Journal Writing Unit Grade 10-12 Spencer

Unit Overview:
Journal writing is a way to share
the events of the day, stories,
dreams, thoughts and feelings in
an organized fashion. You can
write a journal entry about a story,
a book, a movie or a sport that you
love. You might want to write
about a place that you know or
imagine. You can share your ideas
on how to help other people. You
might want to write about all of
the great things about your life to
help you develop or improve a
positive focus. Journal writing
helps us talk about things that are
on our mind. You can think of it as
therapy for your soul (if you want
to).

In this unit, you will:

 Examine some models or samples of journal writing
 Think about your thinking
 Write on a topic you know, because it is about you.
 Write several journal entries of your own
 Edit by asking yourself if every word and sentence adds
something or belongs in your journal entry.
Writing journal entries can be a simple task. For example, if you
record all of the things you have eaten on a single day, you have
made a journal entry. There are other kinds of entries, however,
that contain your thoughts and feelings or explore ideas. These
kinds of journals require you to think about your thinking. That
sounds strange, at first, but try it. Here is an example of where
thinking about thinking can lead.
Let’s pick a random topic, say, the weather. So now I am going to record
how my thinking goes when I focus on that topic. When I think about
weather, I think about the weather I like. I like sun of course, the warmth
and the light can make me feel really alive and energetic. On the other
hand, I do not like cold and snow. Then I think about rain and how much I
love it. I am going to write about how I came to like rain so much. I
remember a story. I try to recall the details. I try to remember the pictures I
have stored in my mind. I try to go back to the time and the place where the
story took place and here it goes.

Journal: Is it Strange to Watch Rain Fall?

I grew up at The Coast, which has a marine climate. The wet air comes in off
the Pacific Ocean, rises up as it hits the mountains, and drops moisture
usually in the form of rain. It rains often. The skies are often gray and
overcast for days and weeks. Rain is mostly seen as an irritation, an
inconvenience. Events are rarely cancelled when it rains because, if they
were, nothing would ever happen.
I came to Lillooet in August. I learned that I had missed a long, hot summer.
People were talking about the lack of rain. It seemed like a strange topic of
conversation to me. Lillooet was a weird place to me, so I was not surprised
that people would spend so much time talking about weird things. Someone
I talked to remembered that it had rained sometime near the middle of June.
There were people who had to let their gardens dry up and die because
there was no water.
During the month of September, every day was the same. The sky was that
deep blue colour, there were never any clouds that I recall and the sun came
roaring up over the eastern ridge, blazing down until late in the evening
when it set in the crotch that leads out to Seton Lake. I liked it that the sun
was so predictable.
Everything in Lillooet was dust. It was a bit like walking onto the set of some
sci-fi movie where all of the people on earth had been wiped out and the
world was covered in dust from nuclear explosions or volcanoes or
something. The parking lot behind my classroom was covered with a half
inch of clay-coloured dust that was as fine and fluffy as sifted flour.
One day everything changed. It was cloudy and
the air had a kind of damp feel to it. I remember
that it happened during the second class in the
morning. One wall of the classroom was windows
in the old school and five of them were wide
open because there was no air conditioning.
There was a noise like a rush of wind outside and
the kids got up from their chairs and went like
zombies to the window to stare out at the first
raindrops. I went with them being aware that watching rain fall was very
much a local oddity, but I found myself joining in with this odd behaviour.
For the first time in my life I was actually watching rain, watching intently in
fact. I remember noticing that the drops were large and spaced out at first.
I became focussed on the thick layer of dust in the parking lot. The raindrops
fell into the dust like asteroids. They fell through the dust, making a tiny
puff, leaving a hole that closed in on itself like water as the drops passed
through. We all stood there for what seemed like an hour. Nobody really
talked. They just watched. It was a long time before the rain actually made
the dust appear damp. We were interrupted by the soccer coach on the PA
announcing that the soccer game after school with Ashcroft was cancelled
because of the rain.
I remember that rainfall with such fondness and I think about it every time it
rains. I always watch it.
Your Assignment:

Choose 5 of the topics below and create journal entries about them.
Give each entry a title and make it interesting for your reader. Send
them to Zane Spencer as a package. My email is
zspencer@sd74.bc.ca

1. Choose a favourite story (perhaps one that somebody told you) book, or
movie and talk about why you love it so much.
2. Write about your most loved memory.
3. Write about the most exciting thing you have ever done.
4. Share your thoughts about the COVID 19 pandemic. How has it affected
you?
5. Write about a person you really admire/love.
6. Write about a dream that you remember.
7. Write about all of the things that you are grateful for, explaining them in
detail.
8. Write a journal entry about a sport that you love. Explain what you love
about it
9. Write about a song that has a special meaning for you. Attach the lyrics.
10.Write about something you have learned at school.
11.Write about something you have learned out of school.
12.Write about something you have learned about yourself.
13.Write about all of the things you do in a day.
14.Write about the thoughts and feelings that you think are unique to you.
15.Write about something that interests you.

There are examples of two journal entries attached. Read them for
inspiration if you need it. Also attached is a copy of the personal writing
criteria which I will use to mark your work.
 Sample Journal Entries
Journal: A Strange Dream

Today was almost as boring as yesterday with one exception. I got up late, as
usual, ate a bowl of cereal, as usual, and fired up my PS4, as usual. Then
something swept over me. I do not know how to describe it, but it felt like an
electric current passing through my body. Whatever it was, it made me
remember a dream that I had last night. I have to explain that I do not usually
remember my dreams. I do once in awhile, but not in such perfect detail like
this. If I do remember a dream, I usually recall bits and pieces when I first
wake up and then forget about it after a few seconds. The dream I had last
night was not a great dream, but it was not the worst dream I have ever had.
It was annoying really and it was one I would just as soon forget about. There
I was, sitting at my desk, thinking about a dream and it came back to me in
such a real way that it was like I was still sleeping and dreaming it over again.
In the dream I was walking up the winding gravel hill that leads to my school.
It was quite dark out. I have never walked up that hill in the dark before, so I
do not know why I was dreaming about it, but I was. There were people, sort
of zombie-like people hiding in the bushes on both sides of the trail. They
were just laying on the ground, completely hidden by the darkness and the
underbrush. The only way I knew they were there was that their arms would
come out from under the bushes without warning and their hands would try to
grab my legs. Sometimes the arms would trip me or cause me to lose my
step. Sometimes they would get a good hold of my ankle and hang on until I
could shake them off. I never actually saw any of the people in the brush. I
did not see any faces or bodies, just arms and hands. I remember one of the
people was wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. One of the hands
I remembered was old and wrinkled and muddy. I felt relieved that none of
the hands got a strong enough grip on me that I could not get away. I walked
in the middle of the trail and really watched the underbrush on both sides. I
do not remember actually getting to the top of the trail but I do not recall
being stopped altogether either. It did not occur to me to run back down the
hill when I saw the first arm come out. I have no idea why I kept going in the
face of such difficulty.
Journal: The Upside of a Pandemic

I never thought about a pandemic before but here we are and here I am. The
news is so depressing I can hardly stand to watch it. The people in New York
are dropping like flies and they are stacking corpses in refrigerated semi-
trailers parked behind the hospitals. I hope when this is over that they do not
use those body trucks to haul carrots or lettuce or something to Canada. I
heard Prime Minister Trudeau getting angry with people who were living
their lives like there was nothing going on. He narrowed his eyebrows and
said, “Go home and stay home”. For me, there is no school and I am pretty
much living in my room. I live with my grandparents who are super nice but
I have to be extra careful not to get this thing and pass it on to them. Once in
a while, I go out in the yard when the sun is shining, just to feel the warmth
and to smell the fresh air. Then, as soon as I think about the virus floating
around everywhere, I run back inside before it can get me. I imagined once
that it chased me up the stairs, so I ran as fast as I could to stay well ahead of
it.

When I think about the news, this pandemic is a really awful thing. So, why
am I enjoying my life right now? I am not saying that I am enjoying the
pandemic, but I have never been so relaxed or somehow at ease. I have zero
stress. I am beginning to recognize some things about myself, things I guess I
always knew but did not really think much about. I am sort of anti-social and
quite introverted. I am happiest when I am by myself. I love thinking my
own thoughts and doing what I want to do. Other people are just an
interruption to the life I enjoy. Being around people is something I have to
do, but most of the time talking to people is hard work and it puts me on edge
somehow. I am sometimes envious of the kids at school who talk all of the
time and tell everybody everything about themselves, not caring whether
people are listening to them or not. I am just not like that. If I am in a group,
I rarely say anything. The people I like best are like me. They only say
things when they really have something to say. My best friend is a guy who
rarely talks and we can hang out for hours, hardly saying a word. I have to
say that, in a strange way, the fallout from this pandemic has been pretty nice
for me. It has given me so much beautiful time to hang out with myself.