Journal reading: sifting through the layers…
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Time
Is it cheating to post at 12:16am and count it as the previous day’s post? After all, for my consciousness, it’s the same day.
When I kept a journal religiously, I often fretted about this. “What date should I put on this?” Perhaps “fret” is the wrong word. Or maybe it is: when I was in Poland the first time (96-99), I wrote daily. One entry was along the lines of “I’m just writing this to keep my string of entries going.”
I guess this is something similar…
Daily
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I began keeping a journal my freshman year in college. I wrote almost every single day. When I arrived in Poland in 1996, I kept the journal daily for two straight years.
One night — though “early morning” might be a better description — I realized, as I lay me down to sleep, that I hadn’t written anything that day. I picked up my pen, scribbled the date, and quickly wrote, “I’m writing this to keep my streak going.” I’m not sure if that really counted, but it did give me a sense of closure as I drifted off to sleep.
I don’t write in my journal as much these days: much of what I would write, I write in here. I try to write dream of writing daily, but sometimes, I just have difficulty motivating myself.
Like this evening.
Journals
How does one keep a journal? It’s something I’ve done for so long that I no longer even think about it. And yet when you’re starting out, doing it on command–and for a grade, no less–then it might seem a little intimidating.
“Three hundred words, three times a week,” I said. “About anything.”
“Anything?” the students ask incredulously.
“Yes, anything.”
“Anything” is an awfully big topic. So big it could be overwhelming. I understand their concerns.
One thing I mentioned was writing about school work and projects. I need to tell them, “You should think of a journal as a place where you simply think aloud.” Perhaps that will help. “It’s a place where you can think through the Lord of the Flies project or tease out all the reasons you don’t really like So-and-so, or where you can simply play with language.
“Here language, fetch.”
Students tend to question the value of it, especially when I tell them that I won’t be reading each journal in its entirety. “Then why write it?”
“Writing is just like any other activity: the more you do it, the better you get.”
Some buy it, some don’t.