HI,
"A journal is a place for thinking and feeling, for harvesting the moment, the image, the idea, the place you occupy..... Grab images, words, drawings pressed leaves, dirt, post cards, anything that impresses you and will help you remember the time, place and events you are experiencing and creatively get them into your journal" -William Hammond.
I do a combination of a lot of things in a sketch journal the students keep for the year...
There is a program that was started at the University of Calgary that focuses on sketch journaling. Campus Calgary - Open Minds . I was fortunate to be selected to attend a few times (City Hall School, Bird School, and this year to Community Arts Commons). We get to go to that space for a full week to learn by talking to experts, interacting with the space, and sketch journalling.
I teach Grade 5, but a lot of teachers in Calgary use journals for all ages.
Sometimes students are given thinking routines to help them organize their work;
(such as Up Down All Around. Six Directions from Lynda Barry's book What It is: Do You Wish You Could Write?
Or Six Room Poetry from Georgia Heard's book Awakening the Heart: Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School.
There are also some amazing ideas from Harvard through Project Zero and Visible Thinking Routines),
and shown how to use these to note take.
We practice, and I model a lot! The students are pretty comfortable journaling anywhere and often ask to have time to journal!
Sometimes the journal is to document information we are listening to. This is a CBC podcast we were listening to about climate change in different cities:
Sometime the students are asked to add information and research add to their journal. There is a page of them drawing observations (not shown) and then the next time we did the following page:
Sometimes it is so I can understand their thinking better and we can do an analysis in more depth:
Sometimes it is more so they can remember their thoughts and ideas:
This is a journal page from an explorer in residence who came to talk to us. This is one students traits of an explorer ideas:
I find the students are very proud of their journal.
Many of my english language learners can show their understanding and develop vocabulary.
I have a better understanding of the students thinking.
I do have clear intensions when we work in our journals because I don't want them to become an art project only (unless that is my specific intension on that lesson). I also don't want them to become glorified worksheets/ colouring pages, but learning tools.
When I taught younger students I found a few things helpful:
-I started printing out sticker labels that had a title and description of what we were working on that I could get students to stick onto their page (so when parents looked through they'd know what we were working on) since the younger ones sometimes did not have the writing to describe.
-I often took photos of an experience, or of them in an environment, and we glued those in and they could write around it and describe, or we could write descriptive words and they choose a few to add onto their page.
-Students loved getting a "window" to draw and focus on one spot (I think it is less overwhelming for them)
Sometimes working together is better. In grade 1/2, we did a giant journal page that the whole class participated in. I then took a picture and printed out copies for each journal and the students added notes or more ideas in their own journals if they wanted.
Also, a grade 3 class used lined chart paper to organize their work:
A grade 2 student journaling:
Also, Waldorf schools have some amazing journal ideas.
"A journal is a place for thinking and feeling, for harvesting the moment, the image, the idea, the place you occupy..... Grab images, words, drawings pressed leaves, dirt, post cards, anything that impresses you and will help you remember the time, place and events you are experiencing and creatively get them into your journal" -William Hammond.
I do a combination of a lot of things in a sketch journal the students keep for the year...
There is a program that was started at the University of Calgary that focuses on sketch journaling. Campus Calgary - Open Minds . I was fortunate to be selected to attend a few times (City Hall School, Bird School, and this year to Community Arts Commons). We get to go to that space for a full week to learn by talking to experts, interacting with the space, and sketch journalling.
I teach Grade 5, but a lot of teachers in Calgary use journals for all ages.
Sometimes students are given thinking routines to help them organize their work;
(such as Up Down All Around. Six Directions from Lynda Barry's book What It is: Do You Wish You Could Write?
Or Six Room Poetry from Georgia Heard's book Awakening the Heart: Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School.
There are also some amazing ideas from Harvard through Project Zero and Visible Thinking Routines),
and shown how to use these to note take.
We practice, and I model a lot! The students are pretty comfortable journaling anywhere and often ask to have time to journal!
Sometimes the journal is to document information we are listening to. This is a CBC podcast we were listening to about climate change in different cities:
Sometime the students are asked to add information and research add to their journal. There is a page of them drawing observations (not shown) and then the next time we did the following page:
Sometimes it is so I can understand their thinking better and we can do an analysis in more depth:
Sometimes it is more so they can remember their thoughts and ideas:
This is a journal page from an explorer in residence who came to talk to us. This is one students traits of an explorer ideas:
I find the students are very proud of their journal.
Many of my english language learners can show their understanding and develop vocabulary.
I have a better understanding of the students thinking.
I do have clear intensions when we work in our journals because I don't want them to become an art project only (unless that is my specific intension on that lesson). I also don't want them to become glorified worksheets/ colouring pages, but learning tools.
When I taught younger students I found a few things helpful:
-I started printing out sticker labels that had a title and description of what we were working on that I could get students to stick onto their page (so when parents looked through they'd know what we were working on) since the younger ones sometimes did not have the writing to describe.
-I often took photos of an experience, or of them in an environment, and we glued those in and they could write around it and describe, or we could write descriptive words and they choose a few to add onto their page.
-Students loved getting a "window" to draw and focus on one spot (I think it is less overwhelming for them)
Sometimes working together is better. In grade 1/2, we did a giant journal page that the whole class participated in. I then took a picture and printed out copies for each journal and the students added notes or more ideas in their own journals if they wanted.
Also, a grade 3 class used lined chart paper to organize their work:
A grade 2 student journaling:
Also, Waldorf schools have some amazing journal ideas.