Tools for a Writing Classroom: Creative Journaling
a well-kept journal or writers notebook is the foundation of any writers workshop

Hello, my name is Desiree Gray, and I am a Literacy Trainer with the Northwest Regional Professional Development Program. Before becoming a professional developer, I was a 7th and 8th grade English and U.S. History teacher for twelve years. Working with middle school students was a superlative experience that challenged me as I constantly searched for opportunities to share my love and passion for writing…hoping to use writing as an inspiration beyond a graded assignment.

Creative journaling is an art defined by the writer as the audience. It’s all about the writer and what he knows…who he is…his past, present, and future…Journaling has different meanings, contexts, and purposes all which address the needs and intentions of the writer. It is an area of writing that allows students to discover their own voices and explore topics centering on the world in which they live.

Creative journals may serve as memory albums, responses to text and literature, or simply a place to explore feelings, intuitions, perceptions, and ideas. Essentially, creative journaling is the writing that you do with students that helps them make sense of the world; this may include content material, current events, personal challenges, and the creation of themselves as writers with a purpose. Tolerance of ambiguity is a key element in creative journaling that allows students to express themselves freely and fosters a state of inquiry without the boundaries of always having a right or wrong answer.

The goal is to develop students who value writing and are able to freely express their feelings and thoughts about any given subject. Author Barry Lane describes this process as “writing a new world and healing the old one …imagining the dream…and finding the core story.” The ability to use writing as a tool for discovery allows students to transform their experiences, confusion, and insights into what Lane calls, “writing gems.”

The creative journaling webpage will provide resources for helping students imaginatively respond to content material as well as prompts and ideas for self discovery and expression. The magic of creative journaling is the wondrous element of “serendipity” or the effect by which students might accidentally discover something fortunate while searching for something else entirely different.

Resources for Inspiring Creative Journals:
Have you seen WritingFix's favorite feature for journal keepers?  Over 350,000 writers visit our... Daily Random Prompt Generator ...annually to find ideas for their daily journals.	Here's a great lesson from the collection of chapter book prompts that WritingFix began in 2006. This lesson is also featured at HistoryFix, and it requires students to create a fictional journal entry from the point-of-view of a small character who has witnessed a significant moment in history. Lesson title: Historical Journal Entries Lesson's mentor text: Pedro's Journal by Pam Conrad Lesson's focus trait: Organization (using the journal format) Lesson's support trait:Voice (capturing a character's perspective realisitcally) Lesson summary: Writers will create a detailed journal entry from the point-of-view of a character who never actually existed.  The journal entry will be from a day in history that the writer has researched and found interesting facts about.  The journal entry will combine a character's voice and historical facts.
More journal ideas to come soon! Keep checking back with us!