Entry #3

After reading the chapter about journal writing I have found myself thinking about its importance more and more. I also found it really meaningful when I found my dialogic journal from second grade with comments from my teacher. It was neat to look back at this and realize my teacher did exactly what Tompkins suggests when reading my journal. She left comments once in a while and would give me ideas of things to write about when I wrote "I don't know what to raet." This reminded me of the box about "How to Address Struggling Writers' Problems" in Tompkins (2008). The problem says "I don't know what to write" and mentions a quick fix of creating a list of topics and a long term solution of teaching engaging minilessons on how to select topics (p. 104). I think that this would be an excellent place to integrate the RSS and social bookmarking that Hicks (2009) references. The teacher could model and then assist struggling writers to search for articles, pictures and video clips of things that interest them and then link them to the student's RSS. Once the teacher knows some of the student's interests she can search for other things that might help them to get started with writing and tag it to their RSS. This way the next time the student complained about not knowing what to write they would have a useful resource in which they could turn. Unfortunately, RSS was not an option in my day, but now that it is I think it could be helpful for the whole class or just with struggling writers depending on computer access.

Back to my second grade journal. I think the coolest thing to look back at is the memorable events that happened that year and to see how my writing grew longer and more detailed throughout the year. I only hope that I will have students who will save journals that they do with me so they can look back on them in the future. I hope that I can share my journal with my students someday and that it will motivate them to want to improve their writing throughout the course of our year together. This has really made me think of journal writing differently and see the its value in learning to write.

When I was reading this chapter, I was surprised to discover how many different types of journal writing there are. As I read about each type I realized I have done all of them at some point throughout my education, but I did not realize it at the time. I really like journal writing because it is personal, unique and just for that child. It is a safe space where a child can write and they should have the option for it to be public, private or shared. It is also not really being assessed for a grade like something that is written using the writing process.

At the end of the chapter, one of the questions that is posed is should I correct children's journals? (Tompkins, 2008, p. 125). I found myself wondering the same thing as I browsed through my own second grade journal. My thought was similar to what my teacher had done, she did not correct me when I spelled write as "rite" and "raet." Eventually, when it became a continuous error she wrote the correct spelling above. However, do you think I spelled it correctly then? Nope, I continued to spell it my way and eventually I figured it out! I think that is what is so interesting about inventive spelling. You can decipher what children are trying to write, but they are little off because maybe they do not know a chunking pattern yet or haven't been exposed to that word enough. It seems that being immersed in a print rich environment allows children to figure out spelling on their own. That is not to say we should not teach spelling, but for journal writing form should definitely follow function!

When I think about journal writing I think about reflection. My undergrad program forced us to constantly reflect and reflect and then reflect some more to the point where I was sick of it by the end! However, I still came to value reflection and see its importance in learning. It really does make things more meaningful because it gets you to think for an extended period of time about an experience or something that you read. I think that  reading/learning logs are an excellent way to integrate writing into other content areas. Learning logs get students to record and reflect on what they did during a lesson and serve as notes for them to refer back to. In my opinion, journaling is similar to creating a portfolio. Although a journal may not be as professional looking as a portfolio it shows developmental growth and progress over a long period of time. These are some of the best types of assessments, which encourage students to respond to what they are learning in new ways.

I think that double-entry journals are really useful for having students apply a comprehension strategy and demonstrate to them that journal entries to not all have to appear in letter format. Lastly, stimulated journals are an excellent way to integrate history or get students to think in another person's point of view. I think some students might find this type of journal more difficult to write, but it might be easier for other students because it allows them to visualize a person, place and time to write about. I never realized how journal writing can sometimes just be personal and sometimes it can serve as intentional instruction to practice a strategy. Tompkins (2008) really allowed me to see the practicality of journal writing in a variety of ways and I could honestly see myself incorporating all of these types of journal writing into my future classroom.