How to Teach Journal Writing
A journal can be used to record dreams, personal thoughts and ideas to keep track of a project. Or students can react to a book, movie or something in the news. Teachers often get their students acclimated to journal writing to improve the children's abilities to think critically, express problems or zero in on solutions. Students in nursing, physical therapy and teaching programs have all used journal writing to their benefit. Because of this flexibility, journal writing is a key skill to teach -- both as a personal release and as a tool for other projects.
Instructions
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Show your students examples of several types of journals. Famous memoirs, personal blogs, pen-and-paper sketches, zines and scrapbooks are all examples of journals. Don't just show your students professional, well-edited manuscripts. Show them raw, unpolished writing as well.
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Introduce your students to some exercises to loosen up and start writing. Stay away from weighty topics and start off with unimportant things. For example, you can have students write about something they saw on the way to class or describe their favorite song.
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Encourage your students to write at least one entry for every class meeting. Tell them that it is better to write frequently than to write a long passage every once in a while.
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Require each student to share something every time the class meets. If a student does not want to share his journal, he should bring in a piece of personal writing that he admires or finds interesting.
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Be flexible and open-ended. If the class is interested in writing dream logs, for example, you can work on remembering and vividly describing dreams. If students are interested in zines, you can discuss how to take an idea from concept to finished product. If they are interested in crafts, you can do a unit on book-binding.
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Tips & Warnings
The important thing is to get your students to write in their journals. Even if it feels like you aren't teaching them anything new, you are doing something simply by giving them a reason to keep a journal.
Keep your audience in mind. Elementary school journal writing is a much different subject than writing memoirs for other adults.
References
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