Journal Keeping

How to Use Reflective Writing for Learning, Teaching, Professional Insight and Positive Change

Dannelle D. Stevens, Joanne E. Cooper

• Publisher: Stylus Publishing
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781642672039
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Istruzione superiore

" Journal Keeping is a superb tool for educators who want to be reflective practitioners, and help their students become reflective learners. I hope this fine book will be widely read and used."--Parker J. Palmer, author of "The Courage to Teach, " "Let Your Life Speak" and "A Hidden Wholeness""An impressively complete and well organized exploration of the uses of journal writing. It provides rich backing for John Dewey's key insight, namely that it's not experience that makes us learn, it's reflection on experience."--Peter Elbow, author of Writing with Power, and Everyone Can Write, and Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Part One

JOURNAL WRITING AND ITS THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

1 Journal Writing: Definition and Rationale

• What is a journal?

• What is the history of journal keeping?

• What are the key benefits of journal writing for students?

• Is journal writing worth the class time?

• What are the key benefits of journal keeping for faculty and administrators?

• Is keeping a professional journal worth the time?

• What are the ancillary benefits of journal writing?

2 Reflection and Learning From Experience

• What are the three leading theoretical perspectives on reflection and learning from experience?

• How do these theoretical perspectives link to journal writing?

3 Reflection and Adult Developmental Theory

• What is the role of journal writing in adult development?

• How does journal writing further critical reflection and transformational learning?

• How does journal writing foster personal growth and development?

1

JOURNAL WRITING

Definition and Rationale

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Socrates (470–399 BCE)

MOST PEOPLE WOULD AGREE WITH SOCRATES, whose wisdom still rings true in the 21st century. Yet people today live at such a fast pace that there is little time to examine their lives. Many adults are too busy attending to the ever-present demands of work, home, e-mails, and the phone to really take stock of who they are and where they are going. Life in higher education is, sadly, no exception. Students, faculty, and administrators rush to meet multiple work, family, and personal responsibilities.

If Socrates’ words echo anywhere, it should be in the academy—where the central goal is the creation of a thoughtful, educated society. The examined life is a worthwhile goal for all—for students who are tomorrow’s citizens; for faculty who must balance the competing expectations of teaching, research, and service; and for administrators who manage and lead. In fact, recent research underscores the value of reflection in academic life. Blackburn and Lawrence (1995) found that self-knowledge appears to be the most powerful influence on productivity for faculty in all of their roles: teaching, research, and service.

Reflection is the path both to self-knowledge and to greater personal efficacy. Although there are many ways to reflect, the journal is concrete evidence of one’s evolving thought processes, documenting valuable, often fleeting glimpses of understanding. This ancient tool is central to the pursuit of a more thoughtful life. In short, journal writing is a powerful form of reflection and a time-tested, well-established method for examining our lives.

Reflection is the process whereby we reconstruct and make meaning of our experience. Philosopher John Dewey described reflection as the “reconstruction and reorganization of experience which adds meaning to that experience” (1938, p. 6). Harvard developmental psychologist Robert Kegan (1982, 1994) sees making meaning as the central task of all adults. The well-known educator and lifelong journal keeper Madeleine Grumet argues that “. . . any writing and reading of our lives presents us with a challenge that is at the heart of every educational experience: making sense of our lives in the world” (1990, p. 3).

The journal in its many forms has been around for a long time. From the early archived Chinese historical documents in 56 AD (Lowenstein, 1987), to The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon in the 10th century (translated by Morris, 1967), to The Diary of Anne Frank (Frank, 1952), to the postings of today’s multitudinous bloggers, journals offer a means by which people chronicle their lives, not simply to document events and ideas that are important to them, but also to foster deeper reflection on those events and ideas.

For all its long and distinguished history in providing a locus for reflection and for furthering learning in many cultures, journal writing in classroom instruction or in the day-to-day work of faculty and administrators in higher education is not as widely used as it could be (English & Gillen, 2001). This book describes journal-writing strategies used both by students in college classrooms and by professionals in higher education. We also share detailed case studies of how journal writing is used across a wide range of academic disciplines and professional contexts. In this chapter we examine the following key questions:

• What is a journal?

• What is the history of journal keeping?

• What are the key benefits of journal writing for students?

• Is journal writing worth the class time?

• What are the key benefits of journal keeping for faculty and administrators?

• Is keeping a journal in professional life worth the time?

• What are the ancillary benefits of journal writing?

The purpose of this chapter is to provide the reader with our working definition of a journal and set it in its historical context. In addition, we describe both the benefits and the reasons for engaging in journal writing in the classroom and in professional life.

What Is a Journal?

We define a journal as a sequential, dated chronicle of events and ideas, which includes the personal responses and reflections of the writer (or writers) on those events and ideas. Scholars use various words to describe such collections of reflective writing: journal, log, diary, dialectical notebook, and workbook (Mallon, 1984; Moon, 1999a). Keeping a journal can also be described as journaling, journal keeping, or journal writing.

Our definition of a journal is intentionally flexible, but also at times arbitrarily restrictive given the purpose of this book: to describe the potential variety of uses of journal writing in academe. Although we recognize that uncollected writings, letters, business card collections, or other documents that are later compiled into a volume can be considered journals in some contexts, we do not consider them such in this book. Likewise, photo albums, scrapbooks, sketchbooks, and most audiovisual recordings, although they may contain journal elements, are not classified as journals according to our definition.

A journal has six defining attributes: It is written, dated, informal, flexible, private, and archival.

• Written. The primary form of expression in journals is the written word. Pencils, pens, typewriters, and computers are the tools for transferring and organizing information, ideas, thoughts, and questions on blank pages. Expressing thoughts or ideas on paper within a bound book or in a text file can be replaced in some cases by words spoken into a recorder. Ideas, observations, thoughts, and musings can be shown through visual images as well, particularly in art, science, or architecture classes. Even video journals, Facebook, and YouTube could be considered “written,” personal expression.

• Dated. Journal entries are dated so that both the sequential order and the context of each entry are clear. Ideally, the date (and time in some cases) should precede the entry. Careful dating is important not only to chronicle actual events, but also to reveal the evolution of the journal keeper’s own ideas and understandings. In the case of classroom or field settings, the evolution of ideas is usually the more important consideration. Students may or may not need to know exactly when an entry was made, but they do need to be able to chart and compare the course of their own learning and perceptions over time. In professional settings, dated entries allow faculty or administrators to easily track meetings, notes, phone calls, professional contacts, and a variety of other professional activities, as well as the development of their research ideas, observations, reflections, and insights (Cooper & Stevens, 2006; Stevens & Cooper, 2002).

• Informal. Journal writing is usually informal or almost conversational in tone (Fulwiler, 1987). Indeed, many journal keepers regard the journal as a way of conversing with the self (Cooper & Dunlap, 1991; Durgahee, 2002; Grumet, 1990; Ostermann & Kottkamp, 1993; Stevens & Cooper, 2002). Journals are among the few places in academe where the conventions of writing have very little importance. Student journals may or may not follow the usual writing conventions: Some may contain many drawings or even doodles, whereas others that are produced on the computer may look more conventional. Because one of the main purposes of classroom journal writing is to enhance learning without the constraints of formal written or oral presentation expectations, instructors usually do not demand conventional grammar or spelling (Crème, 2005; Fenwick, 2001; Hampton & Morrow, 2003; Murray, 1984). In many classroom journal-writing activities, spelling, grammar, paragraph construction, and even overall organization take a back seat to ideas, especially ideas in progress. A good journal entry is judged more by its willingness to take risks, to voice confusions, to explore undeveloped ideas (or even projects), and the degree to which it furthers the development of voice and the ability to take the perspective of others than by its adherence to writing conventions of correct grammar, spelling, and organization (Boud, 2001; Dickerson, 1987; Durgahee, 1998; Fulwiler, 1987).

• Flexible. From the type of entries, formatting of pages, purposes for journal keeping, audience for whom it is intended, and benefits that accrue from keeping them, journals can vary tremendously, one from another and even internally. This flexibility is a central characteristic of a journal. Virginia Woolf (1954) described such flexibility:

What sort of diary should I like mine to be? Something loose knit and yet not slovenly, so elastic that it will enhance anything, solemn, slight or beautiful that comes to mind. I should like it to resemble some deep old desk, or capacious hold-all, in which one flings a mass of odds and ends without looking them through. (April 20, 1919)

• Private. Journals are typically intended for private use, not public distribution. In educational settings, the audience can vary depending on the use of the journal. If the audience is the self, journaling is essentially a private act. In classrooms instructors have to decide and inform students about how “private” the student journal writing will be. Some of today’s journaling practices, such as blogs (computer weblogs), can include a larger audience. Bloggers can send their entries to themselves, selected friends, or even to the World Wide Web (Suzuki, 2004). Some faculty require students to post (and more than likely polish) their papers on a blog for other students to read and react to. Chapter 8 elaborates on the opportunities and challenges of journaling on a computer.

• Archival. After completion, a journal may or may not be saved by students or faculty members. However, because of the authentic observations of the writer, the chronological nature of the entries, and the bound format of many journals, the journal can become an archival document. Its usefulness depends on the journal keeper and the reader. Historically, journals have been quite important in understanding and examining daily life (Lowenstein, 1987; Mallon, 1984).

In light of this list of defining attributes, we now examine how this form of human expression has appeared throughout history.

The History of Journal Keeping

In the past, the diary or journal was a handwritten “book” that described the daily activities, interests, observations, problems, and insights of the journal keeper (Lowenstein, 1987). One of the early examples of journal keeping dates to 10th-century Japan where Heian court ladies kept “pillow books” inside their stone pillows or in the drawers of wooden pillows. The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon (Shonagon, 1967), a journal of a lady in waiting to Empress Sadako during 995–1010 AD, offers a valuable glimpse into the intrigues, daily activities, and interests of Japanese court life over 10 years. One remarkable feature of Shonagon’s books is their 164 lists, such as “Elegant things” and “Things that cannot be compared.”

During the 1600s in London Samuel Pepys began keeping a journal to track his financial progress, but, as his career progressed, it grew to encompass every aspect of his life, from dalliances to matters of state. His diary covered events such as his appointment as Chief Secretary to the Admiralty and his account of the Great Fire of London. After his death, his journal was one of the first diaries to be published and widely distributed. Today it offers a vivid glimpse into many as...