Positioning Résumés and Cover Letters as Reflective-Reflexive Process

Abstract

Although the résumé and cover letter genre is widely discussed in both popular and scholarly publications, discussion thus far has failed to acknowledge that the process of creating a résumé and cover letter has the potential for encouraging students’ reflective and reflexive capacities. This article suggests that business communication educators can realize this potential through three pedagogical changes: timing the assignment to coincide with reflective phases in the learning cycle, incorporating rhetorical context, and promoting abstraction and generalization. With these adjustments, the genre becomes a unique opportunity among reflective-reflexive documents because of its pervasiveness, timeliness, and rhetorical significance.