Teaching Writing: Children

Lesson 4: Using Journals and Review

Some Basics

Which one to use?

First, you need to decide on the type of "book" you want your students to use for their journals. After trying many different types, I settled on an old-fashioned marble covered composition book, which my students used in addition to subject area notebooks. I like the composition book because the pages are sewn in and don't come loose easily. Of course, the choice of type of book is up to you. Some teachers like to have students make their own journals, or use a variety of commercially available booklets. The choice is yours, but I would suggest that you choose one type and have all of your students us the same kind.

Mechanics

Here are the only two "Journal Rules" I ever really enforced.

First, the work in a journal should never be corrected or edited by anyone other that the child himself, and that should always be a "self-directed" activity. You should never instruct students to do any kind of corrections or editing in their journals, or worse yet, correct them yourself.

Second, I required my students to date each entry and to indicate if they were responding to a prompt, if it was a learning log type of entry, or if it was a free-write. That just made it easier for me when I responded to the entires. And, in turn, I always dated my reponses.

Sharing

Whatever kind of journal you decide to use, it is important that you have a way to respond to the students. If you never collect the journals, or pick them up to read them from time to time, the students will soon feel that these really "don't count" and that they really don't need to put much effort into the writing they do there. You need to have an organized way to read and respond to at least one piece of writing in each journal each week.

Another way to respond is to have individuals read their entries to you one-on-one. While students are writing, walk around the classroom and ask individual students if they would read their entries to you. Your role here is strictly to be a listener. Give only positive comments and resist the temptation to correct or offer criticism. There are other opportunities for that!

You might also want to have volunteers share their entries with the class. You and the rest of the class can verbally respond to the entries that are read. Be sure to never insist that a child share his entry - some will need a lot of "watching" before they feel safe enough to share what they've written with the class.

Keeping Track: Color Coding

For me, what worked best was collecting each child's journal once a week. To keep track of which journals I was reading each day, I found that color coding or grouping the journals worked out well. Very low-tech, I just made a large dot on the front of each journal with a marker to indicate the color code.

The journals I collected on Mondays were coded red, Tuesdays, blue, and so on. That way, all I had to say was "Today I'm collecting red journals," and my bookkeeping was cut down immediately. I just divided the class by four or five (you may not want to collect journals on Fridays!) and the job was done.

You could devise a similar system using the alphabet, reading groups, or any other way you choose to group them. I usually tried to randomly assign the colors so that the groups varied by ability and I wasn't reading the best writers all in a bunch on one day. I'd also suggest that you don't try to read and respond to all of the journals EVERY day, as soon it will become a chore rather than a pleasure, and that will show in your responses.

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