Journal writing not only assesses student writing, but it allows students to write their thoughts on a piece of paper. Teachers use journal writing in a variety of ways. Most frequently, teachers use it for English/Language Arts to have students reflect on topics in that area. To elaborate, they use it simply to have students practice writing, or they have them reflect on what they have just read. I have also seen journals used for different subjects; for example, I have seen my cooperating teacher use math journals to have students reflect on the “number of the day” while I was student teaching. The number of the day would be the number day in which we have been in school from 1–180. Teachers also implement journal writing in different ways. The article below talks about the different ways teachers can implement journal writing.
Strategies that Work: Journal Writing
As someone who uses journal writing even as an adult, I think it is important for students to get into the habit of expressing their thoughts and feelings through writing regularly. This is because students need to be able to express their thoughts in a place in which no one else can judge them. It helps that I have my own personal place to put my thoughts that no one knows about. Sure, there are those entries I would not mind if anyone else saw, and I want my students to know that. I would make sure that my students are comfortable with me reading certain journal entries. I want my students to let me know which entries are okay for me to read and which ones are not. I will talk about how I will know which journal entries are okay for me to read in a moment. But first, I want to talk about how I will implement it in my classroom.
Another name I use for my journal is my common place book. In a common place book, the writer writes down a quote or a passage from a book or literary passage he or she is reading (I have used mine for music, movies, TV, and even quotes I have heard people say when interacting with them) and reflect on it. One of the suggestions from the link above suggests that the teacher posts a quote, and the students reflect on it, like I do with my common place book. I would put quotes on the board sometimes, but I would also like to present them with a prompt not related to a quote or even let them write about what they want. This is because even though I like the common place book format, I am teaching these students to use journal writing in different ways just in case they prefer to write their journal entries in a way other than the common place book format.
I understand that there may be some journal entries my students might not want me to read. Therefore, when assessing journal entries, I would allow students to put post-it notes in journal entries they would prefer me not to read. I want to be able to assess my student’s writing skills, but I want to allow them the opportunity to express themselves freely by practicing journal writing. Therefore, I would just assess student writing through anecdotal records and not give them a grade for writing. I am more interested in the fact that they are practicing journal writing rather than their writing skills while journal writing. Of course, I will have other assessments for their writing, but it is more important for this assignment that they are allowed to write freely without being judged for spelling and grammar for journal writing. I will check journal writing by making sure they have each journal entry written down for a particular date and reading some entries to check for anecdotal records. I would probably pick five random journal entry prompts a marking period (semester, trimester, etc.) and see if the students reflected on the journal entry meaningfully. I would set up the criteria of what reflecting meaningfully on a prompt entails to help myself grade journal entries. Journal entries with only one or two sentences or journal entries that are vague or off-topic usually means that the student did not reflect meaningfully or the student could have added more thought to the entry. I am assessing student journal entries on meaningful reflection because that is what one does when writing in a journal, reflect meaningfully. I want to know that my students are really thinking about what they are writing.
What will I do if the entries I plan on assessing have post-its in them? I will have a list of prompts I can check just in case there is a post-it in one of the five journal entries I plan on checking. I respect my student’s right to confidentiality, and I would never try to invade a student’s privacy. I would pick to read the entries that will probably not have anything personal in them. However, there is always a chance a quote or a prompt reflecting on a story could remind a student of a personal event that would result in a student putting a post-it on that page. That is why it is important to think about other entries I can look at other than the ones I have originally chosen to assess. This is differentiation; differentiation allows students to be assessed in the ways that works best for them. Journal writing calls for differentiation by knowing one’s students and assessing the journal entries at which the student feels most comfortable with the teacher reading.
I really like the idea of using journal entries in multiple subjects. I really like the idea because it is interdisciplinary. I do not know if I would have different journals for different subjects. I would allow my students to reflect on different content areas in their journals if I taught in a class in which I taught multiple subjects in an elementary classroom. It is important that they are not only reflecting on reading and writing, but other content areas as well. I could create a prompt related to math, science, social studies, or phonics; or I could use it to see what they thought of what was being taught or what they did or did not understand. It is important for students to understand that language arts is not the only subject that they can write about. They can write about anything! That is the beauty of journal writing, and that is why I feel students need to be involved with journal writing. When my cooperating teacher does number of the day for her students’ math journal, she has them draw a particular picture reflecting that number (whatever they wanted), pick different ways to make that number in a math equation, or draw it with tens and ones blocks. She uses this in a variety of ways which allowed the students write about these numbers in any way they wanted. That is the beauty of journals, students can write their own thoughts in one book!
