How to use Journaling to get your students writing

This blog post is about how to get your emerging students to practice their writing daily using journals. Don’t forget to grab the freebie!

Why keep Journals?

I was lucky to be an intrinsically-motivated writer my whole life. For some students, writing can be tough, especially if they don’t see themselves as writers. Journals are a great way to get ALL students writing! Give students a writing prompt and allow them to write their hearts out! Since journals are not graded, students tend to feel comfortable expressing themselves without the stress of trying to “get it right.”

Good writers practice writing every day so that’s why it’s important to allow students to write every day.

When do they get time to write in their journals?

I allow my students to write in their journals every day. They can do it in the morning, during literacy centers, or if we have extra time at the end of the day.

Each journal has a writing prompt. Students respond to the prompt by using a combination of drawing and writing. Usually, students write one page of the day. The prompts include fiction and non-fiction topics as well as allow students to express their opinions.

Here’s what included:

KID-FRIENDLY PICTURE WORD BANK – A word bank to help them brainstorm their ideas.
DIFFERENTIATED TITLE PAGES – Thematic and non-thematic title page.
SIGHT WORD LIST – A list of Fry’s 100 sight words.
EDITING CHECKLIST – Students can edit their writing for punctuation and capitalization.

Download the freebie below.