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In this article, I discuss an alternative way of conceptualizing and structuring essay assignments in political science courses. Generally, political science teachers have tried to encourage critical thinking about political issues by assigning essays that ask for argumentative writing. An argumentative essay format asks students to present several positions or concepts covered in a course, analyze them, and argue for their own position on the issues at hand. A better format, I suggest, is to ask students to engage in reflective writing. Reflective writing has four basic stages. First, students are asked to explain course materials. Next, they are challenged to reflect explicitly on how this material calls into question their preconceptions about the topic. Third, they analyze the conflicts, confusions, or questions that arise from engaging their preconceptions. And finally, they formulate plans to use the knowledge gained by the reflective process. In short, reflective writing invites students to search for the truth rather than develop rhetorical skills. My case for reflective writing is made here in the form of a reflective essay, so readers can take from this essay both a demonstration of the reflective process as well as an explanation. Thus, I will explore my pedagogical preconceptions and experiences with student writing, explain my initial understanding of reflective writing and my first attempt at using reflective writing in an introduction to American government course, and, finally, refine my pedagogy by analyzing the success of the assignment in light of a deeper reading of John Dewey and other theorists of reflective reasoning.
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I have been teaching sections of the introductory American Government course for eight years, and in that time I've been fairly disappointed with the quality of essays I receive. At the same time, however, I have always been rather proud of what I took to be a rigorous and effective 10-page essay assignment. These essays follow what I had always presumed to be the standard essay format, the argumentative essay. I assigned students to explain Republican and Democratic ideologies and answers to public policy problems and also argue for their solutions to these problems through the institutions of American national government. I expected the assignment to test the ability of students to read, understand, and analyze what they had learned...