Journal writing does more than just improve writing skills. Ms Annie Fong, who is currently teaching English in a primary school, shares with us on how it also helps her students to express themselves, build rapport with teachers and parents, and more.

“When are we going to write our next journal?” my students asked. 
“Well, fine. Let me finish marking your papers first?” I answered, smiling to myself.  My scheme worked. It is difficult to get students write - they moan and groan over having to write essays and sometimes despite writing fortnightly, the students do not seem to make much improvement in their writing.

Frequent practice helps students to improve their Mathematics so frequent writing should help them improve their writing.  I decided to give my students weekly journal writing practices and this seem to work with them.  To them writing journals is different from writing essays. It gives them an avenue to voice their views and me an opportunity to know them better and build up the rapport with them.  Helping my students to improve their essay- writing skills by leveraging on Journal writing works.

I even recommend journal writing to parents for them to get to know their children better and many a positive result was reported.  Once, I even attempted to collate all the students’ responses in their journal writing into a single story. I used the story for reading aloud and year after year, students seem to enjoy this story and even asked for the book to reread the story.

Journal writing enables students to record their personal thoughts, experiences and views.  It provides a platform for the students for self-reflection.  This information is useful as ‘guides or mirrors’ (Hiemstra, 1988) for subsequent ‘decision-making’.

A journal can be a notebook or pad of paper where students record their thoughts, personal opinions and feelings, hopes and fears. The process of writing a journal helps students to be more organized and focused and it helps students to process their thoughts and ‘overcome their writing blocks’ (Hiemstra & Brier (1994) and they are able to write more fluently after a period of exposure to frequent writing.

To encourage students to write journals, we have to make it purposeful and motivating.  I will always respond to my students’ writing.  For example, a student may write about being angry with me for punishing them in class and I will respond giving my reasons and letting them know how I felt about the whole issue.  Students tend to be more understanding after that, the response that they get is motivation itself.

Journal writing helps the teacher to understand the students better and it allows them to release their pent-up frustration, anxiety and obstacles in life. In a nutshell, it allows for self-expression, problem-solving, stress reduction and character development.

Has journal writing worked for you as a useful classroom exercise? Do share your thoughts with us.