University Writing CenterThe average student takes rather haphazard lecture notes, and may or may not study these notes before the test. If she does, it is likely to be in a cramming session the night before. Textbooks and other reading materials are read once and marked up in yellow or orange highlighter, if indeed they are read at all. Some students buy used books that have already been highlighted, in order to save time as well as money. Many students engage with the material of a course only enough to pass the test, and then quickly forget almost all of it.
Does higher education have to be like this? What can we do to get students personally engaged with the material we are teaching? The answer is nothing new: We can assign a journal.
Journals of various kinds are a staple of writing-to-learn pedagogy. The basic idea is that thinking on paper enhances learning. Journals focus the learner’s attention, help clarify thinking, and help both the student and the instructor figure out what the student knows and what remains to be learned. Journals also provide an opportunity for dialogue between the student and the material, and between the student and the instructor. Journals allow students to ask and answer questions, to record insights, to respond and react to material, to make connections, and to pose and solve problems. With all of these benefits, why don’t more faculty assign journals?
The first problem is the word, “journal.” Many faculty think of a journal as something akin to a teenager’s diary, a place to record breathlessly the tumultuous emotions of early adolescence. Or perhaps the word conjures up a novelist or poet recording the daily raw material of literary art. Either way, the journal seems inappropriate for the engineer or the scientist. However, journals don’t have to be called “journals.” Alternatives include Reading Log, Learning Log, Field Notebook, Reading Response Notebook, or even “Problem Solutions.”
Journals can also have various formats, procedures and purposes. Open-ended journals are only one common type. A semi-structured or “guided” journal might have a question or problem of the week, either set up ahead of time to follow the structure of the course or posed each week at the end of a lecture or discussion. Double-entry notebooks put lecture and reading notes on one side of the page and student comments and questions on the other. A lab notebook might put empirical observations on one side and student analysis on the other. Whatever format best fits the material, the discipline, and the purposes of the course is best.
The other problem is that faculty are afraid that they will be overwhelmed with pages and pages of writing that is difficult and time-consuming to evaluate. It is true that for students to take the journal seriously, it must be read, and it must count as part of the grade. However, this does not mean that every word must be read and commented upon. One purpose, perhaps the greater purpose, is to get the student thinking on the page. Another purpose is to facilitate a dialogue between the student and the instructor, an academic correspondence in a sense, and the instructor can answer questions asked by the student and respond to speculations and ruminations. The instructor can evaluate certain aspects of the journal in terms of quantities of entries or pages, and selectively respond to the content. It is also possible to have students mark or otherwise identify which parts of the journal they would most like the instructor to read and comment on. It is important to set limits, but journals do not have to be overwhelming.
More ideas about using journals in various disciplines can be found in The Journal Book, edited by Toby Fulwiler. Another very useful book on journals and other writing assignments is Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom by John Bean.
