Every Page is an Adventure

Every day, I sit at my desk or in the library or at my table at home and I read. I read for an hour, sometimes more, sometimes less, but on average an hour a day. A lot of people do this. They read the paper. They read a book. They read online websites or journals or blogs or Facebook entries. Me? I read my students.

I sit for an hour a day and read their journals. I have had students journaling for two years and two months and never have I enjoyed reading them more than I do now. I sit and open my Chromebook. I open my journal spreadsheet and scroll down to the lines of the students I'm reading that night. I pick up a journal and open it to the correct place. I scroll through their line in my spreadsheet to see what comments I've made in the past and to remind myself of their writing goal. Each of them chose a writing goal a few weeks back. Common goals are: add more details, expand my vocab, write more or organize my thoughts. I review their goal so I know what I'm looking for and then I push the Chromebook aside and read. I flip the pages and check to make sure all the entries are there but I read.

I'm surprised.

Journaling Year Three

There are many things that I considered over the summer for how to improve my journaling system now that we are into year three.

HANDWRITTEN VS DIGITAL

The first thing I wrestled with over the summer was how I wanted my students to be writing. I had to decide whether I still wanted to keep to hand written composition notebook journals or if I wanted to go digital with them. I knew I'd have the Chromebooks in my classroom and wasn't sure if I wanted to move them digitally as well. It took nearly all summer for me to really decide. In the end, I still feel there is something very valuable about the process of physically writing. This is a hilarious notion since I'd much rather type than write but there are sometimes when I'm journaling or writing that I prefer handwriting. It's almost cathartic or hypnotic to put pen to paper. Additionally, I think if they were digital the temptation of Google Translate would be even greater than when they are writing "old school". So I asked my students to get a composition notebook. This differed because the previous year I'd let my students find any type of journal they wanted. Some had very pretty books or "diary" type books which I liked because it was personal to them. However the reality is that if they are uniform in shape and size, it's easier to transport them when I need to take them home. So I asked for composition notebooks only. However there are several students who purchased flashier composition notebooks with designs so they can still be personal.