How to Teach a Journal-Writing Workshop for Kids

Kids love to express themselves, so writing journals is a natural outlet. By giving kids a place to write whatever they want and express themselves without worrying about grades or rules of writing, you can help them to develop a passion for writing.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Start off with something fun and goofy that can be done as a class. For example, go around in a circle and do an add-on story. The first person says a sentence and the next person continues the story with another sentence and so on. This will help to set a tone of free, unstructured writing for the class.

2. Lead a discussion about what makes a journal. Bring in some unconventional examples of journal writing to share in case your class has a pretty rigid understanding. Show them that a journal is any book of personal writing where you record your thoughts, ideas or memories.

3. Start each class with an example of the type of writing you want to do that class. For example, if you are working on descriptive writing in journals, you could show your students an example of a paragraph that really transports the reader. Then your students can try to write their own descriptive pieces.

4. Allow students to share as much or as little as they want to. Some students love to share their writing, while others are much more shy.

5. Only allow positive feedback. When a students shares her journal writing, go around in a circle and have each student say something she likes about it.

6. Do some movement based activities. Allow students to act out a memory, for example, or to write a collaborative journal on the board together. Allowing the students to move around for at least five minutes every class will make it much more pleasant for both you and them.