This book presents the narrative of one educator's first year as a high school teacher. The teacher was a former lawyer who returned to college to get his teaching certification. The book uses the teacher's reflections from the journal that he kept throughout the school year. It is divided into weeks. It begins with a chapter about the day before…

Discusses the value of journal assignments for diagnosing and trouble-shooting misconceptions and for helping with lesson plans. Examples of assignments are included as well as student responses. (AIM)

Rejects grading student journals. Describes various approaches to journal writing evaluation the author used with her students and approaches used by her professors when she returned to school. Questions the educational process of grading student journals. Discusses how to create real dialog. (RS)

Describes a humane method to improve the writing of students, from freshman to graduate, that follows the standard procedure of submission of a paper to a journal whereby the students (peers) review each other's work and revise their papers in light of the referee's comments. Introduces students to broadly-accepted scholarly communication modes of…

Presents a classroom teacher's reflections on her personal experiences with reading and how she incorporated what she was learning into her teaching. Describes how she reads to renew her spirit, to dispel some of the worry of the school setting, and for new insights and inspiration. (SG)

Shares successful teaching tips from six teachers. (MG)

Describes the use of anonymous daily journal entries (edited and graded at the end of the semester) in a literature survey course to nurture individual inquiry without sacrificing coverage. Maintains that anonymity encourages students to take risks, raise questions, and evaluate and shape the course. (SR)

Even self-confident adults can lose their aplomb when talking with English teachers. Persons taught to write by avoiding errors often learn to avoid writing altogether. Contemporary research shows that teachers must intervene in students' work-in-progress to help them develop full writing potential. An inset outlines writing stages and journal…

Discusses the advantages of dialogue journal writing in elementary education. Describes the organization of dialogue journal writing in a sixth grade classroom, noting that dialogue journals provide an ideal tool of empowerment for both students and teachers, and enable teachers to integrate reading and writing in a whole language approach. (MM)

Discusses a variety of assessment practices used in primary classrooms to meet the need of a diverse student population, including concepts about print, running records, anecdotal notes, writing vocabulary and word dictation, self-assessment/goal-setting interviews, nonfiction journals, and scoring rubrics. (SR)

Demonstrates how grading students journal can be made easier by making the journals goal-oriented, such as using them as the basis for exams. Suggests that journal assignments can involve more complex learning tasks such as analyzing, interpreting, and applying course materials in specific ways. (PA)

Relates a teaching assistant's experience of assigning student journals in a first-year composition class. Discusses the assignment, responses to journal entries, discoveries, and dilemmas. Concludes that they are worthwhile. (SR)

Discusses the use of homework journals, which allow (1) students to write down their assignments; (2) parents to check these assignments; (3) parents and teachers to write notes or comments to each other, giving them a form of two-way communication concerning the progress of students. (MDM)

Urban middle school students should be challenged by high-content assignments that force them to reformulate their knowledge. This article recounts one San Diego teacher's experience with the Writing-to-Learn program. Using learning logs, editing exercises, and scoring guides, students are discovering their writing selves by writing creatively,…

Qualitative analyses of weekly journal entries and final examination essays of college peer tutors (n=29) showed that students who benefited most from experience of tutoring expressed more understanding of interpersonal dimension of tutoring, seemed to be more flexible problem solvers, and expressed more satisfaction about resolving conflicts than…