The purpose of this qualitative study was to consider "friendsickness" as experienced by 96 entering college students. As defined here, "friendsickness" is a challenge new students experience when they leave their established network of friends and begin college. Journal entries written by new students in first-year seminars were examined and…

The genocide of American Indians over the last five centuries is documented by the persecutors in myriad historical media: diaries, audiotapes, autobiographies, photographs, books, essays, and newspaper accounts. Many authors believe that their stories convey an objective reality but scholarship has illustrated that writers construct history more…

The author presents journal entries from her first 7 months as a foster parent of a 5-week-old girl in 2000, illustrating how she, her husband, and her birth children wrestled with their emotions and their role as a foster family. Their expectations of themselves as temporary caretakers were reinforced in foster parent training. What the training…

Kurt Cobain's "Journals," in the expressive quality of their form and content, cause one to wonder just why the journal has fallen out of fashion in contemporary composition. Certainly, earlier compositionists in our field saw the journal as a crucial tool for learning to write. And critical theorists (e.g., Maurice Blanchot) find the journal…

Writing can enhance learning by helping students put words to their thinking about course material. The purposes of this study were to assess the influence of a structured academic journal writing exercise on student learning in a food science class and to examine student responses to the experience. Hermeneutics, a philosophy of science and…

Documenting procedures very well is an important concern for technology educators and students alike. Good documentation--a thorough conveyance of thoughts and processes--is a skill that can set the students above others as they enter the competitive technological workforce. In this article, the author explores how writing and documenting could be…

Teaching a complex topic, such as lifespan developmental psychology, challenges most lecturers to find ways to produce and develop adequately students' ability to integrate theoretical knowledge and an understanding of psychosocial issues in everyday life. In this paper, I will explain the possibilities of tools from practice in creating and…

Reflection is a commonly accepted practice and considered advantageous in teacher education programs. Teachers are encouraged to think critically about their beliefs and teaching styles with the intended goal of fostering greater professional and personal development. Nonetheless, researchers have noted the challenges inherent in encouraging…

Many believe that girls lack the confidence and motivation to persist with computers when they face a challenge. In order to increase the number of girls and women in information technology careers, we need a better understanding of how they think about and solve problems while working on the computer. In this article, we describe a qualitative…

This guide provides expert information and clear-cut strategies for assessing and treating internalizing problems in school settings. More than 40 specific psychoeducational and psychosocial intervention techniques are detailed, with a focus on approaches that are evidence based, broadly applicable, and easy to implement. Including 26…

Special Education (SPED) in Scotland was a six-week study abroad program where pre-service special education teachers lived with host families and observed in Scottish schools in the area of special education. The program included coursework in the area of Emotional Behavioral Disabilities and traveling. This study sought to determine the impact…

To promote student engagement, professors must actively seek to create the conditions that foster engagement. Chickering and Gamson (1987) suggest that good practices in undergraduate education are ones that: encourage student-faculty contact, develop reciprocity and cooperation among students, encourage active learning, provide students with…

A study investigated teachers' attitudes regarding whether journal writing is beneficial to teachers and students. The research focused on two types of journals: literature response journals, in which students explore thoughts on and reactions to a short story, poem or novel; and dialog journals, in which two or more students and/or teachers…

Designed to be used with a wide variety of literature selections in classroom settings, the activities in this book are open-ended, encourage critical thinking and discussion, and serve as springboards for writing. All activities in the book have been classroom tested and many have been the subject of research. Each activity may be used at any…

Two ninth-grade English teachers developed a unit of study on the Holocaust that is rooted in an understanding of the concepts and consequences of indifference and prejudice. Activities in the unit of study use a variety of communication skills. Because the teachers have found that journal writing is an effective tool for reflection and a source…