Assigning Student Journals
Carolyn
Haynes
Director of Windate Writing Center
Miami University (Ohio)
Many faculty members
have found journal writing an effective
method for teaching writing and deepening
students’ learning of a topic. When
used properly, journal writing gives students
practice writing informally on a regular
basis and can help them to synthesize their
reading, critical thinking and writing skills.
Because journals are reflective in nature,
they can prompt students to be self-conscious
of the learning they are doing in the course.
Yet, journals also pose a number of important
challenges. If students are not given clear
guidelines, they can veer into diary-writing
creating boundary problems between student
and professor. Also, if the journal entries
do not demand different thinking and creative
skills, students can quickly become bored
with them; and faculty can find them tedious
to read. To help students make effective
use of journals, follow these guidelines:
Put journal objectives
and requirements in writing.
Be clear about the goals
for journal entries. Know yourself what
kind of writing you expect to happen in
the journal (e.g., summarize a reading,
critique a viewpoint, illustrate a concept,
air grievances). Rarely does the “anything
goes” strategy motivate a student
or accomplish what you have in mind.
Vary the journal
prompts that you give students.
In order to continue
motivating students, find ways to encourage
students to write different types of journal
entries. You can issue daily or weekly prompts
that ask students to practice different
thinking skills (e.g., summary, description,
analysis, evaluation, application). Or you
can simply specify that over the course
of the semester they should create entries
that fall into a number of different categories
(e.g., telling a story, critiquing a text,
summarizing a text, comparing two texts).
Read the journals
on a regular basis.
Although reading journals
is very time-consuming, it is necessary
to do so in order to prevent students from
perceiving journals as “busy work.”
Students will determine the value you place
on writing in large part on the responses
they receive. IF you cannot read everything
that they write, then try to find ways for
classmates to give each other comments.
Posting journals on a class Web site can
be a great way to do this.
Inform students
that journals are not a “private”
forum where they can write anything they
want.
Allowing students to
write anything in a journal encourages misunderstanding
and misconception. Not only will it invite
students to give you personal information
that you may not be equipped to handle,
but it will not encourage them to keep their
entries focused on course learning goals.
Use journals in class activities and discussions.
One way to ensure that
students are tying the journal entries to
course content is to incorporate the journals
periodically into the seminar. For example,
you can invite students to complete an entry
in class using a specific prompt. Or as
you are reading journals, write down intriguing
passages you find and bring them into class
and use as discussion starters. Finally,
when you read an impressive entry, encourage
the student writer to use that as the basis
for the next paper assignment.
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