Becoming a Reflective Practitioner, 6th Edition

CHAPTER 3Writing Self; the First Dialogical Movement

Christopher Johns

The first dialogical movement is to write a description of an experience that becomes the canvass for subsequent reflection. Writing is taking ownership of one’s experience. It is an awakening and inquiry into self. It opens the doorway to become interested and curious about one’s practice. Tufnell and Crickmay (2004, p. 63) note how:

writing gives us time to absorb the feel of what has just happened. While movement is ephemeral, quickly vanishing from our memory, written language remains, giving us a means of dwelling upon and finding significance in what has just occurred.

The practitioner writes to recall the reality of the experience through the rich description, paying attention to detail, and drawing on all the senses in order to capture the experience in the most realistic way. It is ‘replaying the situation in the mind’s eye’ (Boud et al. 1985, p. 27). Recalling the experience is subjective, viewed from the practitioner’s particular perspective. Others involved in the experience may view it differently. This is natural and is not a problem because it is the practitioner’s view that is the focus for reflection. What the practitioner writes is subjective and contextual. It is best written from the perspective of ‘I’ rather than in the third person that depersonalises the experience as if turning self into an object. It is ‘I’ in relationship with others. Gully (2005, p. 151) writes: ‘it is the process ...