I've had a colleague ask me for more details on how you could go about giving a reflective essay as an exam alternative that TAs would be marking, and I'm going to paste in what I told them, hoping it's useful for Chris and others.
Nicky
I suggested a reflective essay to my third-year class as an exam alternative and they said "no, thank you," using the reasoning that we know what a take-home exam looks like and we don't want to try out something brand new for a big chunk of the grade. But they're a smallish class and I don't have TAs.
So, if you're thinking of doing this, I'd be very transparent with both the students and the TAs about a marking rubric, and make the essays not very long altogether, e.g. under 1000 words (that's teeny in English, don't know about your unit). Or, as you suggest, split it into sections and make each of those a question in an online Canvas quiz with a paragraph answer box. And I would give them the questions ahead of time so they're prepared and can think about or even draft their responses!
Let's say one question/section of the rubric is "explore how this course may have an impact on your life now/in the future," then A/excellent, 9/10 might be "insightful, clear, concise, elegantly worded, and includes specific examples," while C/satisfactory, 6.5/10 might be "has done some thinking, may be sometimes wordy or unclear, and/or has very general examples" and F/unsatisfactory, 0-4/10 might be "missing, incoherent, off-topic, or plagiarized." And so on.
Tell your TAs to read each one and give it a quick "where I think this fits on that scale," just a grade no comments, and to alert you to any that they're really puzzled by and can't tell what to do with. That should reduce their marking time significantly.
A take-home exam can't be due before the beginning of the exam period (Apr 14 this term, because of Easter), but you can give it out as much before then as you like. Or, you can have them fill it in on the day of their scheduled exam but hand out the questions and rubric earlier. That might be kinder--if lots of people give an assignment due on the last day of class or first day of exams, students may get overwhelmed.