Improving Senior High School Students’ Descriptive Essays Through Reflective Journaling Strategy

Writing is a crucial skill in education, and among its various types, descriptive essays present unique challenges due to the need for vivid imagery, sensory details, and clear expression. This study determined the efficacy of reflective journaling in enhancing students’ descriptive writing in the areas of content, organization, grammar, mechanics, and vocabulary. An experimental two-group design was utilized with 77 respondents from the Grade 11 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) strand. Data were collected through adapted and validated tests, along with survey questionnaires. The findings revealed that respondents in the control group performed fairly in content and organization but poorly in grammar, mechanics, and vocabulary, while the experimental group achieved very good results in content and organization, good results in grammar and mechanics, and fair results in vocabulary. Generally, the writing performance of the control group was described as poor, while that of the experimental group was described as good. A significant difference was found between the mean gains of the two groups in all areas, indicating higher performance in the experimental group. Moreover, motivation, classroom environment, grammar checker, and feedback system, as attributes influencing writing performance, were generally described as moderately positive in both groups. Thus, reflective journaling fostered critical self-assessment, enabling students to produce more vivid, detailed, and well-structured descriptive essays. It is recommended that reflective journal enhancement activities be utilized to improve descriptive writing skills further and sustain academic success in writing.