Journal Writing

Journal Assessment Work

Did you know that even as part of university study students are asked to keep a journal?

What is the point of a journal you may ask? Well, what a good question. Research has shown that people can benefit from reflecting on their experiences. Putting your understanding of new ideas or words into your own words and talking about your experiences, questions and thoughts will help you to remember what you are learning.

Sometimes journals can be written in the first person, a style of writing that talks about your experience. This kind of writing uses the word ‘I’ quite often. Today I did this or that… Sometimes they are written as if someone was watching you or you were watching yourself. Today I was asked to … or … today the teacher decided to try to teach me about …. The first style of writing is probably easier to do grammatically but using the third person or ‘separate self’ is a good way to develop your more difficult grammatical writing.

Journals always talk about what you think. They record events and what that an event was like for you. Feelings, opinions, ideas and expectations are all written about in a journal. This is called reflecting on an experience.

The word ‘reflect’ is used when we look in the mirror and see an image of ourselves. Looking at our self in a mirror gives us an idea of how other people see us or to see things that we can’t see while we are living a normal life. Reflection helps us to be more objective about what we are doing. It may help us to understand ourselves better. Learning is a journey that teaches us about both the world inside us and the world around us.

Journal Task

Each student is asked to keep three different records in their journal.

General Larning Journal

  • Use a small note book like an A5 Exercise Book. You need to write 5 entries. Each must reflect on what you have learnt that week at school. The journal can be written in a personal fashion. The following information should be included in each journal entry.
  • Date of journal entry.
  • Write a short list of the new things that you can easily remember learning and topics you have struggled with.
  • Choose one experience from the week and talk about your expectations, thoughts, feelings and over all experiences. Describe the experience and write about why this experience stands out for you.
  • Conclude the journal entry with what you hope you can learn from your week at school.

Wide Reading List

Each week you should be able to add something you have read to the wide reading list. Please keep a record of what you have read in the back of your journals.
Keep a list of all other materials you have read as a part of the wide reading program.
List the following

  1. Text type - book, newspaper, internet site, magazine article …
  2. Two to three sentence summary
  3. Author / Creator
  4. Date

Students are encouraged to keep a list of any speaking and listening activities they complete as part of their wide reading record.

Individual Learning Goals

What do you see as the purpose in this unit of work?
What do you already know about this topic?
How is this topic relevant to you?
What do you see as the key learning points in this work?
What is easy for you?
What is challenging for you?
What skills are required to achieve the tasks set by the teacher?
What goals are you going to set for yourself in this unit of work?

What is your opinion about your expectations of this unit of work?
What have you learnt and what do you need to revise and what is too difficult for you at the moment?
Name one goal that you think is the most important for you at this point in your study.

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