Writing journals
There are many ways to do writing journals. If you want them to be successful, here are some things to keep in mind.
What you need to do
- Get your JTE to help you.
- Decide if you have time. Reading and responding to a journal takes maybe 5 minutes. That's 12 an hour, or 60 every 5 hours.
- Give students example sentences, patterns, or ideas. Make copies of examples, and ask students to glue them in their journals.
- Pick interesting topics.
- Read and respond to each student's entry.
How to use journals
Cut A4 notebooks in half, horizontally. Give one half to each student. Encourage students to decorate the cover and draw pictures inside. Students write on the left, and you write on the right. Or, if you give them examples, glue examples on the left, and students write on the right. Encourage the students to ask you questions in their journal. Start each entry with the date and "Dear ALT", and end it with a signature. Always double space, so there's room to answer questions, or to write translations above words, if the students feel like it.
Respond to some or all of the entries using easy English. If students asked you questions, answer them. Get a smiley face stamp, or stickers or something, and use them.
Variations
- Make groups of three and give each group one notebook in which to write a story. Each week, one student writes an entry.
- On the high school entrance test, there are a few writing questions (5-10% of the test, roughly). There are a few standard topics (ask your JTE), so try to use them with JHS 3rd graders.
Sample topics
- Write about your club activity.
- Pick something you like and write three sentences about it. Repeat.
- Pick something you don't like and write three sentences about it. Repeat.
- What do you want to do for summer vacation?
- Where do you want to go to high school?
- Draw a picture of your room and describe it.
- What did you do for winter vacation?
- What did you do on Sunday?
- How was the Fall Sports Tournament?
- Ask the ALT 5 questions.
- Regarding winter vacation, write 5 sentences of the form, "I wanted to *something*, but I didn't."
