These notes outline the process that I go through in reading (and re-reading) learning reflection, and that you might go through in reading and assessing your own and those of others.

First, I go through and strike out passages which are not relevant to the learning identified in the general statement about the aims of the course in the course introduction. Specifically:

• I cross out all evaluations of the course or my teaching, good or bad: there will be a place for that, in the course evaluation process, but if you're assessing your learning it's not relevant;
• I cross out general expressions of enthusiasm about how much the writer has learned or how hard she's worked;
• I cross out general statements of things the writer thinks or now knows about language, research, theatre, etc., which don't refer to how those ideas developed through experiences in the course;
• I cross out general statements of change of attitude or skill without specifics ("I am now a much better critical thinker");
• I cross out summaries of what the writer has done unless they are specifically tied to learning;

• the learning is tied to a particular, concrete experience -- of reading something, writing something, talking with someone, finding something online.
• the learning is clearly definable and attributed to an experience
• evidence is offered that the learning has changed the writer's behavior -- for instance, evidence of what was said earlier contrasted with what the writer would say now
• there's a kind or method or result of learning that is a surprise to me, and which I think is relevant to what this course is attempting to help people achieve

• the nature and range of varieties of writing and how it relates to readers
• how an idea or understanding learned in one context was extended into another
• deepening your own abilities, about things like writing for different audiences and engaging in structured discussions
• methods and strategies of learning and working toward understanding (asking useful questions, for example), tied to particular experiences

Finally, I reread the printouts looking for any possible excuse to raise a mark. I look, this time, for indications that the writer could have produced evidence of learning, though she didn't in fact do it. I consider that I probably didn't make myself clear enough about how the final synthesis should at least take into account the suggestions about constructing a synthesis. I raise some of the marks. At this point I reread the reflections of the people who have been mentioned more than a couple of times by others as having contributed to their learning; if there is some doubt about a final evaluation of a reflection, I give that person the higher possibility.

All this allows me to make the following range of judgments:

• I don't see evidence here that would allow me to make any alteration in a mark generated by sheer participation; thus, a minimum mark would not be changed
• I see evidence here of learning that is, according to the definition in the university calendar, of C level; if so, a mark lower than C, or the absence of any mark, generated by sheer participation, would be raised to C
• I see evidence of learning that matches the calendar descriptions of work meriting a B or an A, and the same thing would apply; a minimum mark that was lower than that would give way to the higher mark.