Journaling Jumpstart offers students the opportunity to explore variations on personal journaling as a writing habit. A journaling writing practice can range from open-ended to structured, and writers develop skills in developing their message within those structures in this class. Journaling exercises include art journaling, gratitude journaling, one-sentence journaling, memoirs, acrostics, quotation collections, and daily records of one’s activities.
This type of narrative writing strengthens a writer’s personal voice as they develop skills in vivid description using a variety of modalities.
Syllabus
Week One
Students begin with keen observation of their environment and create a pattern of journaling by setting a series of small, attainable goals.
Week Two
The focus this week is on visual impact with words using shape writing and handwriting styles that project mood onto the page.
Week Three
Students deepen self-reflection and thinking by creating brief and artful memoirs.
Week Four
The journal moves into three dimensions this week with mixed media. Students close class with ideas how to overcome obstacles to continuing their journaling practice.
Common Core and Academic Standards Support
What follows is a word bank and set of skills associated with this class. Use them to craft your own learning narrative for use in year-end evaluations, charter school reports, or any other accountability source.
Word Bank
- Acrostics
- Description
- Journaling
- Keen observation
- Letter writing
- Memoir
- Narrative writing
- Self-awareness
- Sensory detail
- Shape writing
- Theme
- Visual media in writing
- Vivid detail
- Writing craft
- Writing voice
Core Skills
- Describe encounters with vivid sensory detail
- Engage in format writing using visual structures (shape writing)
- Exercise editorial skill by limiting entries to word counts or fitting certain shapes
- Funnel writing down from a freewrite to a six-word memoir
- Organize a writing journal to capture experiences, observations, and reflections
- Reflect on daily experiences in writing
- Utilize distinct writer’s voice
- Utilize mixed media to capture nuances of a personal experience or thought journey
- Utilize structure to spark writing topics with acrostics
- Write detailed, organized, structured original narratives
- Write about personal experiences in the memoir genre
