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1- Controversy about Journals
2- Own Position
A- Journal writing fosters cognitive growth (Britton
et al., 1975)
B- Points that need to be taken into consideration:
1- Teachers need to structure the writing and provide a stimulus.C- Conclusion: The journal serves 3 purposes
2- Expressive writing needs to be evaluated differently: Journal feedback responses can be derived from film making + "director's voice" rather than editorial voice
3- Students need to be given the opportunity to elaborate the expressive response into a transactional response so that they learn how to move from the expressive to the transactional.
4- Teachers need to structure the journal in such a way as to allow for, encourage, and demand the expression of all of the functions of the student's voice in a variety of modes and genres.
3- Instructional Plan: How
to integrate the use of skill-building journal into a contemporary process
curriculum?
A- DEFINE the particular developmental needs
B- Define types of journal exercises that are needed
C- Set Rules for students
D- Miscellaneous
a- How to structure the journal as an expansion
of voice:
b- How to check students' completion of assigned
journal entries:
c- How time could be scheduled to respond to students'
journals:
d- Require students to derive at least half of the
subjects for their major writing assignments from the journal.
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1- Controversy about Journals
2- Own Position
Journal writing fosters cognitive growth.
In order to explain how journal writing fosters
cognitive growth, we need to mention what Britton et al. (1975) concluded
by studying the development of writing abilities in children from
age 11 through 18. They concluded that the kind of writing that promotes
cognitive development lies in the FUNCTIONS of language that are derived
from the relationship between the writer and the audience. => 3 major functions
of language:
This primary role of expressive writing in cognitive development has radical implications for the role of the journal.
If we are to foster the development of the expressive function, we must provide regular opportunities for expressive writing in a format that encourages and rewards it (Emig, 1971).
Without ongoing practice in the expressive function, a composition course may actually retard cognitive development rather than promote it.
Therefore, we can conclude that the journal should definitely be included in the composing curriculum. However, there are a few points that need to be taken into consideration so that the journal assignments will actually be useful and help to improve the students' basic writing skills and lead to cognitive growth:
1- Teachers need to structure the writing. The students need to be provided a stimulus designed to bring a variety of latent societal contradictions rudely into their consciousness. These "stimulus units" consist of stories and poems from anthologies, songs, cartoons, advertisements, and art work that portray differing beliefs or role models. These are organized into sets of 2 or more contradictory views on the same issue.
In addition, expressive writing in response to carefully constructed and significant stimuli (that represent for the students societal contradictions) fosters the elaboration of expressive writing into transactional writing.
2- Expressive writing needs to be evaluated differently: with
its lack of concern for a public audience, it cannot be evaluated by the
same standards by which we judge transactional writing. A response system
is needed to encourage critical awareness and give students feedback about
the basic writing skills involved in composing prose. This system can tackle
the following three basic writing skills that are above the syntactic level
and necessary to writing competent prose:
- limiting and defining a subject
- establishing a thesis
- supporting generalizations with specific details, examples,
or evidence. (+ voice)
Journal feedback responses can be derived
from film making; its terms are easily grasped by students and are designed
to point out the particular skills that need to be practiced and errors
to be avoided the next time the students write, not to evaluate/grade what
was written.
Using these feedback terms to respond to journal and nonstop writing
not only promotes fluency but provides a risk-free environment for the
practice and mastery of essential writing skills.
As for the students' editorial voice that prompts them to edit their writing for correctness, it is appropriate in the final stages of revision, when they get ready to make the manuscript public.
Follow-up exercise designed to teach students how to transmute the
expressive response into a transactional statement:
1- students write a ten-minute nonstop in response to a particular
stimulus
2- students are given a five-minute break to "shake out" their hands
and count the number of words they have written (this number increases
by 20 to 30 % after 2 to 3 weeks of writing nonstop: increase in scribal
fluency).
3- students are asked to read back over their nonstops and identify
one idea that they are willing to elaborate into a transactional statement.
4- students spend 15 minutes to develop this idea for a public audience.
=> In this exercise, the expressive nonstop serves as a predrafting
exercise for a transactional statement.
4- Teachers need to structure the journal in such a way as to allow for, encourage, and demand the expression of all of the functions of the student's voice in a variety of modes and genres.
Conclusion: The journal serves
3 purposes:
1- It promotes the practice of basic writing
skills and can serve as the primary vehicle for the development of
the writer's voice (Moffett and James Britton).
2- It is the primary vehicle for fostering
the expressive function (in the larger context of cognitive development)
3- It bridges the dichotomy between
writing
for the self and writing for others
The journal is to the composing curriculum as predrafting is to the polished essay: ESSENTIAL.
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3- Instructional Plan
How to integrate the use of skill-building journal into a contemporary process curriculum?
A- DEFINE the particular developmental needs: Before constructing specific journal assignments, teachers need to DEFINE the particular developmental needs of their students. They need to take into account 3 variables:
=> Write about subjects that really concern you since your journal
will be used as a source for topics for papers.
=> Each entry needs to be identified with: - week of the term-
day of the week- date
=> One revised journal entry per week- Type your revision, paying
particular attention to spelling, punctuation, and grammar conventions.
=> Journal Format:
- 2 major columns
- each column has a small sentence-level revision margin for minor
revisions of syntax and vocabulary
- right-hand column = for initial drafting / nonstop writing
- left-hand column = for notes, predrafting, problem-solving drafting
=> Journal Sections: (use posterboard dividers to separate the
sections)
- section 1 = for daily journal entries (biggest section)
- section 2 = for special journal entries written in class or assigned
as predrafting activities for major writing assignments
- section 3 = for the actual drafting of major writing assignments.
=> Cross-referencing of the students' own writing: The
cross-referencing of the students' own writing embodies a significant
rehearsal of one of the most difficult cognitive steps of the composing
process: finding/discovering an authentic subject.
D- Miscellaneous:
a- How to structure the journal as an expansion of voice:
A series of daily journal entries in which the form but not
the content is prescribed. This same sequence is repeated week after week
throughout a course, with occasional modifications.
=> the formal constraints of the assignments and the daily writing
force the students to voice their lives in a variety of functions, modes,
and genres.
b- How to check students' completion of assigned journal entries:
- Completing all journal assignments is graded.
- All journal entries are written in a notebook reserved solely for
that purpose.
- The journal notebook is divided into 3 sections.
- At the front of the journal notebook: a checkoff sheet that identifies
all assigned journal entries. Students are responsible for checking off
each assignment when it is completed. Every week, beginning of first class
meeting, students exchange journals randomly + each student turns in a
half-sheet that reports on the status of their classmate's journal. Missing
assignments are itemized and each report is signed.
Let us not forget to use feedback terms that promote the acquisition
of basic writing skills
c- How time could be scheduled to respond to students' journals:
Weeks 1 & 2: each student selects 2 journal entries to be read
aloud to a classmate. Using the journal feedback terms, the listener responds
orally to the 1st piece and briefly in writing to the second.
Week 3: students turn in their journals, having identified 4 pieces
they would like the teacher to read. The teacher responds in writing to
2.
d- In composition classes, so that the ongoing rehearsal of the journal can be integrated into the larger context of the composing curriculum in immediately practical terms, students should be required to derive at least half of the subjects for their major writing assignments from the journal. When students derive their subjects from their journals, almost 80% of them write adequate papers. When students derive their subjects from other sources, only about 50% write adequate papers (Huff & Kleine, 1987). When students choose subjects from their journals, they are asked as the first step of their composing process to read back through their journals, cross-reference the entries, and identify related entries that constitute a focus of concern.
Conclusion
For young writers, the rehearsal provided by the journal in terms of
form and content is essential. The assigned daily journal entries promote
the writer's foregrounding of issues, ideas, and conflicts that represent
true concerns.
There is no replacement for the journal within
the composing curriculum. It serves as an ongoing rehearsal of skills and
ideas that interact to ignite the composing process, turning it into an
act of discovery.
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Page created on January 5, 2006
Last updated on January 10, 2006
Copyright © 2006 Nada AbiSamra
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