Your Online Reading Journal
Every student will keep a personal/academic reading journal in our Blackboard Discussion Board. You'll see a "Forum" there called "Student Journals," and yours will be an ongoing Thread within that Forum.
Go into Blackboard, select "Discussion Board" from the left-of-screen menu, select the "Student Journals" Forum, then add a Thread which you will title, "Your Name's Journal." (Or you can give it whatever title you like.)
FOR YOUR FIRST JOURNAL ENTRY
- Tell us about yourself. Where are you from? What are your interests, academic and personal? What is your background in English and what do you like to read and/or write? Why are you taking this class? What do you hope to gain, or what do you anticipate the experience will be like?
- Feel free to begin responding to the first reading assignment.
ABOUT YOUR JOURNAL
A reading journal is a place to reflect on the material you're reading as you read it. It is a way to explore your own reactions, ask questions and search for answers, respond to class prompts, debate other students, absorb class lecture and discussion, try out new or old critical lenses, test your understanding, and even just freewrite or brainstorm.
There is no prescription for writing this kind of journal. You should aim, however, for a least 4 developed paragraphs per day, with lots of active thinking. Although it's fine to REVIEW or EVALUATE the works we read, doing this exclusively is poor journaling. In other words, don't just talk about how you did, or didn't, enjoy the readings. THINK about and EXPLORE the readings for INSIGHT. Probe. Dig. Question. At the very least, examine what it means to "enjoy" a piece of writing. S-t-r-e-t-c-h your intellectual capacity. DON'T MAKE ENTRIES JUST FOR THE SAKE OF MAKING ENTIRES. AVOID THE B.S. FACTOR! The purpose of the journal is to help you read our course texts actively, closely, and with improved understanding. Journal writing should help you to digest class lecture and discussion, forge connections between what you read and your life/the world beyond our class, and give you daily writing practice as well.
Most importantly, journaling teaches you to THINK ON PAPER. Interesting things can happen when you approach writing as a tool for discovery as opposed to a tool for demonstrating what you already know. With this kind of writing, you'll come to certain understandings which you could not have found any other way. As the maxim goes, a writer doesn't know what she thinks until she SEES what she thinks. So: give yourself a lot of latitude in writing your entries.
Although many entries should include full sentences and developed paragraphs about course material, you're also free to jot notes (incomplete sentences, scratchings and peckings), make outlines, create lists, switch topics, stray from the beaten path, discuss other books you've read, produce drafts for your essay, reflect on your own life, personal or academic, etc. etc.
Sometimes it can take awhile to really get into journal mode, but the pay-off can be terrific.
Scoring Criteria
I will check your journal for development and engagement 4 times in the course of the semester. The first check will be unscored; each check thereafter will be worth a maximum of 10 pts.
10 = at least 5 developed entries per week.
8 = at least 4 developed entries per week.
6 = at least 3 developed entries per week.
4 = at least 2 developed entries per week.
2 = at least 1 developed entry per week.
"Developed" means about 4 solid paragraphs per entry. It means that you have asked questions both of yourself, our course texts, your classmates, and teacher. It means you have also tried out or otherwise sought answers to your questions. Sometimes even a little research can help, both primary and secondary.
Developed journal entries provide details, examples, and reasons to back up any assertions. They explore new perspectives, brainstorm, respond further to/elaborate on class discussions, and draw active, meaningful connections between the readings, your academic studies, class lecture and discussion, and your life. They also show that you are reading your classmates' journals in a meaningful and attentive way.
A good journal, finally, shows authentic, engaged, daily entries—not one or two last-minute fakeries near the deadline for each journal check. Avoid making mechanical entries. That is, don't just inertly and passively respond to teacher prompts. The entries should be dynamic and alive. I need evidence of a mind and heart at work.
My judgement of your journal will take into account the sheer amount of writing you've done (number of entries per week), and the quality of what you've done, including the various factors cited above. I often assign fractional scores; e.g., 8.5 or 6.25, and so on. Mechanics are not expecially important, except insofar as they detract from meaning. I mostly look at content.
What To Do If You Get Stuck or If Your Entries Lack Life
Here are some tips if you find that you have nothing to say in your journal:
- Don't try to "say" anything. Ask questions. Jot down partial impressions, single words or phrases, feelings. Sometimes the mere act of writing ANYTHING will start you thinking in a productive way.
- Ask the writer of the current text, your teacher, or your classmates a question. Then try to answer the question, even if it means (gasp) you have to do a little research.
- Talk about your life, your student career, your anxieties, hopes, interests.
- Talk about the current text from several DISTINCT perspectives. For example, ask yourself: how would a multiculturalist read this book? How would a formalist? A feminist? Your mother? President Bush?
- Record an imaginary conversation between the author of the current text and the author of some other text you've read.
- If you were going to actually TEACH one of our course authors yourself, how would you approach that writer? What would be your methods? Aims? Criteria for evaluating student work? How would you help your students get more from what they read?
- Look up any words you don't understand in the current text and define them in a journal entry.
- Select a passage from the current text and re-write it in your own voice.
- Outline the plot structure of the current text.
- Analyze the characters of the current text.
- Look for motifs—recurring images and symbols—and discuss their relevance.
- Reflect on the problem of "women writers" or "women's literature," drawing on class discussion about this problem.
- Tell a lie about the current text and prove that it is correct.
- Email your classmates or instructure for a prompt (a question, trigger, way to get writing).
- Look up the current author online and summarize what you found.,
- Etc.
