The Benefits of Assigned "Writing Journals"

Regardless of subject or discipline, assigning a Journal in your course can boost learning and offer many benefits for your students.

Here are a few benefits Journals have for students:

• -Allow students to process the flood of daily experience as they engage in reading course materials or become engaged in field experiences.
• -Invite students to maintain a permanent record of their observations, ideas, and feelings.
• -Encourage students to reflect on their observations and experiences.
• -Allow students to link their daily experiences to the higher-level critical and pedagogic principles they’re being taught in class
• -Invite students to become reflective practitioners who use writing comfortably for academic, professional, and personal purposes.
• -Encourage students to develop the habits of mind and of critical reflection that will support their growth throughout their working and personal lives.

Journals offer students the practice of observation and reflection, which is key to learning and to the transfer of knowledge. If you'd like to discuss ways to incorporate this or other writing elements into your courses, email WAC Director, Chris Salerno, at salernoc3@wpunj.edu. 

01/20/21