Learning Reflection Comments and Thoughts

I had the following comments from Mary Ann Harlan regarding my learning reflection that got me thinking: 

...one idea I am sure you have explored but isn’t terribly obvious in your reflection is writing as a thinking tool.  Some questions – is it the physicality of the act, a focusing tool, a strategy for memory – and in terms of the skill of note taking, how did that develop, how did you learn to identify important details in a lecture for example.  I am finding that strategy is relatively unexamined, and I am wondering if people take the skill for granted.  

The first comment got at something I had discussed with my husband (another teacher) and had even started to query in my reflection before deciding to edit it out - how does writing help me think? There is certainly the memory component, especially when it involves the physical act of writing (I haven't yet decided if typing does the same). Interestingly, for my freshman composition class I assign Adler's How to Mark a Book as the first reading where he argues that writing is an essential active reading strategy, and one of his reasons is writing's link to memory. (Students confirm this when I ask them whether they have done something like writing a shopping list and then leaving it at home, only to realize they remember their items nonetheless.)

I wondered aloud to my husband if writing wasn't also about doing, making it a physical learning method. He thought not, but it still seems logical to me. And certainly writing is about focusing attention, thoughts, energy. This is often overlooked. As an example, I normally do not write about my teaching thoughts. Usually it's more along the lines of worrying and maybe talking it out with my husband or, if I'm lucky, another English instructor (unfortunately the schedule of an adjunct often precludes seeing other teachers regularly). However, I have already felt the benefit from this focused reflecting - articulating it makes it more concrete and hence more resolvable and less anxious.

When it comes to note taking, writing can serve all of these functions - however, for me it more strongly acts as a memory agent.  Yet where, when, and how did I learn to take notes? I have to admit I am not sure - and I have tried to consider how I learned what is important to notice because I would like to use that insight to help my students be better at this. But I have no memory of conscious awareness of the method developing in me. I suspect it is a combination of osmosis (lots of reading throughout childhood) and modeling what instructors and, later, criticism articles do. So I try to model my thinking to students when we go over readings. But probably not as much as I could - this is a good reminder to do this more and more explicitly.