Journals

Our school has started a new program this year that requires students to write a jounral in every class every single day. Not only is this helping our students improve their writing ability, but I have found it is a great way to get to know your students. There are some students that you automatically have a bond with and will talk to you about anything and everything, but there are others that are very quiet and do not open up as much to you. I have found out that asking some of these questions during journals and alllowing them to open up without others knowing has allowed me to get to know all the students very well. I suggest trying it. I even allow them to free write on fridays for their journals which allows them to vent. This is another way to find out what is going on in their lives, issues that they are having and so on.