Journaling In The
Primary Classroom
By Ruth R.Valeen
Ghawp 2004
July 15, 2004
Clear Creek ISD
McWhirter Elementary
First Grade
Background
Kindergarten
Students loved drawing
Journal in the morning after
pictures first and then
BEAR time.
writing about them.
Designate a responsible
They used inventive
student to pass out journals.
spelling.
They loved sharing!
Nothing was more
Important than
sharing their
experiences.
More Background
Second Grade
Students journaled all day.They wrote about topics They liked sharing in
They took notes.
Most important to them. front of peers and
They wrote stories when the note taking was in
some just liked to
they were finished their language/spelling come to my desk and
with their work.
journal.
share.
My Rationale
• I feel that journals can be used in more ways. But
how?
• How can I use journals in a variety of ways in my
classroom?
• Is there a certain way or time I should start?
• I’m teaching first grade this year. How are they
supposed to work in this grade?
• I’ll just RESEARCH it.
History of Journaling
 Leonardo Da Vinci recorded his
daily activities and personal
experiences in more than 40
notebooks.
 Lewis and Clark kept a journal of
their travels.
 American author F. Scott
Fitzgerald wrote conversations he
heard in his notebooks which gave
him ideas for his books.
Questions Teachers Have About Journals In
Their Classrooms…
1.
2.
3.
4.
What types of journals are there?
How can I use them with my students?
Why should I use journals in the
classroom?
How do I get started using journals in
my classroom?
Continued Questions…
• Continued…
– 5. What can my students write
about?
– 6. Are there journals for more
academic purposes?
– 7. At what part of the day do my
students journal?
– 8. How do I assess journals?
– 9. What about my struggling
writers?
– 10. What should I expect from
my students’ journals?
– 11. What are we teaching
children when we journal?
Purpose For Journaling
• -Routman. Invitations
• “ Journals provide a nonthreatening place to explore learnings, feelings,
happenings, and language through writing.”
• “ Personal journal writing can be a means of validating each child…”
• “ When taught well, journal writing is a springboard to writing in all
other genres.”
Why Should We Use Journals
in the Classroom?
•
“They will learn to write by writing and by living with a sense of “
I am one who writes””. -Calkins, The Art of Teaching Writing.
• - Tompkins, Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Product.
-“ …to record personal experiences, explore reactions and
interpretations to books, performances, videos, and real life
issues and concerns, stimulate interest in a topic, explore
thinking, wonder, predict, engage the imagination, ask questions,
and ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE (schema).
What types of Journals Are There?
-Routman, Conversations.
-Routman, Invitations.
-Tompkins, Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Product
•
•
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1. Personal
2. End of the Day
3. Reflection
4. Learning Logs
5. Writer’s Notebook
6. Poetry
7. Class
8. Dialogue
9. Reading Logs
10. Double Entry
11. Simulated
Dialogue Journals
Written to be
Similar to
personal journals shared with the
teacher or a
classmate
The person who
receives the
journal reads the
entry and
responds to it.
Written more like
a conversation
Poetry Journal
• Copy favorite poems.
• Write their own poetry.
• Draw pictures to go with
poems.
• Make poetry books with
favorite class poems.
• Display pictures and write
a poem about it.
Class Journals
• Observations of a class
pet, activity, skit, or
plant
• Reflections of a field
trip
• Can be written as a
shared writing activity
(whole group) or
individually
• Can use these as
collages displayed
inside class on walls
End Of The Day Journal
• Write about favorite part of
the day.
• Favorite story read that day
• Write about something they
learned that day
• Favorite activity
• A topic they want to learn
more about from that day or
another.
• A conversation with a teacher
or friend they had that day
that touched their heart
Writer’s Notebook
• A record of favorite phrases and
words that they may come across in
reading that they might want to use
in their own writing.
• Write ideas, thoughts, observations,
and memories for future topics.
• Write a new story, or poem using
these new phrases or words.
• Use children’s books, other poems,
nursery rhymes, big books etc…
Learning Logs
•
•
•
•
Communicate how and
what they have
understood about
“writing to learn” (what
he has learned about a
unit of study)
Describe their learning
processes.
Take 5 to 10 minutes at the
beginning or the end of a
period to respond in their
logs.
Can be used in math,
science, music, art,
foreign language, or any
subject area
Double Entry Journals
Students divide each part of their
journals into two columns.
Write different types of information in
each column.
Can write favorite quotes from a story
in one column and reactions in the
next.
Write predictions in one column and
actual events in the next.
Simulate Journals
• Students assume the
role of the character or a
historical personality.
• Write entries from that
person’s view point.
• Include details from the
story or historical
period.
Personal Journals
•
•
•
•
•
•
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Write about what’s important to them
Write about what they care about
Write about events in their life
Write about things that interest them
May not write about the same thing all
the time
Encourage them to check out other books
to spark up new interests..
Bring in family pictures to write about.
Reading Log Journals
• Respond to stories, poems,
and informational books
• Can be books they are
currently reading or have
already read
• Write and draw entries after
reading
• Record key vocab. Words
• Make charts and other
diagrams
• Can write memorable quotes
Benefits of Journaling
•
•
•
•
•
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Promotes fluency in writing
Promotes fluency in reading
Encourages risk taking
Validates personal experiences and feelings
Promotes thinking and makes it visible
Promotes development of written language
conventions
- Routman, Invitations.
How Do I Get Started With Journals
In My Classroom?
• 1. Introduce journals by using MINILESSONS in which you explain
the purpose of the journal writing activity and procedures for gathering
ideas.
-
Teachers model this by writing a sample entry on the board or on chart
paper as students observe.
Make sure students know that journal writing is informal and that content
is most important, NOT MEHANICS.
-TOMPKINS, TEACHING WRITING: BALANCING PROCESS AND
PRODUCT.
Getting Started Con’t…
2.
-
Journals can be started with examples from literature.
Harriet the Spy (Fitzhigh, 1964)
Dear Mrs. Henshaw (Cleary, 1983)
A Gathering of Days (Blos, 1979)
In these books, characters demonstrate the process of
journal writing and illustrate the pleasures and
difficulties of keeping a journal.
-Tompkins, Teaching Writing: Balancing
Process and Product
GettinG Started Con’t
• 3. Introduce journals by oral
BRAINSTORMING of possible topics.
- Allow sufficient time for brainstorming
- Place no value judgements
- Demonstrate the writing process
- Be sensitive and accepting
- Only positive comments and body language
-Routman, Invitations
• “When I go to classrooms and demonstrate
journal writing, I begin by talking about
things I can write about. They are
ordinary things but they are important to
me.”
• “ My list of topics is always different,
depending on what is going on in my life. I
stress that the topics are all things I know
and care about.”
What Can We Write About?
•
- Routman, Invitations.
1.
Write about anything.
2. Write about something that has
already happened.
3. Write about topics that others
have written about.
4. Look around the room for
something you might want to
write about.
5. Write about an unforgettable
experience.
6. Make videos, movies, and
television shows off limits
unless the experience has had
a personal significance.
7. List topics on the board, or on
chart paper to serve as an
idea stimulant for others.
More to Write About…Thoughts
-Routman, Invitations
“ Even with demonstrating, there may
still be children who have difficulty
coming up with topics.”
A first grade teacher notes, “This past
year, after I noticed that students were
experiencing difficulty thinking of
topics. I looked for opportunities
throughout the day to help them
generate ideas, and there were many.
When the students arrived in the
morning excited about something that
had happened that morning or the
night before, “That would be a great
idea to put in your journal!” I
commented the same way to students
during shared reading experiences
when a story or poem prompted
reflections on personal experiences.”
Other Thoughts…
•
“Very young children also need to be encouraged that what has happened to them is
worthy of writing about. Note the following exchange with Kindergarten student who
had begun to write:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Karesa:
“This isn’t so good, but I’m trying my best.”
Routman:
“What are you going to write about?”
Karesa:
“I am picking apples.”
Routman:
“Did you really pick apples?”
Karesa:
“No.”
Routman:
“Why don’t you write about something you really did? How about
when you made applesauce this morning? What could you say?
Karesa:
“The applesauce was mushy and icky.”
•
“What difference in language when the story was genuine!”
- Routman, Invitations.
Are There Any Journals That Are More
Academic?
• Tompkins, Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Prouct
• 4 Most Common procedures
• 1. Brainstorming
• 2. Quickwriting- writing informally, rambling on paper, generating ideas, making
•
•
connections among the ideas, often write for 5-10 minutes, not focusing on
mechanics or revisions.
3.Clusters- spider web like diagrams to organize ideas and other info. (Bromley, 1996;
Rico, 1983) Can be organized or unorganized. Are often used as tools for
organizing thinking during prewriting, and as a report to present information.
4. Data Charts- use to categorize and record information about a topic. Students
draw a grid and label the column headings with characteristics and the rows with
examples. Can make this together as a class, individually, or in small groups.
“None of these procedures are better than others.”
“Use the procedure that is most appropriate for the writing activity…”
At What Part Of The Day Do My Students
Journal?
Schedule daily for 10- The beginning of a
20 min.
period
At the end of the
morning or day
At independent work
time
Can do first thing in
the morning
Right before reading
groups
During work stations
In 1st and 2nd,
journaling in the
morning is best
(helps with
guided reading
schedule)
In 3rd and up,
you’ll need to
play with your
schedule
-Routman,
Conversations.
-Can schedule
journals for 45
min.-1hour for 3rd
and up
-MODEL,MODEL
In kinder, model
a journal entry at
least once a
week in the
morning
How Do I Assess Journals?
•
•
•
KINDERGARTEN
- schedule formal journal writing once a week
- these entries become a yearlong record of progress
FIRST GRADE
- At the end of each month, do a shared writing to remember and record important
events.
- Each student writes about the favorite event
- At the end of the year, you’ll have a writing sample from each student for each
month.
SECOND GRADE
- Revisit a favorite early entry and publish it in final form.
THIRD GRADE +
-Can give points for each entry made in personal journals
-For more academic journals, grade the content to check and see if particular
information was included.
-Rough draft entries shouldn’t be graded for mechanical errors.
What About My Struggling Writers and My G/T
Students
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STRUGGLING/ESL STUDENTS
- Meet with them in small groups
- Use interactive writing in small groups
- Work on phonics skills and some phonemic awareness if needed
- Whole class mini lessons on your observations
- Conferencing with students at least once or twice a week
- MODEL
MODEL
MODEL
MODEL
G/T STUDENTS
- All journals are really great for these students
- The academic journals help you plan further and/or provide advanced activities
- Using comic strips for journal entries are also a great activity because sometimes the
humor is more advanced thinking
 - Usually come up with topics that others wouldn’t think of and their ideas help to
promote higher order thinking.
What Are We Teaching Our
Children When We Journal?
• “Children are full of stories… they don’t know they have stories to
tell. An encouraging teacher can help bring out these stories. In doing
so, we affirm our students build their self-esteem, and encourage them
as writers.”
- Routman, Invitations.
“Perhaps most important, journals teach children that their life is important.”
- TOMPKINS, TEACHING WRITING:BALANCING PROCESS AND PRODUCT
Final ThoughTs…
“Journal writing, when done well, gives our students the
message that what happens at home, in families, and with
friends has value and relevance in school. By
meaningfully connecting students lives in and out of
school, we become more effective teachers, able to teach
and reach the whole child, not just the student.”
-Routman, Conversations.
What Should I Expect From My
sTudenTs’ journals?
• 1. ENTRIES ARE REQ’D- a req’d
number of entries may be part of an
overall grade.
• 2. LEGIBLE HANDWRITING
• 3. INVENTED SPELLING
WELCOME
• 4. HIGH FREQUENCY WORDS
MUST BE SPELLED
CORRECTLY.
• 5. AT TIMES, MUST MOVE TO
NEW TOPICS
• 6. DO YOUR BEST!
Bibliography For Presentation
• Routman, Regie. (1991, 1994). Invitations. Heinemann,
Portsmouth, NH.
• Routman, Regie. (2000). Conversations. Heinemann,
Portsmouth, NH.
• Calkins, Lucy McCormick. (1986, 1994). The Art of
Teaching Writing. Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH.
• Tompkins, Gail E. (2000). Teaching Writing: Balancing
Process and Product. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River,
NJ.