Journal Writing
Research exists that suggests keeping an unstructured
journal of thoughts and ideas,
perhaps even a personal history or literary response, does not lead to growth in writing.
There are teachers who would disagree with that. Nevertheless, when students write in a journal they practice
collecting and transferring their thoughts in writing,
which at the very least can have positive results.
Reasons for keeping an academic journal vary considerably, based on the specific purpose. Whether the journal is unstructured or structured to meet specific goals in the classroom, many uses exist that offer considerable benefits for students.
- Dialectic journals in which students read a literary piece, take notes, and respond to open ended questions that allow students to think about and challenge the material
- Writing journals in which all drafts are first entered in each stage of the draft
- Journals in which students write and receive responses from the teacher or other classmates
- A collection of pieces that respond to given writing prompts over a period of time
- Writing on topics that are completely student generated
- Collecting and writing articles on a particular topic of interest
Whatever purpose a teacher assigns to a writing journal, the end result never strays far from the notion that students engaged in writing
develop habits of writing. Growth in writing, however, evolves from a structured approach in which students move from a simple writing habit
to learning and practicing the use of tools that can create clear,
fluent, well developed writing in a number of different modes and for different purposes.