Unguided+Journal+Writing

toc Authored by: Eve Warkentin // “Writing…provides students with powerful opportunities // // to learn about themselves and their connections to the world. //// Through writing, students organize their thoughts, remember important //// information, solve problems, reflect on a widening range of perspectives, //// and learn how to communicate effectively.” // (Ministry of Education, //Literacy for Learning: The Report of the Expert Panel on Literacy in Ontario//, 2004, p. 79)

= Introduction = ....... People are motivated to keep journals for many different reasons driven by a variety of purposes. A journal may be kept to record events, express feelings, reflect on experiences, and even to promote learning (Boud, 2001). Journal writing is often seen as a personal and self-reflective activity that individuals engage in on their own time. However, over the past few decades, journal writing has been incorporated into the education system across disciplines, most notably in English Language Arts classrooms (Dyment and O’Connell, 2003). Due to the flexibility of journal writing, teachers can use it in the classroom for a variety of purposes, such as, meeting specific curriculum expectations or simply to give students greater exposure to the process of writing and promote critical thinking. ....... This WikiPage will focus on unguided or unprompted journal writing and examines ways of effectively incorporating these journals into the ELA classroom. **What is Unguided Journal Writing?** ....... Unguided journal writing differs from prompted journal writing in the sense that the teacher does not instruct the students on which topic they should discuss in their journal each day. Rather than only reflecting on content related to the course, students are encouraged to write about whatever they desire, however some guidelines must be enforced (this is further discussed in “Introducing Journals into the ELA Classroom”).

= Why use Unguided Journals in the Classroom? =
 * 1) ** To promote reflection and creativity ** à One of the most recognized uses of journals is their ability to help facilitate reflection, a critical component of learning (Dyment and O’Connell, 2003). Unguided journal writing asks students to draw on a particular experience, emotion, or concept and discuss it in an uninhibited and reflective manner. Additionally, allowing students to write on a topic of their choice allows them to be creative when selecting the focus of their entry. The thinking skills that are fostered in unguided writing tend to pour over into other areas of schooling that demand creativity (Gay, 2002), illustrating the wider benefits of journal writing.
 * 2) ** [[image:maggie.jpg align="right"]]To develop a relationship with students **** à ** Most teachers who employ journals in the classroom use them as a strictly confidential exercise between student and teacher (Hopkins, 2010). Letting the students know that, as their teacher, you will be the only person reading their journal promotes a sense of trust, which is the foundation for a successful personal relationship. Teachers may also choose to respond to the journal entries of students, creating an ongoing dialogue unbounded by the traditional school atmosphere (Hopkins, 2010).
 * 3) ** To increase the amount of exposure students have to writing **** à ** By incorporating journals in to the ELA classroom students are exposed to the process of writing for a brief period every day. A relationship has been found between writing frequency and intellectual capacity (Emenogu, 2009), thus the unstructured act of journal writing has the potential to enhance students’ cognitive abilities.
 * 4) ** To eliminate the negative perception many students have of writing exercises **** à ** Many students fear writing activities because they are typically evaluated and often content-focused. Providing students with the opportunity to write about any topic they desire, without the anxiety of evaluation or deviation from a teacher-prompted topic, makes writing a more appealing activity for students. For some[[image:StrivingFor.gif align="right"]] students it may be the first time they are encouraged by an educator to experiment with writing at a personal level (Anderson, 1993), allowing them to experience a degree of freedom and relief from standard writing constraints.

= Introducing Journals into the ELA Classroom = ....... Despite the freedom associated with unguided journal writing, teachers should spend sufficient time introducing the journal activity to the class and perhaps prepare a class workshop in which guidelines and general expectations for journal writing are discussed. Journaling workshops have been successful in enhancing the quality of reflection found in student journals (Dyment and O’Connell, 2003), and can also be beneficial in outlining a desired structure and intention for students’ writing. ....... If you are interested in introducing the exercise of unguided journal writing to a new group of students please refer to the following document.

= = = = = Assessment Methods = ....... Journals should be a place in which students feel comfortable expressing their thoughts and feelings, and therefore teachers should avoid “red-ink errors,” as the focus of the journals should be on content (Greenwood, 1989). However, this is not to say that student journals should be void of assessment. Here are some suggested ways to blend relatively unstructured journal writing with formal methods of assessment:
 * 1) ** Assessment of Participation ** ** à ** If teachers are assigning an individual grade for class participation throughout the semester, they may wish to include journal writing as part of this assessment (ie. Class Participation 10% - Oral Participation 5% and Journal Writing 5%). Some students may not feel comfortable offering their insights during class and instead may prefer the opportunity to participate through written work. Journal writing time can then be viewed as a time that students are able to contribute their thoughts and ideas to the class. During the designated journal writing time, teachers can observe students and assess them based on their engagement in the writing activity (ie. they are using the time effectively to write in their journals rather than socializing with their peers or completing other tasks). When collected, teachers will also want to ensure that something constructive has been written in the journal each day if they wish to use journals as an assessment of participation.
 * 2) ** Assessment of Writing Skills ** ** à ** Although the purpose of journals is not to place too many expectations on student writing, teachers may choose to assess journal content as a way of marking student progress. I do not recommend that every entry of each student be read and graded, for this would not only be extremely time consuming, but it would defeat the purpose of the journal writing activity altogether. However, teachers may wish to ask students to choose one journal entry from a specific period of time (ie. the week, the past 2 weeks, the month, etc.) and assess it using a rubric. An example rubric can be found here.[[image:rubric.gif width="143" height="108" align="right"]]
 * 3) ** Self-Assessment **** à ** Using a rubric similar to the one provided above, teachers might decide to have students evaluate the content in their journals themselves on a weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis.
 * 4) ** Journal Writing as a Steppingstone Towards an Assessment Activity ** ** à ** Teachers may wish to not grade the journals written during class time at all, but instead use these student contributions as a segue into a larger assignment. Teachers can ask students to choose a topic, theme, or concept that they touched on in their journals and turn it into a more structured, academic piece of writing.
 * 5) ** Assessment of Student Reflection on their Journal Entries **** à ** Another option for teachers that do not wish to grade student journals written during class time, is to integrate assignments into the course that allow the students to reflect on the course-long journal writing activity. This can be done throughout the course, or as an end-of-term assessment in which students are invited to look back on their entries from the beginning of the term until now and reflect on:
 * common or interrelated themes and ideas;
 * their experience with the course as reflected through their journal entries;
 * their growth as a writer.

=Potential Problems and Recommendations= ....... Although unguided journal writing has numerous benefits associated with it, there are some potential problems that must be addressed:
 * 1) ** Time Constraints ** ** à ** with most high school classes running only 75 minutes it is important that teachers don’t spend too much time on journal writing each class. It is effective to have a set time during each class in which students are expected to write in their journals. During the first week of implementation the time allotted for journal writing will most likely be exceeded, but once the activity becomes routine, time constraints should be met more easily. However, teachers may decide that there is not adequate time during class for reflection and writing (Dyment and O’Connell, 2003), and may allow students to work on journal entries on their own time.[[image:254398-2605-34.jpg width="245" height="194" align="right"]]
 * 2) ** Students' Varying Interests ** ** à ** While some students will be supportive of journal writing in the classroom, teachers must remember that some students may dislike it (Shor, 1992). Teachers should consider alternate means of facilitating reflection (ie. Web Pages, blogs, group discussion, etc).
 * 3) ** Overreliance on Journals as a Reflective Tool **** à ** Although some research shows that student journals generally contain deeply reflective entries, other research presents a less optimistic perspective finding that journals entries are much more descriptive than reflective (Dyment and O’Connell, 2008). Some possible ways to avoid purely descriptive entries are: providing structure for entries, making journal writing a daily activity, incorporating entries into some form of assessment, ensuring the students believe their work is confidential, and providing instructor response and feedback (Dyment and O’Connell, 2010). However, even if teachers take all these precautions in implementing journal writing, they still must not regard journal writing as the only mode of reflection in the classroom. Teachers should include alternative activities that promote reflection throughout the course.

= Blogging the New Journaling? = ....... With the increasing discussion of multiliteracies in the English language arts classroom and the addition of the Media Literacy (grades 7 and 8) and Media Studies (grades 9-12) strands in the curriculum, information and communication technologies (ICT) are becoming more prevalent in the classroom. ICT provides teachers with the opportunity to enhance and broaden their methods of instruction, while allowing students to develop their language skills through a variety of means. Many ELA teachers now incorporate computers and the Internet into their lessons to support student learning. ....... Instead of introducing hand-written journals into the classroom, teachers may be interested in getting students to keep web logs (blogs), and to engage in similar reflection via the Internet. <span style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: verdana,sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: normal;">Although the idea behind blogging is generally the same as journal writing, promoting student reflection and increasing student exposure to writing, blogging differs from journal writing in a few important aspects, one being the lack of confidentiality. In journal writing students are motivated by the fact that their work is only read by the instructor, but using blogs makes each entry public. Even if only the teacher and fellow classmates can access these entries, students may be less comfortable expressing their feelings or opinions. However, the aspect of communication associated with blogging may appeal to teachers, and thus they may see blogging as a preferable choice. <span style="color: #ffffff; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">....... For more information on blogging in the classroom consider the following resources:

This article outlines a study examining if blogs can be used effectively as tools for communication within the classroom. The study found that most students, despite having no prior blogging experience, found blogs fairly easy to use. The majority of students revealed that they enjoyed writing journals and reflecting through this new method. Most students enjoyed the active response component involved in responding to their peers’ entries, however, they also felt that blogging was not a sufficient form of peer-to-peer communication – students may have been uncomfortable expressing their feelings or thoughts on the course in such a public forum.
 * Students' perception of using blogs as a tool for reflection and communication **

** Exploring the use of blogs as learning spaces in the higher education sector ** http://eprints.qut.edu.au/13066/   This article explores the potential for blogs as learning spaces outside of the classroom. It refers to emerging research on the topic and explores different methods of using blogs for educational purposes. Although it’s main focuses is on educational blogs at the university level, the information provided is still relevant and would also be useful for someone interested in introducing blogs to their ELA classroom. **Parent, Teacher, Student Communication – Going Beyond Newsletters and Emails**  http://blogs.scholastic.com/top_teaching/2010/09/parent-teacher-student-communication-going-beyond-paper-newsletters-and-emails.html   This webpage was made by a teacher to illustrate how she has integrated technology into her curriculum through Facebook, creating a class website, photo sharing, online calendars, social learning network sites, and, of course, class blogs. Her website provides links to various sites that offer free blog publishing services (ie. Blogger and Blogmeister). **Comcast Blogging and Education Interview** media type="youtube" key="Syc_Xr9Z3Zg?fs=1" height="268" width="336" align="center" This video is a clip from an interview with English teacher Bradley Bleck who has been using blogs to facilitate the teaching of his writing and literature classes. He discusses how blogging is basically an online form of journal writing, but that it allows students to go one step further, as it enables them to communicate with each other. He talks about how blogging has helped his students improve in audience awareness through differentiating their levels of discourse. **Bringing 21st Century Learning to Your Classroom** media type="youtube" key="7XMa91uf-so?fs=1" height="268" width="336" align="center" This video contains a separate audio file and video file. The audio discusses the benefits of incorporating both blogs and wikis into the classroom. The audio file ends at 1:37, but the video file, which is a sped up version of a PowerPoint presentation, continues for the entire length of the video. Although the slides cycle quite quickly in the video, they contain good points about the 21st century student and teacher. = **References** = Anderson, J. (1993). Journal Writing: The Promise and the Reality. Journal of Reading, 36(4), 304-309.

Boud, D. (2001). Using Journal Writing to Enhance Reflective Practice. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 90, 9-17.

Del Giorno, J. (1997). “Hey, I Can Write about This in My Journal!” Teaching and Change, 4(4), 325-337.

Dyment, J. E., & O’Connell, T. S. (2003). Journal Writing in Experiential Education: Possibilities, Problems, and Recommendations. ERIC Digest, 1, 1-7.

Dyment, J. E., & O’Connell, T. S. (2008). Student perceptions of journaling as a reflective tool in experience-based learning. The Journal for the Art of Teaching, 5(1), 101–108.

Dyment, J. E., & O’Connell, T. S. (2010). The Quality of Reflection in Journal Writing: A Review of Limiting and Enabling Factors. Innovation Higher Education, 35, 233-244.

Emenogu B. (2009). Inspire: Strong Writing Skills May Enhance Students’ Chances for Success. Ontario Ministry of Education. Retrieved September 17, 2010, from http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/classroom/strongSkills.html

Gay, G. (2002). Developing Dimensions of Written Language. Learning Disabilities Resource Community. Retrieved September 19, 2010 from http://www.ldrc.ca/contents/view_article/kinds_of_ld/153/

Greenwood, S C. (1989). Journal Writing for Middle School Students. The Clearing House, 63, 184-187.

Hopkins, G. (2010). Journal Writing Every Day: Teachers Say It Really Works! Education World. Retrieved September 16, 2010 from http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr144.shtml

Shor, I. (1992). Empowering education: Critical teaching for social change. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.