1. In the K-8 Classroom By: Marcia Popp
Learning Journals
In the K-8 Classroom
By: Marcia Popp

2. Why Use Learning Journals?
The purpose of a learning Journal is to support academic inquiry and to create a history of learning that informs both the student journalist and the classroom teacher.
Learning Journals:
Provide opportunities for students to explore ideas, ask questions, and respond personally to their experience.
The student is the primary audience for their journal.
Are workbooks that are created to be visited again and again, as students grow in their understanding of a topic, use their notes and responses to share ideas with other students.
They are a way for students to communicate with teachers and parents.

3. What does a Learning Journal look like?

4. Learning Journals Types of Journals: 1. Writing Journal
Learning journal entries can be: Spontanious, Informal, Formal, Carefully Organized, Expressive, Exploratory
Types of Journals:
1. Writing Journal
2. Science Journal
3. Social Studies Journal
4. Math Journal
5. Reading Journal
6. What I Want to Know Journal

5. Making Thinking Visible
Entries usually involve developmental spelling and grammar.
Include any type of writing or drawing that is helpful to understand a concept or topic.
Enables students to use their own ways of speaking and thinking about complex ideas.
Helps make students thinking visible to teachers because it provides increased opportunities to obtain a more accurate view of student’s understanding and skill levels.
Provides a way for teachers to conference with students. Teachers can identify progress and spot difficulties with concepts that have not been resolved during small group or class discussions.

6. Writing Formats For Journal Writing
Most teachers allow students to choose their own form of response but it is important to encourage experimentation with new forms.
Essays- Longer Entries, may involve comparison and contrast, cause and effect, or persuasion.
Outlines
Quick Writes
Inquiry writing
Diary Entries/ Dialogues
Practice or Fictional letters
Quotes or Excerpts
Magazine Articles
Drawings
Diagrams
Charts/Graphs
Poetry

7. Guidelines for Right-Hand Page Entries
What did you observe (see, hear, taste, smell, touch) related to the study?
What did you read? (Title, Author, Pages)
What Ideas did you discover?
Who did you interview, and what did you learn?
What problems are you working on?
What experiment or demonstration did you set up?
What did you learn from your discussions with your partner or group?

8. Guidelines for Left Handed Page Entries
What questions do you still have?
What difficulties did you experiences?
How will you change what you do as a result of this experience?
What comments or reactions do you have?
What did you enjoy?
What did you dislike?
Can you translate what you learned into a drawing, graph, map ect. ?

9. Electronic Learning Journals
Students are apple to communicate with other students on cooperative research projects.
Students can create cooperative journals.
Answer each others questions
Share opinions
Respond to information related to content areas.

10. Using Journals to Support Other Classroom Activities
Writing in journals and sharing what they discover encourages students to explore their own strengths as learners and to gain skills in using mathematics, literature, writing, science, and social studies.
Activities prominent in classrooms that integrate language across the curriculum are both supported and enhanced by using learning journals.

11. Supporting Other Classroom Activities
Reading Aloud
Book Previews
Independent Reading
Mini-lessons
Cooperative study groups
Workshops
Individual conferences
Journal buddies