What is a Journal?

A personal journal can be a vehicle to help you:

1.         engage in self-expression and self-development

2.         find personal connections to the class material

3.         explore your thoughts about the course material

4.         collect observations, responses, and data pertinent to the topics being studied

 A journal enables you to express feelings, clarify goals, and improve relationships with self and others.  Tristine Rainer, author of The New Diary, says that keeping a journal can help people understand their past, discover joy in the present, and create their own future.  She also believes that journal writing provides a path to self-awareness and self-knowledge. 

What to Write

            There is no “best way” to keep a journal.  Use your journal to record personal reactions to class, topics, students, teachers, family, significant others.  Make notes to yourself about ideas, theories, concepts, and problems.  Record your thoughts, feelings, moods, and experiences.  Use your journal to argue with the ideas and readings in the course, express confusion, and explore possible approaches to problems in the course.

When to Write

            Write in your journal several times each day.  Write when thoughts occur to you (in the morning, and evenings, before, during, and after class).  Write in your journal even when you are not in an academic environment.  Many thoughts, feelings, and questions do not always occur when it is convenient to record them.  Use your journal to express emotions such as anger, love, grief, fear, or jealousy.  You might record thoughts, feelings, and experiences in lists (a “happy list,” for example), using a narrative style that explains the pros and cons of an issue or a creative, “what if” approach.

             You may be asked to take a five-minute “time out” during a classroom discussion to record your immediate thoughts in your journal.  These entries may include your thoughts about what is happening in the classroom, questions you want answered, or comments you would like to throw out for further discussion.

             You will be asked at the end of some chapters to record a specific journal entry.  Other entries will be requested to express what you learned from doing a particular exercise in the workbook.

Chapter 9

It is important that you learn what things make you angry and how often these “anger triggers” surface in your life.  For a period of one week, record in your journal each episode of anger.  Writing makes anger events more concrete and puts them in a form that is easier for you to review.  Be specific as you write down the particular event that triggered the anger and describe your physical and mental response.  Once you become aware of your major anger triggers, you can determine how best to avoid them in the future.  At the end of the week, study the entries and then answer these questions:

1.                  What are the most common causes of anger in your life?

2.                  How well do you manage each anger episode?

3.                  Do you feel anger long after the incident that caused the anger has passed?

4.                  Do you express your anger in effective ways?  (A list of effective ways to express your anger is provided in the text.)

 Chapter 14

For a period of one week, record in your journal all stressful events.  One approach is to set aside a few minutes at the end of the day and complete your journal entries.  Another approach is to make entries throughout the day as you feel stressed.  This takes greater effort, but it will give you a more accurate picture of how much stress you are experiencing each day and the specific events that cause stress in your life.  Use of the journal helps you recognize stressful events that might otherwise escape your attention.  At the end of the one-week period, review all of your entries and try to determine what events cause the most stress in your life.  Then think about ways to better cope with the stress in your life.  A careful examination of the stress management strategies described in your text will be helpful as you develop your own stress management plan.

How to Write

            You should write however you feel like writing.  The point is to express your thoughts and feelings without worrying about the mechanics of writing.  Use language that expresses your personal voice—language that comes natural for you. 

Suggestions

1.                  Choose a notebook with which you are comfortable. 

2.                  Choose a notebook from which pages can be torn to be handed in weekly.

3.                  Don’t hesitate to write long entries and develop your thoughts as fully as possible.

4.                  Use a pen (preferably one that is easy to read).

5.                  Use a new page for each entry. 

6.                  Include the date on each day’s entries and the time of day on each entry within a day.  These dates may serve as important reference points in your later life.

Interaction

            You may be asked to share discoveries you have made or feelings you have had from the entries you have recorded.  Feel free to disagree with the instructor and express your views regarding the class.  Negative reactions do not affect your grade. 

             If you have entries that you do not want me to read, mark it and I’ll honor your privacy.  Simply fold the page to the middle of the journal, write the date and time of the entries on the outside.  A good journal will be full of lots of long entries and reflect active, regular use.

Conclusion

            At the end of the course you will write a paragraph(s) which evaluates the worth to you of keeping this journal.