A different kind of writing urnal writing L-write to find out what Im talking about. Edward Albee A different kind of wi ing benefits Before, during, and after ing Journal wi Teacher journals Many teachers ask their students to write journals as a quite separate activity from the other kinds of writing they do in lessons or as homework. Such journal writing involves students in keeping their own ‘diaries’ in which they can write about a range of different topics such as significant recent events in their lives, how they are getting on in class, which language points they are having particular difficulty with, or, indeed, any other area of interest to them. Although there are, as we shall see, a range of options available to teachers about how they should respond to their students’ journals, it is generally the case that students are happy to have their writing read, and welcome feedback on it in some form or other. In this chapter we will discuss the many good pedagogical and affective reasons for journal and letter writing. However, as will become apparent, in order for this kind of writing to be a success, teachers and students have to make decisions about how, when, and where to write (at home, in class, or in a study centre, for example). Students should also know when and how teachers will respond to their writing. Above all they must feel empowered by writing journals rather than secing this task as yet another learning chore. Journals and letters Some teachers write to their students at the beginning of a term and invite the students to write letters back to them. As with journals, they can write about anything they want and the letters are kept confidential between them. Many commentators speak about journals and letters as being equivalent in the context of teacher-student dialogue. However, there are some significant differences between them. In the first place, whereas journals encourage introspection and reflection because students are essentially writing to and for themselves (with an eye, of course, on the teacher's response if one is to be given), letters are written to someone (in this case the teacher). Letters may gain in dialogue power, in other words, but this may be at the expense of individual analysis. 125How to Teach Writing 126 In the second place, whereas it may be quite possible to ask students to write weekly journal entries, asking for weekly letters is less satisfactory. When teachers write to students they invite them to reply, but coercion is not part of the bargain. Journal writing is easy to consider as part of a learning and writing process, in other words, and can be a regular feature of lesson sequences whereas letter writing is, by its nature, a more voluntary procedure which is difficult to insist upon in the same way. For these reasons journal writing is seen by some teachers as preferable to letter writing. Others, however, have found sending letters to students and getting ones back again a rewarding experience, both for themselves and, more importantly, for their students who, as we shall see on page 127, benefit enormously from an effective teacher-student dialogue. In this chapter our principal focus will be on writing journals, but much of the discussion will be appropriate to teacher-student letter exchange as well. ‘There are many reasons why teachers and their students have found journal and letter writing to be useful. These inchide not only the benefits of reflecting upon learning, but also the opportunities for freedom of expression, the impact of journal writing on writing ability in general, and the opportunity they provide for teachers and their students to enter into a new and different kind of dialogue. The value of reflection Journals provide an opportunity for students to think both about how they are learning (what is easier or more difficult, and why and how they achieve success), and also about what they are learning (aspects of the language and how it all fits together). This kind of introspection may well lead them to insights which will greatly enhance their progress. When we try to put our thoughts into words we have to work out what those thoughts are. This, in turn, makes us reflect on what has happened, what we think or how we feel. And when we reflect on things we often reach conclusions that we might not have thought of when an event was taking place or when, as learners, we were engaged in the learning process itself. ‘A marked benefit of such creative introspection is its effect on memory. There are good reasons for supposing that when we have a chance to reflect carefully on what we have done we are far more likely to remember it than if we simply discard an experience the moment it is over. Freedom of expression Journals allow students to express feelings more freely than they might do in public, in class. If they know that their journals are not going to be read by everyone (unless they want people to read them), they will write more openly. And because the act of writing is less immediate than spontaneous conversation, they have more time to access those feelings. Such freedom of expression is in contrast to some of the other types of writing which students are called upon to produce. When writing within certain genres (‘letters’, ‘reports’, ‘narratives’, etc.) they are sometimes8 © Journal writing constrained by what is appropriate within those genres and by what they are trying to learn to do. Such writing will often be corrected and evaluated, and may or may not lead to passing or failing grades. Journal writing is a genre in its own right, of course, but within that genre authors are at liberty to impose their own idiosyncratic style on the writing since their primary audience is, after all, themselves. They can decide what and how much they want to include, and they can write at their own speed. Developing writing skills Just as reading a lot helps students to become better readers, so the more students write, the better and more fluent they become as writers. They expand their range of written expression and write with greater ease and speed. Journal writing contributes to a student’s general writing improvement in the same way as training enhances an_ athlete's performance: it makes them fit, If journal writing is successfully encouraged — and if the conditions for journal writing are appropriate — it has a powerful effect upon their motivation too, quite apart from promoting learner autonomy in writing. Student-teacher dialogue One of the merits of journal (and letter) writing is the dialogue it encourages between teacher and students. When a teacher writes to a class and says, ‘you can write to me on any subject and I will reply. But do not worry, I will not show your letter to anybody else, and you do not have to write to me if you do not want to’, the student knows they have a channel of communication that was not there before. When a student writes in a journal, he or she knows that the teacher will read what is written with, perhaps, a different eye from the normal evaluative one. A different kind of conversation therefore takes place. A confidential channel of communication between teacher and student can cause problems both of time pressure and of the erosion of ‘distance’ between them (two areas of concern that are discussed on page 133). However, it is noticeable that students more readily ‘open up’ in this medium than in others. Student journals are an extremely useful resource for teachers, too. They frequently trigger insights into the effect of classroom methodology. When students say how they feel about things, teachers often find responses to lesson segments that they had not anticipated. Learner perceptions are often different from teacher perceptions. When we find things in student journals that we did not expect, we can make changes or introduce elements that answer our students’ concerns. When Lakshmy Krishnan and Lee Hwee Hoon asked students to keep diaries at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore they found themselves ‘listening’ to ‘voices’ which gave them strong messages about individual concerns and needs. Their students were attending a pre- semester, intensive English language course. They were mostly Indonesians and Malaysians and they were new to Singapore and its culture. 127How to Teach Writing Before, during, and after 128 What quickly became clear from their journals was that many of them felt uneasy about being in a new place, about having to make new relationships, and about having to do things differently. One student wrote: I should go to bed now for getting up on time and I won't be late for tomorrow's class in the computer lab. I think my roommate and I have to go out earlier because swe should find the lab first. 'm afraid I'l be lost, like today I lost when I tried to find the canteen. Although Ive already the map and asked people. Finally I still can't find it, so I come back to my hall. Another student wrote: I fee! homesick because I usually spend my time with my family but I hope Ican handle it. Neither of these entries is especially surprising, but as teachers we sometimes forget what it is like for students when they first arrive in a new place far away from home. At the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, these journal entries encouraged the course leaders to think of ways to help students. Perhaps they could institute a ‘buddy’ system to prevent student loneliness; next time they might design a ‘treasure hunt? which would teach students how to get around the campus. Other entries told them about students’ attitudes to different classroom activities and suggested areas for amendments to teaching practices. When we read our students’ journals we can respond in writing to their questions and concerns, making suggestions, offering advice, and empathising with them. But however we respond to what we read, we know things that we might not have known before, and therefore have a chance to act on them. For journal writing to be a success, teachers and students have to know what it is for and be enthusiastic about the process. This means that a number of strategies have to be adopted and a number of potential pitfalls avoided. Starting out Although some of our students may well have kept diaries when they were younger (and a few may still do this), most of them will never have contemplated keeping a journal in their own first language. The idea of keeping an English-language journal, therefore, is doubly strange. Such students are unlikely to become instant journal writers just because we ask them to. Unless they are encouraged, helped, and supported as journal writers, they will probably be reluctant to take part. There are three main things that we can do to make journal writing a success: + Be enthusiastic ~ the first thing students need to perceive is that their teacher is really enthusiastic about the idea of journal writing. We need to be able to show by the way we talk about it that we are really keen on the idea and that we think it will be both fun and useful, If students pick up on our enthusiasm, they might just become inspired by it. Explain why and what — we need to tell students why we are asking them to write journals, We need to impress on them our belief that journal writing is good — as we have seen above — for learning (because it gives us time to reflect on what we have been studying), good for writing (because8 © Journal writing the more we practise, the better we become), good for flexing our creative muscles (because we have the freedom to experiment with different forms of expression), and good for being able to communicate with the teacher. When students have understood why we are suggesting they should write journals, we need to talk about the kind of writing they might do. We may explain that they can write about any difficulties they have with the language or with the lessons; they can write about any interesting things that have happened to them — and which they want to talk about; they can discuss any issues that concern, interest, or amuse them. At this, point we may show them a number of different journal entries, either ones produced by previous students (with those students’ permission) or concocted ones, for use as examples of what might be done. We then need to tell them what they can expect from us. We will tell them if and how we are going to respond to what they write and how often we are going to do this (we will discuss these issues below). What kind of journal/notebook? — some teachers issue all their students with the same kind of notebook. Other teachers tell students to go and choose whatever kind of notebook they want. If we take the latter course, we must insist that students come to class with their new journals at the appointed time so they can start writing along with everyone else. However, there will always be at least one or two students who forget to buy a decent notebook, and so we may want to have some spares in reserve. Discussion of what kind of notebook students should have may seem trivial, but the decision we take might help to make the difference between enthusiastic and non-enthusiastic students. However, we will need to measure the desirability of having students write in the kind of notebooks they like against the disadvantage (for the teacher) of having to carry around notebooks of all different shapes and sizes. How often and when? ~ there is no hard and fast rule about how often and when students should write their journals or send letters to their teacher. Ideally, they will want to do this as often as they can. However, as with any other student-determined activity, there will be big differences between those who are committed and able to take action on their own and those who, for whatever reason, find it less easy to work by and for themselves. Yet if we believe that journal writing is a useful activity for the reasons we have been discussing, then we want as many students as possible to take part. Itis for this reason that many teachers who get their students to write journals set aside a few minutes, say at the end of the week, to give their students in-class writing time. Sometimes teachers like to play appropriate music in the background to create a ‘journal-writing atmosphere’. Not all students like writing (or working) to music, however, so it is a good idea to ask the class if they would like this, and what kind of music they would appreciate if they have agreed. 129How to Teach Writing 130 Getting students to write journals in class has the disadvantage of taking time from other activities. Nevertheless, five or ten minutes at the end of a week or fortnight may be very beneficial for the students’ language and writing skills. With journal writing there is always a conflict between, on the one hand, trying to ensure that it takes place (which suggests in-class writing, and the handing in of journals every week or fortnight for reading) and, on the other, giving the students space and freedom to use journals for reflection and personal development (which suggests allowing them to decide when and where they want to write them). This may be resolved by, as we have suggested, starting a journal-writing programme and asking to see students’ work at set intervals. As journal writing takes hold, these formally scheduled events can be reduced until it is up to the students to decide when to write. Teachers can then concentrate on those who seem to have stopped their journals. They can ask them why they have done so and encourage them to start again, ‘The question of how often to have students write journals is connected to one of the problems of journal and letter writing, namely the danger of imposing an impossible workload on the teacher (see page 132). Keeping going As with many techniques and activities in class, it is significantly easier to get students started than to maintain their enthusiasm over a long period of time. But journal writing is, by its nature, an ongoing procedure rather than a one-off classroom activity. We need to do everything we can, therefore, to maintain our students’ interest, motivation, and participation. + Making it work — to make sure that journal writing works, we must continue to show enthusiasm for the project and, if appropriate, give some class time to journal writing (see above). We also need to respond to our students when we have said we will and in the way that we and the students have agreed on. + Responding to journals — there are many different ways of responding to students’ journals, and the one we choose may well determine the success or failure of the whole journal-writing enterprise. It is quite possible to argue, for example, that student journals should remain entirely private so that neither the teacher nor any of a student's classmates should see what he or she has written, This would give the journal keeper real space in which to be creative and address his or her inner thoughts with a feeling of confidence and safety. In this case the teacher's role would be to repeatedly encourage the students to keep on with their journals. The students might discuss the merit of their journals and how they were getting on with them without having to show the actual writing itself, Another alternative, however, is for teachers to read what students are writing in their journals, so that, as we have seen earlier in this chapter, the journal becomes a channel for a different kind of student-teacher dialogue. However, this raises the question of what teachers do with what they read. One possibility would be for the teacher to read the journals8 © Journal writing without making any comment at all. At least, then, students know that the teacher has seen what they have to say. But the dialogue will be somewhat one-sided. Perhaps, then, we should respond in some way to what we are reading. Once again, however, we have to decide exactly what form this response should take. We could, for example, write a comment at the end of a journal entry which showed that we had read what the student had ‘written. For example, we might write, I enjoyed reading your journal this week. Well done’, which is a supportive comment but not very informative. Perhaps, instead, we could say, ‘I liked your description of the party you went to, It sounds like it was fun’. This at least shows students that you have read and absorbed some of what they have written. Perhaps our response could include a comment like, ‘Be careful about since and for. We use for with a period of time (three weeks, two hours, etc.) and since with an actual time (1999, six o'clock, etc.)’. This shows that we are paying attention to the students’ English as well as to the content of what they are writing about. Of course we can go further than this and underline the mistakes in the students’ writing in the same way as we correct some of their written homework, for example. Tn general it seems that journal writing naturally provokes the kind of responses (rather than correction) that were discussed in Chapter 7. If we are asking students to be reflective about their learning or to offer us their thoughts on a range of subjects, it seems churlish and demotivating to respond with a long list of corrections. Nevertheless some students do appreciate help with their English, even in this kind of writing. Perhaps the way of resolving this kind of dilemma is to ask classes what kind of response they would like, That’s what Richard Watson Todd and his colleagues in Thailand did with their students. What was clear to them was that the students wanted feedback from the teachers who read their journals, provided that trust was established between them and the teacher, It was in this way that appropriate dialogue was established and maintained. But when asked, students made it clear that for them a general comment at the end of a journal entry was not enough. They wanted in-text feedback when the teacher had something to say (the same could be achieved, of course, with footnotes). In other words, these journal writers wanted comments at the place in the text where the teacher had concerns or other reactions. The comments that the students most valued were suggestions, positive evaluation, or supportive back-up. Another message seemed to be that tutors did not have to worry too much about what they commented on; all comments on specific points were appreciated. The findings of Watson Todd and his colleagues may be specific to the group of learners in their study. Nevertheless, two things emerge from what was discovered. Firstly, the best feedback to give on learner journals is feedback that both teacher and students feel confident about, and which students find helpful. And the best way to find out what kind of feedback this is, is to ask them about it. We can say, for example, that though we are not especially concerned with grammatical accuracy in the 131How to Teach Writing 132 journals, we will point out errors if the students want it, but not if they don’t. We can ask them if they want us to write in-text comments as and when there is something to comment on. As the journal writing progresses, we can ask them again if they are happy with the feedback they are getting (we can ask this by writing the questions in their journals) and amend our feedback on the basis of their replies. ‘We have been talking as if asking students for their opinions is something that only happens between teachers and classes. But in fact there are good reasons for suggesting that we should be asking individual students for their opinions rather than relying on the opinions of a whole group. There are two reasons for this: in the first place, a group ‘consensus’ may not in fact represent the wishes of all the individuals within the group. Different students may have different needs and wishes and would benefit, individually, from markedly different kinds of feedback. Secondly, it is often difficult to hear individual points of view when we ask groups for their opinions. There is always the danger that those with ‘louder’ voices will be heard more clearly than others and thus seem to represent a group's wishes, even if this is not strictly true. What is being suggested is that, as well as discussing feedback issues with the group, we should also ask individual students if they are comfortable with the level and type of feedback that they are receiving. ‘A general principle of journal writing is that, because it offers a different kind of writing and a different mode of communication, it should not be treated in the same way as other kinds of student writing. However, the exact nature of the feedback we give will emerge as a result of the students’ comments and replies to us. When to respond — one of the dangers of writing letters to students and inviting them to write back to you is that they might all do just that! If a teacher is working with five groups of 30 students each — a common situation in many parts of the world — the danger is that he or she will be having to answer 150 letters a week. This is somewhat unlikely, of course, but the danger of serious teacher overload should not be underestimated. ‘As with letters, so with journals. No teacher could reply adequately to 150 journal entries a week on top of lesson preparation, classroom teaching, and homework marking. Some way, therefore, has to be found to cut down on the teacher's workload while, at the same time, maintaining the benefits of teacher-student dialogue. Not all of a teacher's groups may keep journals, of course. A lot depends on the level of the students and the type and make-up of the group. The amount that individual students write will also affect how often we can respond to their journals. But even where teachers have a large number of students writing journals, there arc ways of working with the situation, We can, for example, make ‘appointments’ to read an individual’s journal. Instead of reading it every week, we might say we will read it twice a term, and say when that will be. We could read one group's journals one week, and another group's the next. We can ask students to restrict themselves to writing no more than one or two pagesTeacher journals 8 © Journal writing (though it may be unfortunate to curtail students’ expressivity in this way). + The teacher-student relationship - we have advocated the use of journal (and letter) writing to promote a teacher-student dialogue. However, as teachers we always have to be careful about the relationship such dialogue engenders. At its best it is extremely creative and a powerful force in both the student’s development as a learner and the teacher's understanding of how students think and respond. However, it can, very occasionally, become difficult if students express opinions (whether personal, social, or political) which the teacher finds questionable or objectionable. As teachers we need to remember that journal-writing dialogue, like any other form of communication with students, is a professional issue, and the relationship that such dialogue creates is a professional relationship. In other words, where things become difficult, teachers need to make clear to students as soon as possible the limits of such dialogue. These do not include, for example, a student's right to make abusive journal entries or include views which in any other context would be unacceptable. The privacy of a journal is not a cover for inappropriate communication. Where journals and letters cause difficulties in this way we need, in the first instance, to speak to the student and explain the problem. We may, then, make our feelings known very directly in our responses to journals. Finally, we may find it necessary to suspend our reading of that student’s journal or letters either temporarily or permanently. Such problems are rare, But teachers need to be aware of the possibility of difficulties like this, so they can quickly spot them and take action immediately before things get out of hand. In this chapter we have focused on student journals (and letters) and the teacher’s response to them. However, teachers can and do write journals as well, with some or all of the same benefits as those they have for students. Reflective journals Many teachers keep journals in which they record their thoughts about their teaching and their students. Just as a student journal is a powerful reflective device which allows them ‘to use introspection to make sense of their experience, so teacher journals allow them to make sense of classroom experience in the same way. Teacher journals are powerful action research tools. Action research is the term used to describe the ways in which we look at our classroom practice ~ and its success or failure — with a critical and evaluative eye. Thus a teacher may worry, for example, about the fact that students do not write fluently in lessons. In such a situation, he or she can think of different ways of trying to improve the situation, and can introduce a series of different activities over a period of time which might get students writing more effectively. By keeping a journal and recording the responses to each of these 133How to Teach Writing Conclusions 134 activities, the teacher — like any observational scientist — has something to refer back to when coming to conclusions about the best way to proceed in the future. tis not being suggested that keeping a journal is the only way to conduct action research. On the contrary, teachers can use a variety of other techniques such as questionnaires (to students), various observational tools (including having lessons videotaped to watch them later), or peer teaching, (where colleagues collaborate in teaching and observing each others lessons). But journal keeping has a unique power to provoke creative introspection which may sometimes solve problems that otherwise seem intractable. Teacher-to-student journals ‘Teachers can write journals at the same time as their students, of course, and students can respond to them just as teachers respond to their work. A teacher-student journal swap will have an enormous impact and help to create trust and an equal dialogue. Students may well be just as interested in the teacher's introspection as they are in their own reflective thoughts. However, such a swap could cause massive overload problems for the teacher of the kind we discussed above. A more realistic option might be to publish a teacher journal/newsletter which is distributed to the whole class with the same regularity as we are asking students to make entries in their own journals. Another possibility is to select a different student each week. It would be their responsibility to read the teacher's journal and then report back to the class about what they find there. This gives the individual student a very positive responsibility, and may lead to energetic discussion between the student, the teacher, and the group. Because it is important to create and maintain an appropriate teacher~student relationship, we need to take care with what we put in such journals and newsletters. We should probably not engage in too public an introspection about the progress of the class, precisely because we are writing for the public, and not just for ourselves or one other person. We should also take care that we don't write anything which could be hurtful, misconstrued, or upset the balance of fairness and equal treatment that we, as teachers, attempt to create in our classes. Many teachers will feel that the responses they give to their students’ journals constitute a kind of journal in themselves. Nevertheless, for some students and teachers a journal written by the teacher and read by the students helps to encourage them to write their own journals for the teacher to read. In this chapter we have: * discussed the advantages of having students write journals, and contrasted journal and letter writing. * said that introspection and reflection help people become better learners.8 + Journal writing pointed out that journal writing is good for both language and writing improvement. explained how student journal writing and appropriate teacher response create a unique kind of teacher-student dialogue. * said that teachers will need to encourage students to write. * talked about how often and where students should write journals. * pointed out that teachers need to help students with their writing, and continue to motivate them, especially by the way they respond to their students’ journals. discussed the nature of the teacher's response, saying that it helps to ask students how they want us to respond. made it clear that teachers have to maintain a professional relationship with their students and act immediately where this appears problematic. discussed the usefulness of teacher journals both as reflective tools for ourselves and as models and motivators for our students. 135