Hints for Personal Reflective Writing

Have a scroll through these bullet points and think about how you will write effectively.

Personal Reflective Writing

National 5 / Higher

 

What’s needed?

• A sophisticated piece of writing of up to 1000 words
• which is reflective - (not just an account of what happened)
• You must show that you have thought about the way the events influenced you
• It must make sense at first reading
• be well-structured
• and punctuation and spelling must be sufficiently accurate

 

Style

• First person
• Conversational
• Informal – when appropriate – but not casual
• Well-informed
• Varied vocabulary
• Interesting sentences
• Uses figures of speech appropriately

 

Tone

• Sincere
• Serious
• Humorous sometimes helps
• Self-deprecating – you can make and take a joke against yourself
   

Demonstrates your desirable qualities

• Honest
• Open
• Witty
• Intelligent
• Humane
• Friendly
   

Capture Reader’s Attention

• Make your opening paragraph interesting and engaging.
• It doesn’t have to be a ‘Once upon a time’ story
• You could start in the middle of an event
• You could start with a quotation, or an idea
• In fact, you should start any way you can in order to draw your reader in

For example –

• My mum always told me that I should never lie, so why does she lie to me?
• Or – ‘Take that, you dirty scumbag!’ I shouted.
• Or – When I think back, I wonder how I ever managed before I got together with my closest friend – my iphone 7.
• Or – If you wanted to take my playstation from my bedroom, you would have to kill me first.
• Please don’t say ‘I’m a Celebrity’ is rubbish. I have loved it to bits.

 

Use imaginative and interesting vocabulary

• I was bored.
• I was so bored, I imagined that, if you could get a penny for every minute spent  bored, I would be worth a fortune 

 

Use ‘emotive’ vocabulary (emotional)

• I was angry.
• I was absolutely raging. I was hardly able to contain my fury.

 

Use varied sentence structure

• Use longer sentences and lists to build up description and action.
• Instead of
• It was a bit hilly.
• In front of me I could see a vast range of hills, spreading from the swirling river in the east, which I had crossed that morning, to the towering cliffs of the mountain in the far west.

 

Action

• Instead of
• They chased me for ages.
• I stopped abruptly, exhausted and gasping for breath and turned round. I could hear the cries of my pursuers as they came  closer and closer. Ahead I could see a deep, dark and dense green forest. It could be my only hiding place.

 

Use a sound technique:

• Onomatopoeia
• The thunder crashed above my head. I was terrified.
• Alliteration
• I ran rapidly across the racetrack.

 

You should also enhance your writing with imagery / comparison techniques.

• Metaphor
• He came rocketing down the road.
• Simile
• He had a grin like the Cheshire cat.
• Personification
• The storm raged through the night.