Each morning my students come into the classroom, sharpen their pencils, turn in their homework folders, get a drink and begin writing in their journals. The students write about topics of their own choice (usually Good News!) and know that at the end of journal writing time, they will get into sharing circles for about 5 minutes, read their entries and be questioned (using question words such as who, what, when, where, why and how) by their peers who will want to find out more! As we've practiced being good listeners and questioners and the writing has progressed, the students have challenged themselves to write so thoroughly that their peers will have trouble coming up with a question that wasn't answered in the writing. As a reminder to the students I post a question word poster with pictures that I created. We've been focusing on 3 question words and have color coded them (who - yellow; where - green; when - pink). The students underline the words in their own writing that answer each of these questions in the corresponding color. It really forces them to elaborate a little bit more - extending and adding sentences. Over the next several weeks, we will add more question words to answer in our writing such as "why - blue." Special note - right before we get into our sharing circles, I have the students practice reading what they wrote to themselves. Many find words they inadvertently left out and make the corrections right then - before they start to share with their peers.
I've found that by having the students answer these questions in their own writing, they are better able to answer these questions about the books we read and content we study. In addition, we work on our listening and speaking skills as well as comprehension and writing. Again... a lot of bang for the buck! :)
I LoVe for my students to keep a journal and write in it every day. Every year I get away from doing this because there is just so much to teach, but I always end up coming back to it. This year, in an effort to keep more in line with our writing curriculum, I began by having the kids draw a picture and write a few sentences about a past event in their lives. The kids were not showing any enthusiasm towards journaling, and I quickly realized this just wasn't hitting what I believe journaling is all about. So...this past Friday I reverted to my "old" ways and talked with the kids about using their classroom journal as a place to write down whatever they would like to write about any given day. One of my students immediately looked excited and said, "You mean like a diary?" I said that was exactly what I meant and got a chorus of cheers! I was quite taken aback to discover my students couldn't wait to begin writing and were even more excited when I told them they didn't have to draw pictures!
We brainstormed as a class things we could write about - the kids' ideas were amazing. We listed things such as: our dreams, things we hope for, things we are happy/sad/mad about, places we'd like to go, what we'd like to do with our friends, our family, our favorite books plus many more. It was decided that we would date and draw a line after each entry so that we could write about more than one thing each day if we want to.
I am so happy that my students look forward to journal time and don't want to stop writing. They are taking out their journals to begin our day and any time they can after that. They are writing about things that matter to them. Some share out loud, some don't... and that's ok. Some just want to share with me. The best part is that the kids have an outlet for their feelings and thoughts, and I get to see wonderful, heartfelt authentic writing.
