You will be writing in journals for this course. By the end of the sixteen-week semester, you will have sent me fifty journal entries, about five a week.
1. Your journals must be at least 150 words long to count. "Why 150 words?" you ask. "Why not 145 words, why not 155 words? Isn't setting the cutoff at 150 words arbitrary and unfair to the creative process which might only be up to 120 words on any given day?" Since you put it that way, you're right. But I have to draw a line, and I'm drawing it at 150 words.
2. Five a week, on five different days. "Why is that?" you ask again. "Why not 750 words once a week?" This one's easier to answer. You become a better tennis player by practicing five days a week than by going out on Sundays for six hours and ruining your body. The skills and attitudes developed by journal writing work the same way; facing a blank computer screen five times a week and sending words marching down that screen will improve your fluency and make writing seem a natural, everyday part of your life. A weekly, last-minute journal-writing marathon would be wildly unpleasant for most of you and a waste of time as well.
3. Write about anything - why you hate writing in journals, about your childhood, write reviews - of movies, tv shows, albums, concerts, restaurants. Write about "the best" - peanut butter, ice cream, religion, book, writer, or about "the worst". Write old family recipes, pets, life, death, anything. I recommend that you avoid sending me daily itineraries - "I got up at 7 and ate breakfast and drove to school and went to class and went to work and went home and ate dinner and did homework and watched tv and went to bed." Those are boring to write and boring to read, but you never need to apologize for boring me. The journals are not written for my entertainment; they are written as one more way to improve your writing. Rather than sending me itineraries, examine your life - When did you get up? Did you have trouble getting up. Do you remember any fragments of dreams? Are you particularly difficult to awaken and in need of heroic measures? What did you have for breakfast? Why that? Describe it. What does it look like, taste like, smell like? And so on, through the day. Look closely at your life, your environment, in 150-word chunks.
May you include your favorite bits from novels and essays and songs? Of course you may, so long as you provide at least 150 words of your own about them.
May you write a long piece, in 150-word chunks? You bet. One student spent the semester cataloging her bedroom. Another wrote a novel. Perfectly okay.
4. I'll look at all your entries, and respond to as many as two a week in any way you'd like. (Asterisk * the two entries to which you want me to respond.) If you'd like me to mark problems with such items as spelling, run-ons, tense shift, and paragraphing, just tell me that at the top of your paper. If you ask me questions, I'll probably answer them. I don't do counseling; I'm not qualified. If you write that you're thinking of killing yourself, or someone else, I'll probably recommend that you don't do that, but that'll be the extent of it. I won't show your journals to anyone else. I will return all your journals to let you know that I have read them, often with no other comment than "okay," except for the asterisked ones. (I'm reading some 150 journals a week, which doesn't give me much time to write responses.)
What do you write about? Whatever you want, as I said earlier. However, if you go blank, Rules of Thumb has a couple of pages of possible subjects (129-131). And here are some more:
Who am I and what am I doing in this class? At DVC?
My favorite movie
The dumbest thing I ever did
My favorite meal
The best hamburger in Contra Costa
The worst vacation I ever had
Teacher-preachers (who try to convert me to their beliefs)
Dates
Pets
Games
Fridays
The false millenium
Writing
The worst movie I ever saw
Aerobics
My dream car (truck)
How good a President has Clinton been?
My most irritating quality
What I do best
English classes
Writing with computers
Abortions should (or shouldn't) be against the law
Men, women and power
A truck is man's best friend
My favorite teacher
Dieting
Anything that's any fun is illegal, immoral or fattening
Neither the sun nor death can be looked at steadily
Fish and visitors smell after three days
God created man because He was disappointed in the monkey
Community college tuition fees
AIDS
Political correctness
The finest person I've known
Other people's religions
The idiocy of astrology
Madonna, Michael Jackson, Jewel, The Backstreet Boys is/are over(under)rated
Teachers who assign journals are sadists
The best tv show; the best new tv show
And more, over the Internet from the brilliant John Gilgun of St. Joseph, Missouri. Most of these will yield at least 150 words. For some, you will need to add information.
List ten things you see through your window.
Give the names of all the pets in your house.
List five flowers in your garden.
What does the inside of your car smell like? What does the car
sound like? What make is it?
Describe the footwear on your right foot at this moment.
Describe the weather where you are at this moment.
Give the title of the book you are reading today.
Give us the history of a single scar on your body.
What did you eat for breakfast?
What color are the socks you are wearing right now? Why
are they that color?
Third: How is a journal different from a diary?
Rosalie Howarth (spring 1999), on the purpose of a journal:
A journal is not the same as a diary.
A diary retells events of the day; a journal expounds upon the
significance of one or more of these events.
Diary entries tend to be fairly impartial chronological lists.
Therefore a diary entry can inspire a journal entry, but journal
entries should be observations, conclusions and opinions drawn
from daily
experiences.
You can write in a diary that your boss yelled at you again today;
in your journal describe the pulsing vein in his forehead and
the way he turns purple when he's ready to vent.
In your diary say that you were late for work because all traffic
came to a halt for some ducks crossing the road. In your journal
muse about silly ducks in the spring, and why they don't just
fly across the darn road.
Your diary knows you were depressed all day after reading of the
latest school shooting; in your journal explore the reasons it
happened and how you would prevent it from happening again.
There are precious few times when you are actually asked to express
your opinion in modern life; one of them is when you vote, and
another is when taking a course that requires writing in a journal.
Use the rare opportunity to complain, bitch, celebrate, tirade
or trounce and be rewarded for it!