College Composition and Communication Dec 2025

Contextualizing Reflective Writing for Creating Change: A Cross-Institutional Case Study of First-Year Students’ Reflections

Jaclyn Fiscus-Cannaday ; Lillian Campbell ; Jennifer E. Eidum

Abstract

Writing studies scholarship lauds reflection’s capacity for building metacognitive understanding and facilitating transfer. Meanwhile, feminist and antiracist pedagogy scholarship highlights reflection’s ability to create spiritual and societal change. By contextualizing reflection within institutional and programmatic contexts, we argue that writing scholars can revise assignments to account for reflection’s contributions to civic and spiritual identity development. This cross-institutional case study analyzes patterns in first-year students’ reflective writing across three writing programs. Drawing on five codes for reflective identities—scholarly, writerly, professional, civic, and spiritual—we found that scholarly and writerly identities were emphasized regardless of context. However, students often had an “excess” in reflection, writing about civic and spiritual growth when prompts did not invite it. In conversation with university and program mission statements, we argue that instructors and WPAs can leverage reflection to expand beyond a single classroom context, ultimately tapping into its potential to create individual and social change.

Journal
College Composition and Communication
Published
2025-12-01
DOI
10.58680/ccc2025772289
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Open Access
Closed
Topics
writing pedagogy qualitative research race and writing gender and writing
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