Jim Roth’s Website

The English 101 Journal Assignment

The English 101 journal assignment asks you to free-write at least fifteen minutes a day, five days a week through the rest of the quarter. All journal entries are “open topic” (your choice), but I suggest at least occasionally writing about the articles we’ll be reading this quarter. The guidelines are simple: you can write about anything you like, change topics in mid-journal entry anytime you want. The goal is to write words, lots of words, without concern that someone will read them. If you’re stuck and in need of an idea, googling "Journal Topics" will reveal lots of websites with ideas. Finally, you may keep your journal entries in a physical notebook or in a single MS Word file; just be sure to number and date each entry.

THE WHY and HOW

To write better, one must write often--there is no other way. Therefore, dedicating yourself to this assignment can do more to help your writing than anything I or any book can do.

First, the journal assignment requires a special time set aside to write original sentences and paragraphs.

The goal is to write as many sentences and paragraphs as possible within the time limit (though I encourage everyone to spend even more time at this pursuit).

Simply writing lots of words, sentences, and paragraphs can lead to great improvement in your writing. The more words, the better.

And those words don’t have to be read by anyone else to help your writing skill grow. To understand how this works, compare writing in a journal to practicing the piano between piano lessons:

The piano teacher does not have to listen to each practice session in order for the student to improve; in the same way, someone else (an instructor) does not have to read the words written in the journal for the writer to improve.  But in each case the student will improve in proportion to the practice time that he or she invests.

When you write in your journal, write about anything you want--but let the words flow quickly.  Write about your day, what makes you angry, happy, write about your most embarrassing moments. Start a novel, write pretend letters to people in your life--the possibilities are endless.

Also, don’t stop to check spelling and punctuation during your journal writing time.  Better to keep going with an idea and wring the truth from it than to pause and check the dictionary.

Remember that I will not collect nor read in detail any of your entries, so you can be absolutely honest with yourself. You need not worry about correcting spelling/readability/sentencing errors nor be concerned that someone else will read what you have written. (After you have finished an entry, you can always go over it and clean it up for your own instruction, but that is up to you.)

As a side note, not only will journal writing improve one's written English, but it can also improve one's mood and emotional health.  Studies have shown that regularly "venting" in a journal is as effective as taking antidepressants.

That's right—regular journal writing works every bit as well as popping Prozac.

SPECIFICS

The journal assignment is pass/fail, rather than worth a certain number of points. One reason is that I want you to feel free to write however you want about whatever you want--your thoughts and feelings are your business and nobody else’s. A second reason, perhaps the more important, is that the assignment has an impact that is more elegant and fairer than a points award: those who do it will likely see substantial improvement in their writing (and their mood); those who don’t, won’t.

Ø A minimum of fifteen minutes minimum per day—at least five days a week—beginning the second week of the course. A minimum of 45 separate entries by the end of the quarter.

Ø Please be sure to accurately number and date each journal entry.

Ø Keep all pages together in a notebook or on a USB thumb drive—you may want to refer to your entries later in the quarter or later in your life. In addition, you may want to continue to write in your journal long after our course concludes.

Ø Don’t be concerned with spelling or punctuation; the goal is to produce a large quantity of words. Stopping often to check spelling and punctuation blocks the flow of ideas onto the page. All that matters is if you can read your entries.

Ø Write about anything you want. Write about events, ideas, people who are important to you. Write about that which really affects you emotionally.

Ø At first, expect to sit with pen in hand waiting for the ideas to come. If you are patient, in time your mind will begin to generate content that your pen can record. A fifteen-minute writing session can yield from half a page to several pages of writing depending upon your mood and perseverance.

Ø Stuck for an idea? Please google "Journal Topics." This will give you a list of websites with lots of journal writing ideas and activities.

Ø No one but you will read the actual sentences you write, so you can be completely honest with yourself, which isn’t as easy as it sounds. In Dostoyevsky’s words, “Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.”

Above all, be kind to yourself, be positive, and be patient.