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Literacy 4-6

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Literacy 4-6 > Strategies > Journaling

Journaling

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Overview

Journaling allows students to reflect on their thinking and feelings, process their learning, and connect new information to what they know. As a more informal form of expression, journals can be safe spaces for students to make their learning visible and to share their difficulties, questions, and emotions about a topic.

Use It in the Classroom

Watch how this middle school teacher uses journals to support students' reflection on their participation. By allowing students time to journal their responses to different prompts first, students are able to reflect on their own participation and share this in a way that supports Metacognition. The teacher also discusses the importance of making students who may be shy feel safe and recognized through journaling, thus improving students Motivation to participate in class.

  • Teachers can incorporate structured and unstructured journaling in a variety of ways. They can create an ongoing document where students continue to record their learning throughout the class or have a one-time assignment, such as free writes, fictionalized diaries of characters, or gratitude journaling. Asking specific questions on what students learned, the perspectives or concepts introduced, or a personal connection can guide students to journal about more specific ideas. These reflective journals, where students record their learning or even trace how their perspectives change, can help develop their Metacognition and Foundational Writing Skills.

    • Design It into Your Product

    Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.

    Watch how Seesaw offers journaling for students as a way to record their learning. Students can record their reflection in multimedia formats such as pictures, videos, and audio clips, and teachers can respond and give feedback on their posts.

  • Developers can integrate several multimedia ways for learners to reflect upon their learning and make it visible through different kinds of journaling exercises.
    • View References

    Resources

    Below are additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
    Examples

    Journal Writing

    Education World resources and prompts for journal writing

    Examples

    Journaling

    Teacher Vision tips and a lesson plan for using journals in different subject areas

    Examples

    Journals in the Classroom

    Facing History suggestions and considerations while using journals in the classroom

    Examples

    Reflective Journals

    List of useful questions for reflective journaling

    Factors Supported by this Strategy

    Student Background
    Adverse Experiences
    Physical Well-being
    Primary Language
    Safety
    Social Supports
    Socioeconomic Status
    Social and Emotional Learning
    Emotion
    Motivation
    Self-regulation
    Social Awareness & Relationship Skills
    Stereotype Threat
    Cognition
    Attention
    Long-term Memory
    Metacognition
    Short-term Memory
    Literacy
    Foundational Writing Skills
    Genre Knowledge
    Syntax
    Vocabulary

    More Metacognitive Supports Strategies

    Reflect on Learning

    Providing space and time for students to reflect is critical for moving what they have learned into Long-term Memory.

    Self-instructions

    When students engage in a dialogue with themselves, they are able to orient, organize, and focus their thinking.

    Self-monitoring

    When students monitor their comprehension, performance, and use of strategies when reading and writing, they build their Metacognition.

    Checklists & Rubrics

    Checklists and rubrics help students develop their abilities to self-assess and revise their writing.

    Goal Setting & Monitoring

    Setting overall goals, as well as smaller goals as steps to reaching them, encourages consistent, achievable progress and helps students feel confident in their skills and abilities.

    Positive Self-talk

    When students reframe negative thoughts and tell themselves kind self-statements, they practice positive self-talk.

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