Journal

Description:  One of the best things about journal writing is that it can take so many forms. It can be used with all subject areas to encourage daily opportunities for writing. The most important thing to remember is to allow time for writing daily! By writing every day, the students gain fluency while getting a chance to practice important punctuation, spelling, and style skills in context.

Examples of strategy, when to use the strategy and how to differentiate journal opportunities:

Learning Log:

As a daily metacognitive tool, learning logs students recount what they have learned in the areas of both content and process.  In other words it can be a daily log of what was learned.

Interactive Notebook:

A notebook where each pair of facing pages is set up so that one page is the class notes on content, process, activities, etc, and the facing page is to be used for the student’s individual interaction with the learning experience (e.g., drawings, words, mind maps, responses, reactions. etc.). This is great tool to use in all subject areas including history, science and math. It is best to have separate journals for each subject for the student to use to refer back to and review important concepts.

Transactional Reading Journal:

A powerful way to engage students in a reading experience and get them to construct their own meaning.  Entries can be completed that respond to the beginning, middle, and end of the text.  The teacher and/or students can generate options such as:  any element of writer’s craft, personal connections, a letter to the author, character, another literary character, a piece of art the work inspires, etc. This strategy can be used as the student is reading to interact with literature or novels.

Focused Free Writing: 
(Porter, 2002)

Focused free writing works the same way as free writing except that students start with a specific topic.  While writing, they may digress and interrupt their writing, but eventually, they should attempt to return to the topic.  Focused free writes should be brief no longer than five to ten minutes. This is another great tool to provide daily writing opportunities.