An often-used educational quote from anthropologist Margaret Mead: ‘Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.’
Curriculum
Journaling writing
An often-used educational quote from anthropologist Margaret Mead: ‘Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.’
This pivots on helping them to develop a core ability that supports all subject engagement and recall – comprehension. Finding the best ways to stimulate comprehension in young children is not always straightforward. In older students, this evolves into a need to unlock critical thinking and analysis. One method to achieve these aims is to encourage journal writing in education.
This article explores how writing in a journal can benefit learning in the classroom and generally increase student engagement. We also cover practical ways to develop journal writing skills in students.
Education resources
What is meant by journaling??
Journaling is not a new concept and has been around for centuries. The list of famous journal keepers shows the credibility of this expressive writing form and includes such literary luminaries as Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Steinbeck, and Susan Sontag. Journaling is often associated with mindfulness and mental health exploration in adults because it can be highly therapeutic. However, its value is not purely confined to ‘self-exploration’.
Also, it is important to be clear that journal writing is not a ‘diary’, a form of ‘transactional writing’ that is far more structured and task orientated and which enforces chronology. Instead, a journal is a ‘blank page’, inviting free-flowing, expressive writing that focuses on personal reflection and idea development.
Journaling as an educational tool
One of the best ways to engage students in reading and writing is to introduce them to the many ways we use language to communicate, share ideas, learn, and express ourselves. It stands to reason, then, that introducing children to the concept of journaling provides them with an important writing skill – a skill they may continue to use in adulthood.
Another of the main reasons to encourage expressive writing in a classroom is to enable children to explore their ideas, reactions, and understanding in a relaxed and inclusive manner. This is a great way to improve their understanding and ability to organize their thoughts.
Also, having a blank space to express themselves gives students the time, space, and freedom to fully explore their responses and ideas. There is no pressure to conform to what their peers are doing or to hunt for right/wrong answers.
Instead, they can use journaling to formulate their thoughts, questions, and views in a private, independent manner. Or, they can write down relevant experiences linked with the subject matter.
Benefits to the students
One report on this topic discusses the substantial benefits of combining journaling with other learning modalities.
This includes improving student information retention over time and ‘developing a deeper understanding of the content, application of the content to real-world problems, expressed interest and learner engagement.’
Let’s look at the potential advantages of enabling expressive writing in classrooms:
- Encourages students to be creative and explore different ideas, scenarios, and reactions.
- Stimulates more observation and alertness to prepare for journal writing.
- It allows them to consider and organize their views and responses.
- Captures writing students can re-read to analyze their reactions.
- It can create a strong, personal connection between students and teachers.
- It helps show students that their opinions and reactions matter.
- It provides a way to explore and adjust their attitudes and reactions.
- Enables older students to learn critical thinking.
National Geographic Editor at large Peter Gwin, in an article on ‘Why your child needs to start journaling now,’ said: ‘Journalling provides a place for an active mind to store ideas and an outlet for pent-up intellectual energy and emotions.’
Benefits to educators
Though it is a form of free expression, journaling needs to have learning goals attached to be of value as an educational tool. It also needs to be read and responded to by educators. From reading the journal writing of their students, educators can gain valuable insights into any misconceptions, gaps, or misinterpretations they may have. This includes personal values and perceptions that skew or limit an individual’s learning.
Reviewing journal entries can also enable a better connection with their students, as they can see what motivates, interests, and engages them most successfully. Also, letting each student craft their expressive writing celebrates individual ideas and reactions. If this material can be shared, it allows educators to show how differently students can see the world. This teaches empathy and understanding of different viewpoints and lived experiences.
By providing opportunities for private reflection and reaction, teachers can give students positive affirmations for their ideas and opinions. This may help the student to gain confidence to present their ideas verbally during lessons in the future.
How to introduce journaling in education
For this type of writing to be effective as a learning platform, students need to understand that what they create cannot be ‘wrong’ and that they don’t have to be limited by other rules applied to school and college work. Or, as Psychology Today puts it: ‘Expressive writing comes from our core. It is personal and emotional writing without regard to form or other writing conventions, like spelling, punctuation, and verb agreement.’
Keep in mind that journaling does not have to be a solo endeavor. It is also a valuable collaborative learning tool. Groups of students can be invited to explore characters, concepts, or events together, creatively and expressively. Using either a physical or digital journal format, students of writing age can all be encouraged to explore their own experiences, attitudes, and areas of confusion or revelation. For older students, this could include charting where their understanding was at the start of a learning exercise and how far that advanced afterward.
For instance, following reading a book in the classroom or as a home study, students can be invited to do a piece of expressive writing about it, with no set questions. Or, the educator can frame open-ended questions that provide a starting point for journal writing. For example:
- What did this character make you feel?
- What events in your life are similar to this one?
- What could happen next in this story?
This all stimulates a personal connection with books’ characters, events, and descriptions.
If students are encouraged to explore their own lived experiences and feelings related to the topic, it can further increase engagement, understanding, and recall.
Can journaling include drawing pictures? This is – in fact – one of the best ways to get young children involved. However, all students can be encouraged to illustrate their writing if they wish.
Students with challenges
Marlene Ritchie has delved deep into the expansive history of expressive writing. She concludes: ‘Scientific study indicates that expressive writing of one’s thoughts and feelings in a journal has a positive effect on the writer’s physical and mental wellness.’ That suggests it is a healthy and positive way to enhance the learning experience of children with specific educational challenges.
Offering a range of learning modes always improves outcomes when you have children with diverse needs in a classroom. Individual students respond to different methods in different ways. One of the ways journal writing is a universal way to engage students with a topic is that it doesn’t have to involve pen and paper! Offering ways to create an e-journal on a device makes it a great educational tool for differently abled students. Journaling on devices can also better engage students who have a passion for technology and enables students to experiment with expressive writing beyond the classroom or ‘on the move’.
For more introverted or struggling students, journals can be a ‘safe’ place to express views, ideas, and experiences with a limited audience. They don’t have to share these with peers until they are ready. Sometimes, having this opportunity for private reflection and expression can make them feel more confident about choosing things to share in class discussions and presentations.
Four key steps in using journaling as a learning tool
To be effective in education, journal writing does require ‘gentle’ guidance from the teacher. This should be designed to steer students towards expressive writing that is relevant and appropriate for the learning task at hand. It should also ensure every student gets involved confidently and comfortably.
This requires the following principles for journaling in classrooms:
1. Consistency
Journaling regularly develops the student’s familiarity and interest in this form of communication and exploration. This can involve setting aside time in a specific lesson – such as literacy – or creating a weekly slot for journaling on different topics. There should be enough time for students to feel relaxed, formulate what they want to say, and explore it fully without pressure.
2. Framing the task
Not all students will write freely on a topic unless they have been given carefully open-ended directions. This is particularly true of younger grades. It is important to outline what is expected of them regarding how much you want them to write and about what topic.
For more advanced students, you could even ask them to tick off different writing genres in their journal writing: narrative, persuasive, interpretive, and predictive, for example.
3. Offering inspiration and prompts
This step is particularly important for younger students and mixed-ability groups. You need to provide pointers, to help them connect to the topic and explore it in an organized way. This could include inviting them to discuss their own lived experience and reactions. For instance: ‘This character did this. Write about when that happened to you or what you would do if it did happen in the future.
For younger students, it could be as simple as reading something to them and then setting an overarching journaling task. For example, after a history lesson on the Voyages of Columbus, students can be invited to write about how they would feel being on a ship and discovering a new country.
4. Providing positive affirmation whatever they write
A vital aspect of expressive writing is that there are no right or wrong answers. Journal writing needs to be free-flowing and reviewed without judgment to be effective as an educational tool.
If a student expresses the view that they can’t write anything down, that’s a cause for concern, and that student needs help dismantling the obstacles to free expression. However, beyond that, if a student has written anything about the topic from their point of view, it’s a win!
Interestingly, some schools encourage a continuous journal writing process, particularly about literacy and comprehension skills. According to one academic study, this ensures ‘literacy development tends to deepen and broaden.’
What is ‘good’ journal writing?
Though grading journal writing is counterproductive, it is important to review the work to see if some students need extra inspiration or if they have displayed gaps in understanding that can be carefully addressed using alternative teaching methods.
Also, one of the most important benefits of this educational tool is that it allows students to self-evaluate and possibly adjust their thinking and reactions. That means encouraging them to read back what they have written – possibly later when the topic has been covered more in-depth.
This process of seeing how their ideas and feelings evolve can be insightful.
More reasons to use journal writing in education
Much of the above dealt with how expressive writing can be used to develop comprehension skills and grow students’ confidence in exploring their perceptions and ideas. Developing the skill of journal writing can also help students in more holistic ways.
Test anxiety
One of the most compelling reasons to help students to develop their journal writing is that it is a proven method of improving mental health, including tackling test nerves.
According to one medical journal: ‘Expressive writing has been shown to improve personal wellbeing significantly. Recognizing one’s reactions and emotional responses during periods of stress, failure, anxiety, or difficulty is essential to psychological adjustment.’
Management of negative responses
Students ‘triggered’ by tough topics can sometimes find relief in writing things down in a personal journal entry. An important technique that can be used for older students is to invite them to write in the third person, so they can explore topics they find difficult to talk about.
Journaling can help release pent-up thoughts and emotions and disentangle thoughts and ideas that also limit a student’s learning.
Mental discipline
Formulating and expressing your own perceptions, reactions, and experiences can also help develop important life skills. This is something that could then improve learning outcomes generally. For example, journal writing could help:
- Reduce distraction and scattered thinking.
- Improve focus and thought organization.
- Enhance idea development and adjustment.
- Connect thinking and feelings with external events.
- Dignify all life experiences.
- Provide a trusted, non-judgmental outlet for conscious and subconscious beliefs.
- Build self-confidence and self-knowledge.
Home-school connections
Both physical and digital journaling is something students can continue at home. They could even be invited to involve parents, guardians, and other family members in their writing.
For example, during the study of the Second World War, could a grandparent provide insights that the student could add to their journal?
Unlocking writers
Finally, there is always a chance that inviting expressive writing – without a focus on spelling and punctuation, for example – encourages reluctant, shy, or self-conscious students to develop a love of the written word.
Novelist Louis L’Amour urged people to: ‘Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.’
