject matter you need to start presenting an argument. Even though you are reflecting on your own work, you still need to use examples to demonstrate how you’ve set about responding to the main task.
You will need to present several examples to support your argument, but the number of examples will vary depending on the length of the task you’ve been set.
For a shorter reflection, try to present two or three examples and discuss them in detail. If you need to produce several paragraphs, you should be aiming at around four per paragraph.
Once you’ve done this, you need to conclude your reflection.
Your final statement needs to address the broad idea you have discussed in your response. It will need to be at least two sentences. A longer reflection will require a longer concluding statement; if you had a separate introduction you will require a separate conclusion.
To write your concluding statement:
Now you need to revise what you’ve written.
It is really important that you proof and edit your work before submitting. You don’t want to throw away marks on typos and unnecessary grammatical errors. Proofing your work is something you must do after you finish any task.
To proof your reflection statement:
If you would like to know more about the editing process, you should read Part 7 of our Beginner’s Guide to Acing HSC English: How to Edit Your Work.
Now you’ve finished a second draft you can submit. If you can, you should try and get some feedback. Matrix students get regular feedback from their Matrix Tutors and Teachers. Feedback on your work allows you to take somebody else’s perspective and use it to improve your marks.
Written by Matrix English Team
The Matrix English Team are tutors and teachers with a passion for English and a dedication to seeing Matrix Students achieving their academic goals.
