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Reading Response Journals:
Writing After Reading Is Revealing

While some students eagerly share their impressions about selections they have read in class discussions, others are less comfortable and keep their thoughts to themselves. In an effort to encourage all students to think more about what they read and confidently share their observations and opinions, some teachers are turning to the reading response journal and are gaining insights they never anticipated. Included: Tips to help teachers establish effective journal-writing experiences.

"Writing in response to literature can be a great way for students to organize their thoughts, explore what they think, and even generate ideas in the first place," Katherine Schlick Noe told Education World. "One of the strengths of writing in journals is that it allows students to capture all of those great ideas that float off into the air during the discussion."

However, Noe cautions, "Journal writing can also become drudgery if students are asked to write too often, given little choice or inspiration in what to write, or simply if they don't have anything to say."

Noe, professor and director of literacy at Seattle University's School of Education, is an author and the creator of the Literature Circles Resource Center, a resource for educators. She is a great advocate of the "reading response journal," a notebook specifically used for students to record their impressions about things they have read. The writing can take many forms -- response to a question, letter writing, or writing based on a prompt to name a few possibilities -- but its focus is some piece of literature.

"Written response gives us clear and powerful insight into how these students are constructing their knowledge of language," said Noe. "When we ask our students to write in response to what they've read, we not only get to see what they're thinking about, but the writing is concrete evidence of how they're learning to spell, punctuate, and put ideas together."

According to Noe, a related insight that journals can reveal is what lies in the heart and mind of the reader. Some students don't disclose this easily in discussions, but she has seen innumerable examples of student writing that illustrates poignantly and powerfully how much a child connected with a story.

"Some students who are challenged by the act of reading have amazed me with the depth of their written insights," she added. "A good journal assignment or prompt can offer students a way to show us what they know and can do what other forms of evaluation can't uncover. I am convinced that this can happen only when the student is truly engaged in a good book whose characters struggle with issues that matter to the reader ­- and when the writing assignment or prompt draws a strong response from the reader."

Noe believes writing activities that ask students to reveal what really matters to them are the most powerful. She encourages teachers to design activities of this nature by inviting students to generate writing activities with them -- brainstorming what the students would like to write about or keeping track of prompts or activities that produce especially deep response. The following forms of writing are among her favorites:

• Write a letter to a character or from one character to another. A truly engaging character can prompt wonderful writing. This is true for characters with whom readers identify closely ­- as well as for those characters that they come to hate.
  
  
• Create a diary entry in the voice of a character. This can be an ongoing writing assignment. Again, with a really good character, readers are enticed into his or her world. This can be an excellent -- and authentic -- context for making and verifying predictions, exploring change in characters, and examining characters' relationships with others.
  
  
• Use the Four-Column Journal Entry strategy. Designed by middle school teacher Janine King, the Four-Column Journal Entry has students divide a sheet of paper in half lengthwise. They write a short summary on one half. They then respond to their summary, explaining how they feel about what they read. On a second sheet -- also divided in half lengthwise -- a peer reads his or her summary and response and adds his or her own response on one half of the paper. On the other half, the original student writes another response to what the peer said. This gives students a way to continue a conversation with a classmate, and it also helps them see that there is a real audience for their writing.
  
  
• Sketch to Stretch is another journal strategy. Devised by Jerre Harste, Kathy Short, and Carolyn Burke, this strategy uses drawing instead of extended writing. It's a great way to encourage students to think symbolically as they capture images and words as they read.

"I use reading response journals in a variety of ways as a part of our literature circles," explained Laura Candler, a fifth grade teacher at E. E. Miller Elementary School in Fayetteville, Noreth Carolina, and webmaster of Teaching Resources and Candler Kids. "My journals are created from sheets of paper folded over, and they have a construction paper cover with response journal prompts listed on the inside. I have two sets of prompts, one for fiction books and one for nonfiction reading. The questions are quite different. I staple the booklets together, but students decorate their own covers. The booklets are a manageable size, so they don't seem as intimidating as a full page in a regular composition book."

About once a week, just before the literature circle meeting date, Candler has her students write a full response to the book they are reading. They choose a fiction or nonfiction prompt based on the material they are reading, and they are free to select any prompt or make up their own.

Candler is careful not to overdo the use of journals. She wants the students to enjoy their reading, and using journals everyday can make them dread the writing. Collection of the journals usually takes place when the class finishes a literature circle book, and Candler makes comments about what the students have written. Through journals, she gains insight into her students' character as well as what they are thinking about the book they are reading.

"In a recent literature circle, the students were reading The War with Grandpa by Robert Kimmel Smith, a wonderful book about a boy whose grandfather comes to live with his family," recalled Candler. "The problem is that the grandfather has to take the boy's room because it's on a lower level and the grandfather has an injured leg. Most of the kids in the group sided with the boy and felt that no one should be able to take away the boy's room. However one student felt that the boy should appreciate the fact that he had a room at all (even if it was in the attic) because some kids are homeless and don't have a room anywhere. I would never have guessed that this student would be so insightful and compassionate, and I appreciated the opportunity to hear all of their thoughts."

"The journals are helpful to me because they are literacy artifacts of my students as readers and writers," explained Buffy Hamilton, a ninth- and eleventh-grade English teacher at Cherokee High School in Canton, Georgia. "Although I do not grade these journals for grammar, I am seeing an improvement in fluency and expression of ideas as well as higher levels of thinking. I think the journals also help students to see writing as a means of thinking and reflecting."

Hamilton's students use the journals as tools for reflective and critical thinking about reading, and also as a "springboard" for class discussion. At first, Hamilton did not establish a minimum paragraph requirement for journal writing, but she found that her students, who had no prior experience with the activity, needed parameters.

Students might use a word processing program to record their reading responses. (Photo courtesy of Buffy Hamilton)

MEASURING THE FLAME

Although currently she requires her students to turn in each journal assignment, Hamilton plans to allow them to choose their best response for evaluation each week. They will submit this entry with a self-assessment for her review. The students may compose their writing by hand or on the computer as long as they keep the material in a section of their notebooks.

Noe confirms that rubrics are a wise choice for evaluation of reading response journals, and that authentic work is the ideal way to clarify the assessment tool for students. To her, the best evaluation tool for student writing should be developed in conjunction with the writers themselves. Teachers and students can talk about what makes a good journal response according to the goals for writing and develop a rubric together.

"One other very effective evaluation strategy is to gather, or write yourself, a set of anchor papers that illustrate each level of a rubric," Noe added. "That way, students can read an actual piece of writing that illustrates a very good journal response, but also can see how other examples do not meet criteria. I think it's one thing to know the criteria on which your work will be evaluated -­ it makes it much easier than simply writing in the dark. But it's so much more helpful to be able to see what specific traits make a piece of writing effective or not so effective."

The books below, which were co-authored by Katherine Schlick Noe, contain additional information about reading response journals and how to implement and evaluate them.

• Getting Started with Literature Circles (1999). Katherine L. Schlick Noe & Nancy J. Johnson. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc.
• Literature Circles Resource Guide (2001). Bonnie Campbell Hill, Katherine L. Schlick Noe, & Nancy J. Johnson. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc.
• Literature Circles in Middle School (2003). Bonnie Campbell Hill, Katherine L. Schlick Noe, & Janine A. King. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc.

Article by Cara Bafile
Education World®
Copyright © 2009 Education World

12/01/2003
Updated 05/13/2009