I sincerely hope that the above blog has helped with the importance of student journaling. Also, I wanted to acknowledge that while pursuing a Master's in Education, I found by acquiring Paula Rutherford's book, "Instruction for all Students" and Wong and Wong's book, "The First Days of School" helped me to not only develop and utilize what I had learned right away as a Substitute teacher, but as a future potential teacher will further provide excellence for student acquisition.

As a potential Business Instructor, while pursuing a Master's in Education, I have found that the importance for students to journal helps in the overall scope of their learning.

The 3-2-1 Learning/Reflective Log or Journal is an excellent tool developed to promote student individual depth of knowledge not only to be aware of his/her own thought processes beyond just a basic knowing, but is a mehodology for students to acquire an in-depth knowledge about content/subject matter.

Most importantly, this Learning/Reflective Log/Journal method in it’s content formation will also allow students thinking skills to be utilized on paper which provides a formative assessment for the instructor.

The 3-2-1 journal and assessment begins where students will individually write three key ideas they have learned from the lesson, two aspects of the lesson they want to know more about and one question they still have about the lesson.

The 3-2-1 Journaling helps teachers to review student differention and abilities to help organize their learning experiences through the Multiple Intelligences. It aides in having a more collaborative classroom, while engaging students in interactive teaching with Direct Instruction and assists students to master more complex materials no matter what grade level. The 3-2-1 journaling tool also doubles as an Exit Ticket.

In addition, this tool is effective in teaching basic skills to young and at risk students during direct instruction and in helping older and higher ability students to master more complex materials and aides to develop independent study skills.

If you are interested in a format of the 2-3-1 Learning/Reflective Log/Journal, Paula Rutherford's book has an excellent print. (Rutherford, P. (2002), Instruction for all students, Alexandria: Just ASK Publications, Inc.).

I am a high school student in an experiential wilderness program for juniors. We spend 60% of our time out of the classroom participating in a ropes course, doing community service, working at an internship, backpacking, hiking, etc. After each excursion, each student journals about their experience. It is a lovely way to reflect and write creatively. This is the first year I have ever done journal writing in school, but I have really enjoyed it. Students are used to a rubric or essay topic, but journals allow students to express themselves in a less confined way.

It is also beneficial to read the journals to the class occasionally, and conduct discussions based on the writing.

Journal writing is very important and must be incorporated within the classroom setting. My students write in their journals daily. I am able to gain knowledge regarding each student on an academic and personal level. I find that assessing journals are quite time consuming. I like the idea of creating a rubric to assess journals. I will definitely create one. Great idea!

I think that journals are very important within the classroom environment. It allows you to gain knowledge regarding your students academically and personally. Journals are also a great way to improve and enhance writing skills. I like the idea of having a rubric to assess journals. Grading journals are very time consuming and I having a rubric will eliminate some of that.

Writing journals helps my students take ownership of the subject matter. I also grade based on the students ability to connect one or more historic themes or concepts when writing. The connecting multiple themes helps to turn the formal assessment into a summative activity. Honestly, one of the benefits that I didn't plan was that the journals have helped prep students for classroom discussion.

This seems like a great idea. My school use to do this 3 days a week in P.E. and it was great. The kids were getting better writing and expanding their thinking.

I've always felt the importance of incorporating aesthetics such as music into the learning process, so I appreciate the little footnote of classic albums which can assist in this matter. Journal writing should definitely not be removed from the curriculum because it provides what may be the only time that students have to reflect deeply upon their actions and critically process their experiences. The idea of having students grade their own journals can be very positive as well, becaue it can help them develop objectivity and honesty in assessing their points of progress and those areas where they can surely improve. Journal writing is valuable in that it provides a means of monitoring the inner life over the course of a year and maintains an autobiographical account of one's life.

As I have been developing a new music technology course for our urban high school, I have students blog anonymous comments to the class website to give feedback after each unit we do. They evaluate the material, the focus project, and the thematic unit in general.

Their anonymous honesty last year helped me shape this year's coursework when retaught to new students -- I even dropped / changed a couple units when I realized that they were completely irrelevant to the students!

In this way, students help me understand what they need, they practice writing, and most importantly they help improve future students' experience in the class.

Brian Laakso
McKinley High School
Canton, Ohio

I think that's a fantastic idea Amanda! You could also implement a classroom blog and give a different student an assignment once a week or once a day to make an addition. You could encourage them to get creative with their entries, asking them to try poetry entries or use accompanying photographs or artwork.