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Classroom Journals
Mr. / Girgis
Definition:
Journal is an incredibly flexible instructional tool, useful
across the entire curriculum. While often used as a
class startup
activity, it is used primarily to give
students an opportunity to
speculate on paper,
confident that their ideas, observations, emotions,
and writing will be accepted without criticism.
How to do a classroom Journal:
1.
Ask students to buy a notebook they can easily carry
around with them.
Inspiration for a journal entry might
come to them at any time, and they
are more likely to
write in their journal outside of class if the
journal is
easy for them to carry around wherever they go.
2. The
language of the journal could be English, but
it could also be their
first language (L1). Or it could
be a mixture of both. For advanced students,
it makes sense to have them use the target language.
For
beginners, a journal in their native language might
be a place where
they can express their feelings without
having to worry about remembering difficult grammar
or vocabulary.
3. Collect and read
the journals on a regular basis—
but do not correct. If you feel you
should respond,
then write about something you liked.
Remember that “in
a language class,in the end,
everything boils down to the same
question:
Can you use language in ways that allow you to
convey whatever
your thoughts are?
Can you express something about yourself,
your
ideas, your curiosities, and questions?”
4. Ask
students to leave
a blank page between entries
for room to comment later. Class time
could be devoted
to having students read and reread entries and respond
to what they have written.
In my experience, students really enjoy
having a chance to
comment on their own growth and development in the
journal.
5. Encourage students to write about a wide variety of
topics, but the topics should always, at least in some way,
connect with
the class.
In his book, Engaging Ideas, John Bean suggests that
one way
to begin class is to ask students to discuss a
question that they wrote about the night before in their
journals. Such a question might be “What confused you
about today’s reading or class?”
6. Keep a
journal along with your students.
Ask your students to write during
class time,
and write along with them. Writing with your
students tells
them that the teacher takes the
idea of journals seriously, and so
should they.
Keeping a journal along with your students also
helps you
see how much time is needed to
complete a task, helps you be more
reasonable
with what you expect, and gives you a clue as
to how
interesting the prompts are that you give
to your students.
7.
Look for ways to use the journal during class
time. Even if you can find
only five minutes per
week of class time, that time could be used fo
journal writing.
Look for ways to connect the journal with what you
consider important in the class. In the final section
of this paper, I
suggest specific journal writing activities.
The negative effects:
Use of journals does have two possible
downsides,including:
1. The potential for the teacher to hurt students' feelings
with criticism.
Remedy: Offer constructive criticism rather than a
critique.
2. The loss of instructional time needed to teach course
material.
The benefits:
Sort out experiences, solve problems and consider
varying perspectives.
Examine relationships with others and the world.
Reflect on personal values, goals, and ideals.
Summarize ideas, experience, and opinions
before and after instruction.
Witness his academic and personal growth
by reading past entries.
