by Joseph Riccio
Lately, I’ve been reflecting on reflective writing. Every English course includes some sort of in-class writing, and for the past three years teaching at Baruch, I’ve been developing and workshopping the personal writing component of my course. First in FYW and now in Great Works, I’ve included some form of journaling, tweaking it for each new semester. At first, personal writing was more of an occasional, informal mode of writing about course material. But in the past semester, I’ve extended and expanded personal writing to be the ultimate class foundation.
Personal writing serves as a major scaffolding tool for “larger assignments” and an opportunity for students to share the focus and direction of our class sessions. What I now call the “Personal Writing Journal” (clever) amounts to 30% of the total grade, scaffolds every other assignment, and functions throughout the semester as a major structuring force for each class session. I hand out small notebooks at the beginning of the semester (which they are encouraged to decorate), or students may choose to type. I leave it up to their ability and preference.
The Personal Writing Journal structures our discussions, organizes our thoughts and ideas both individually and as a class, and neatly scaffolds into other assignments, like essays and projects.
Class Meeting Structure
I begin each class meeting with a prompt (which offers great flexibility – more on that later) and allocate around 15 minutes, often checking in if more time is needed. This allows students to settle into class and into the day’s material. Students running a few minutes late due to our impossible elevator system and temperamental MTA do not “miss out” on any “formal instruction.” Students also know that they are expected to be ready to think and to write about the assigned readings upon entering class, but at their own pace. After some time, we begin class discussion from their entries.
Student-Driven Discussion
At the beginning of the semester, I tell my students that we don’t “begin the lesson” until at least three people share their thoughts from their journal. But this is precisely when the lesson begins! I suggest summarizing what they wrote, if they don’t want to read directly from their journal entry. I’ve noticed that sometimes after they share, they jot a few more sentences down, as if they continued exploring their ideas in speech. A few weeks into the semester, I no longer needed to enforce the “three student rule.” I’d simply ask “who wants to begin?” and it was enough to get the conversation going, always being sure to include “who hasn’t shared in a few days?”
The flexibility of the prompts proved to me the potential of the Personal Writing Journal. Prompts allowed students to explore different aspects of engaging with literature and poetry and allowed me to understand student interests and assess skills like close reading.
For example, on our first day of The Odyssey, I asked them to reflect on their “initial reactions” and “what they’re most interested in discovering about the plot.” since we begin in medias res. Multiple students shared their curiosity in Odysseus’ situation with Calypso, and I was therefore able to plan for a close reading exercise when we finally met him on her island. Another prompt I used to gauge student interest involved giving them a list of themes with guiding questions for them to explore. I was surprised that most were interested in the concept of immortality in Gilgamesh rather than civilization vs. nature, for instance. We then focused on exploring immortality as a class, while still exploring the latter theme. Other prompts include connecting previous texts when beginning a new one, a key tenant in a survey class. The class began to create their own threads of narratives throughout the semester. Their recall to previous units proved to me that consistent reflective writing generated a collective memory, as students remembered what was shared and explored.
Informal Assessment
The Personal Writing Journal also helped me understand where my students were at with various skills or how they thought and felt about writing and their individual writing process.
For instance, if one week was focused on close reading as a class, I would prepare a prompt for them to respond to an excerpted passage. The prompt would also serve as a summary of what close reading entailed (Understanding, Analysis, Interpretation). This allowed me to see what sorts of details students were extracting on their own. When students seemed to be picking up more on syntax, line breaks and diction, I knew to be sure to steer the discussion towards sound devices and rhythm.
I’ve also used the Personal Writing Journal to assess students’ comforts and concerns around more formal writing assignments like essays. Students have a space to identify and explore in writing any obstacles or confusions with the essay prompt or the essay as genre. How do students feel about developing a thesis? How do they feel about structure? Or how to use quotes? This also allows them to make personal goals for their essay, so that the assignments become less like something that must be “completed”, but a writing exercise where they consciously choose to focus on argument and structure in general.
Journaling as Scaffolding
In this vein, the Personal Writing Journal becomes an incredible scaffolding tool. Our first class paper is a close reading analysis. By the time they receive the essay prompt, we have already close-read and practiced writing both as a group and individually. In this way, the Personal Writing Journal becomes a practice space where they can always return. Our second class paper, at the end of our unit on adaptation, is a comparative analysis. Before the essay becomes another writing event, they have already begun exploring in their own words thematic unravelings and key similarities and differences across adaptations. The Journal becomes a brainstorming space for their essays. In this sense, they’ve already “started” their essays.
My final writing project for the class asks, firstly, to pose a critical thesis about the class theme—most recently, Empire and Narrative—using multiple texts, and secondly to reflect on the course. For this second part, I encourage a “stream of consciousness” approach. I ask for reflections on: favorite text and why; most challenging text and why; what they will “take” with them from this class. My favorite prompt in the final project is for them to reread and to muse on their Personal Writing Journal, to think about the way they think. I ask them, what are some of the most important ideas you explored? Were you surprised by any of your ideas from months ago? How did it feel to regularly write as a practice? What are you still curious about?
The final writing project serves as both an analytic and reflective synthesis of the course material and of their own ideas in their own words.
Beyond the Technical
I noticed, upon reflecting on what I’ve just written, that I “ask” my students for a lot. I ask them what they like or don’t like about a text. I ask them to explore their insecurities and confidences with essay writing. But I think I should emphasize that the “asks” of the Personal Writing Journals are instead invitations to share not just with me but with others. They see that their fellow students share similar ideas, and they learn from other students’ interests. They see that other students also struggle with developing a thesis. There becomes a shared understanding on the level of concepts and composition.
I have been workshopping this kind of assignment before. I used to be more blasé about it, like only having journal prompts some days. I found that regularly having journal prompts, and particularly at the start of class, allows students to really settle into the class and get cozy with the readings. These interactions also reinforce that whatever ideas and thoughts they share won’t be greeted with “okay great, thanks for sharing!”
Instead, regularly sharing in-class writing reaffirmed to me one of the most wonderful things about the literature classroom. It is a community process of weaving ideas and building upon each other. It serves as another argument against the “banking model of education.” Sure, I can give some background of the text, some historical context, and demonstrate methods of literary analysis. But ultimately, I’m just there to explore ideas and to build alongside them.