Course Reflexive Diary: Guidelines and Assessment
1. Introduction and Purpose 🧠
Throughout this course, you are invited to maintain a Reflexive Diary. This is not a simple log of activities, but rather a dedicated intellectual space for you to document and engage with your own learning journey. The purpose of this diary is threefold:
- To create a dialogue between you, the course materials, and myself.
- To foster metacognition, which is the practice of thinking about your own thought processes.
- To provide a space for you to trace your intellectual development, capturing moments of confusion, clarity, and critical insight as they occur.
Think of this diary not merely as an assignment, but as a scholarly tool that will enrich your understanding and allow you to take ownership of your academic growth.
2. Core Requirements
- Frequency and Length: You are expected to make at least one entry per class, corresponding to the day’s topics.
- Format and Submission: Your diary will be maintained as a single, running Google Document. Please create the document at the beginning of the term, title it “[Your Full Name] – Learning Diary Língua inglesa I”, and share it with me at tarefasprofmarcello@gmail.com with “editor” permissions. You will simply add new entries to the top of this document each week, including the date for each entry.
- Content: Your entries should be reflective and analytical. While you have the freedom to explore topics of interest, your reflections should remain tethered to the course content. You may use the following prompts to guide your initial entries, but I encourage you to develop your own lines of inquiry as the semester progresses:
- What was the most significant or surprising idea you encountered in this week’s readings or discussions? Why did it stand out to you?
- Which concept proved most challenging? Document your process of working through this difficulty. What questions remain for you?
- How does a theoretical framework we discussed this week apply to, or challenge, your interpretation of one of the primary literary texts?
- Select a specific passage from a text that you found powerful or problematic. Analyze it closely and explain your response.
- How has this week’s material connected with or altered your prior knowledge or personal experiences?
3. Feedback and Evaluation
This diary will be a significant component of your first grade or of its total mark (to be decided). The evaluation is designed to reward sustained effort and intellectual engagement.
- Formative Feedback: I will access your shared document periodically throughout the semester (approximately every 3-4 weeks) to read your entries. I will not assign a grade at these points. Instead, I will offer brief comments, pose questions, and provide guidance in the document’s comment feature. This is an opportunity for low-stakes, constructive dialogue.
- Summative Grade: The diary will be formally graded at the end of the semester based on a holistic review of your work. Your final submission will be the complete diary document. The assessment will be guided by the following criteria:
Criteria Description Timeliness and Completion The student has consistently made entries on a weekly basis and has met the length requirements. Critical Reflection and Depth Entries move beyond summary to demonstrate genuine analysis, synthesis of ideas, and self-questioning. Engagement with Course Concepts The student actively uses and grapples with key terms, theories, and texts from the course. Development of Thought Over the course of the semester, the diary demonstrates a clear progression and maturation of thought and inquiry.
A final word of advice: Be honest in your reflections. This diary is a space for you to document uncertainty and curiosity as much as it is for demonstrating mastery. The most compelling diaries are those that reveal an active, inquisitive, and evolving mind at work. I look forward to reading your reflections. 📓
More about Reflexive diaries here