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15 Writing in Journals

Page
115
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Writers Express

Start-Up Activity

Start class with this writing prompt:

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

Have your students write about the prompt for five minutes. Write your own response during that time. Ask for volunteers to share their writing with the class, and share your own if you wish.

Let your students know that they have each just written a journal entry. In this chapter of their handbooks, they can find out all about journal writing.

Think About It

“A journal is a chance for students to think for themselves.”

—Dan Kirby

You are viewing: 15 Writing in Journals

14 Understanding Text Structures
16 Using Learning Logs

Select your writing standard type:

State Standards Covered in This Chapter

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.W.10

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.10

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.10

Page 116 from Writers Express

Why Write in a Personal Journal?

Benefits of Journal Writing: Regular journal writing provides many benefits for students. It improves their writing fluency—the ease with which they relate ideas, and the number of words and thoughts that they can spin out. Journaling also makes students more reflective and mindful of their lives and the many things they can write about. Use this page and those that follow to encourage journal writing among your students.

How to Keep a Journal: Walk your students through the material on page 116. Help your students understand that journal writing does not have to go through prewriting, revising, and editing. Instead, students should just focus on freely pouring ideas onto the page.

Assigning and Assessing Journals: You can let the journal writing be optional, or you can make it a class assignment. If students will keep journals that you will read, make sure they know that the journals are not private. Also, if you will be grading student journals, make clear ahead of time that you won't be marking grammatical problems. Journals aren't formal assignments. You don't want students to focus on correctness instead of ideas. Rather, grade based upon the number of entries students generate and the elaboration and originality of ideas.

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Page 117 from Writers Express

A Closer Look at Journal Writing

Use this page to inspire your students to ask questions, wonder, make connections, and pour their thoughts into their journals.

Point students to this treasure trove of journal writing topics to inspire their entries.

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Page 118 from Writers Express

Kinds of Journals

Use this page to give an overview of various kinds of journals. Then point students to the examples at the bottom of this page and the next two pages. For another example of a personal journal entry, see the model "A Lesson to Learn," in which a middle schooler reflects on something his little brother taught him.

Ask your students what kinds of journals they have kept in the past. Ask them what kind of journal they would most like to write in the future.

If you would like your students to create one of these journal types, make it an assignment. (See the "Assigning and Assessing Journals" information on page 116 of this Teacher's Guide.)

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Page 119 from Writers Express

Sample Dialogue Journal

Ask for volunteers to read the two separate entries on this page. Then ask students to think about a special experience they are having and whether someone with the same experience would like to create a dialogue journal with them. Suggest best friends, family members, or others that the student trusts. Encourage students to ask the person to write collaboratively in a dialogue journal.

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Page 120 from Writers Express

Sample Response Journal

Read through the two sample response journal entries on this page—one responding to fiction and the other to nonfiction.

For a creative journal response to fiction, see "The Diary of Gaspard," in which a student imagines being a character from A Tale of Two Cities.

For a creative journal response to nonfiction, see "A Cowboy's Journal," in which a student imagines being a cowboy in the Old West.

If you would like students to create a response journal, assign them to write journal entries at different points during their reading of a novel.

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