Engaging with the Messy, Emotional, Personal Side of Writing: Can Learning Journals Enhance a Student’s Writing Experience?

I settled into my black office chair in the carrels, feet planted on the ground and elbows planted on the table, ready to tackle my first round of grading. It was not just my first round of grading for the semester—it was my first round of grading ever. It was my first semester teaching first-year composition, and the first assignment my students turned in was a reflection on their prior experiences with writing (they had previously turned in short reading responses, but this was the first longer-form assignment that required a rubric). I was eager to read about my students’ encounters with composition.

In my naivety, I expected an onslaught of “I love writing because . . . .”

What I got instead was “I used to love writing, but . . .” or “I struggle with writing because . . . .”

I frowned a little at my computer screen, and with each passing reflection, I frowned a little more. I was about to teach sixteen weeks of composition, and my students didn’t even like writing?

As a new graduate student instructor, I didn’t feel well-equipped to handle this perceived setback. The curriculum was in place, and I didn’t have the knowledge or authority to make many changes. We would be doing a lot of writing, whether my students liked it or not, so I would just have to hope that the class was a good enough experience to change their feelings about writing. In a way, my wish was fulfilled. Based on feedback I received throughout the semester, most students seemed to be enjoying the course more than they had expected. But were they enjoying the class, or were they enjoying the writing? I never figured that out.

Going into my second semester, I was once again eager to read my students’ first reflection papers. I kept the same prompt because I wanted to see how the responses compared to the first semester’s; this time, the onslaught of “I used to love writing, but . . .” narratives came as less of a surprise but even more of a disappointment. Clearly, this was a wider-ranging issue than I thought, and I felt stumped as to how I might help students enjoy the writing process. I was quite confident they could succeed, but would that success come only after begrudgingly researching, drafting, and revising? I didn’t want to settle for begrudging success—I wanted success driven by excitement and motivation to write. Part of this wish may have been the naivety of a new teacher who still wore rose-colored goggles, but part of it was also a real, genuine question: Was it possible to feel differently about writing? More excited, more interested, or more motivated? And if so, what kind of activities, assignments, or teaching techniques could I implement to achieve those results?

As it turns out, it was my students who gave me the answers by way of the same reflection papers. Many of them told the story of how they used to love writing as a kid when they could talk about whatever they wanted, but by the time they got to middle school, where there were tight prompts and tight expectations, any flames of passion were promptly extinguished. Most of the narratives ended there, but a few pointed to flickers of light later in life when writing became appealing again, like when they wrote personal essays for college applications or when they kept a journal on their LDS missions. The students expressed how fun it was to be creative and talk about things that were meaningful to them, rather than writing about a random prompt from their teacher. (Notably, other students who hadn’t previously had an issue with writing still pointed to journal writing and college essays as key experiences.) I realized, then, that incorporating personal experience into writing was an important part of feeling enjoyment from and investment in the writing process.

This kind of pedagogy is called expressivism—a method of teaching that encourages personal expression and individualism in composition. Though “expressivism lost status and respect in composition and rhetoric during the 1990s,” Goldblatt argues that it still influences our writing classrooms more than we believe (438). Quoting Thomas O’Donnel, who said that “what we do is encourage students to bring words to bear on their experiences, to ground their writing in their lives, to be responsible for their words,” Goldblatt suggests that the legacy of expressivism is threaded into pedagogical philosophies, even if it’s not always labeled as expressivism, and should be considered a genuine influence on writers and writing (439). Pennebaker and Evans found that “among beginning college students, expressive writing helps people adjust to their situation better” and “boosts [their] working memory,” or rather, their ability to think through complex tasks and feelings (11). Cassity and Herrington also applaud the benefits of expressivism in college composition. They share examples of students who successfully engaged with personal experiences in their academic writing, with Herrington arguing that expressivism can enhance academic writing rather than take away from it. Furthermore, she found that “the relation of writing that renders experience to developing confidence” was evidently correlative based on reflections from her students; essentially, students felt more confident in their writing after incorporating their experiences into the writing process (234).

Thus, though expressivism may not be the most popular method of teaching in the field today, its benefits are clear. Clearly, my students, who presumably have no knowledge of pedagogical trends, were inadvertently expressing a desire to engage more with personal, meaningful writing. Though the rest of my research won’t be specifically related to expressivism, I wanted to foreground my findings in this movement as a way of understanding the need for more personal, emotional writing alongside all the technical, academic writing that students do. Miller et al. explains that this need for engaging with emotional writing is rooted in “what Amanda Sladek would call a ‘literacy narrative arc’ in which ‘students provide an anecdote about their early love for reading’ or in this case writing, and then pinpoint a moment when a teacher ‘extinguished their natural thirst for literacy’”—exactly the type of narratives my own students wrote in their reflections (496). My desire for my students is that they don’t let their narrative end with that extinguished thirst; I don’t want them to be defined by a single bad writing moment or by a single good writing moment. Rather, I want their writing narratives to continuously develop to a point where they feel comfortable with different emotions throughout the writing process. Ultimately, my hope is that this engagement will help my students to generally feel more positive about whatever kind of writing they have to do, even when that writing is academic instead of personal.

In terms of implementing engagement with personal and meaningful writing, I decided to focus on what I already knew my students liked: journaling. Outside of the classroom, students enjoyed personal journaling when they got to write for themselves in a creative way. While I wanted to replicate this opportunity, I also recognized that there would need to be some structure and critical thought to meet the learning objectives of a college course. Thus, the focus of my research has been on learning journals, a type of diary that’s specific to academia. Essentially, a learning journal (LJ) is a compilation of thoughts and reflections specific to the class, built up over the course of the semester. Though the journals have an academic, critical element to them, they also allow for reflection and emotional engagement, a balance that seems both appropriate and effective for a university setting.

Benefits of Learning Journals

Extensive research has been done on LJs—not just their use in first-year composition but in classes generally. With a few outliers, the common consensus is that LJs are a significant resource for students and a tool that helps them solidify their understanding of classroom instruction and assignments. Like Herrington’s argument that expressivist writing can enhance academic writing, Creme finds that LJs “can be seen as a hybrid genre of writing positioned between ‘life narrative’ and the ‘university essay’” (“A Space for Academic Play” 49). She defines them as “a form of writing that when used in academic courses have the aim of helping students to come to an understanding of the course ideas and their own learning process.” By charting a student’s progress through a course, LJs “introduce an element of autobiographical narrative into the academic mode” (53). In another article by Creme, she argues that journals help students see writing as a process rather than a product, make connections across the course material, and think differently (“The ‘Personal’ in University Writing” 99). They also allow students to have a more personal, creative attachment to their writing, encouraging them to take ownership of their voice.

Furthermore, other research has shown that LJs may make an impact on students beyond the classroom. In a study by Alt et al., they examine whether LJs can encourage lifelong learning. Their research was conducted in three parts: first, experts reviewed and analyzed thousands of LJs; second, they gathered data from nearly two hundred students using two timeline-based reflections—the first was regarding current course assignments, and the second related to students’ future development; lastly, researchers used Partial Least Squares analysis to interpret those student reflections. They found that “students’ tendency to use reflective skills in their future professional lives was highly connected to their long-term reflections, including learning experiences linked to academic, professional, personal, and multicultural development” (Alt et al.).

The study was sequential but not longitudinal, so these findings are based on whether a student perceived that their journal would impact their performance in other courses or in future professions. While it’s unclear from this study whether the journal actually helped students after the class, the study shows that most students could at least articulate why they believed the journal would be helpful and that they were metacognitively thinking through elements of transfer. The conclusion was that because reflective thinking is transferable to other facets of life, and since LJs encourage reflective thinking, there is a tie between a journal’s ability to benefit a student’s professional career post-college.

Research and instructor experience relate a connection between LJs and a student’s ability to think deeply about information and then connect that understanding across new contexts. However, my research question is a bit narrower than that. If LJs influence student learning and student writing, can they also influence how students feel about learning and writing? Can they help students work through the different emotions that come from their writing process?

Can Learning Journals Affect Students’ Emotional Responses to Writing?

In short, little research has been done on whether LJs produce an emotional response in students. However, there are at least a couple of relevant studies. In an anecdotal example, Creme discussed a student who hoped “to find a connection between quite personal and emotional concerns and her course, and use[d] her journal writing to do so” (“A Space for Academic Play” 60). Whether this endeavor was successful is unclear, and though this is not part of a larger study that proves any kind of relationship between LJs and affective consequences, it does suggest that the connection exists and that at least one student wanted to explore the connection, at least on a subconscious level. On a more quantitative level, Alt et al.—who used the Partial Least Squares analysis—found that LJs “can be considered a vital pedagogical tool that enables students to reflect on their emotions during their studies and to further integrate this practice into the fabric of their everyday lives” (13).

Furthermore, Waschle et al. conducted two longitudinal studies that tested the LJ effect in a biology class, with results similar to those of Alt et al.’s research. In Study 1, where students wrote journal entries after each lesson, “they showed better scores in comprehension, interest and critical reflection” than the control group of students who did other homework assignments. In Study 2, the experimental group received a personal utility prompt along with cognition and metacognition prompts, while the control group only received the latter two. The experimental group showed higher scores for interest in the subject than the control group. Essentially, students who incorporated personal feelings and not just academic reflection into their journals became more interested in the content.

Based on these results, Waschle et al. concluded that “besides promoting comprehension and retention of learning contents, learning journals offer ample opportunities to reflect on the personal relevance of a topic. The more the learners perceive the learning contents as personally relevant, useful, and interesting, the more they will engage in effortful and persistent learning” (43). Here, Waschle et al. points to specific emotional responses from LJs, such as engagement, diligence, and motivation. Alt et al.’s and Waschle et al.’s work suggests that LJs are, in fact, a significant way to increase not just academic success but actual motivation and interest in academic assignments by way of personal, emotional connections.

Though less research has been done on the connection between LJs and emotion, there are more concrete findings on the connection between general reflection and emotion. For example, Miller et al. find that reflecting on the emotional part of writing is just as important as cognitive reflection and can extend metacognitive understanding. Just as I recognized that emotions (love or hate) must be a significant contributor to writing, so too did Miller et al. They started asking more questions: “How do these emotions shape the ways students are envisioning and experiencing their writing and participating in the class? How are these emotions enabling (or disenabling) them as writers?” (505). Their research found that emotional reflections impact other areas of learning and “the emotive component informs and even confounds their understanding of a threshold concept; in essence, they are on the cusp of important knowledge that could open up further growth, and their emotional responses are part of this learning experience” (507).

To help students process these feelings, Miller et al. suggest that we redefine how we think about reflection. Though “reflection—as metacognition—is regularly defined as thinking about thinking,” it is equally important “for students to understand reflection in ways that account for both thinking and feeling” (504–505). In WRTG 150, we consistently ask students to think through a cognition, metacognition, and action model and to focus on thinking about thinking. However, Miller et al.’s research suggests that we should also include a feeling element. I think that LJs could be a concrete, consistent way to encourage emotional engagement alongside critical thinking.

Similarly, Harvey et al. find that emotion is a critical part of the reflection process and should work in tandem with cognition. They introduced “emo-cog,” a taxonomy that asks for reflections that are both emotive and cognitive. Their study found that emotion does, in fact, make a critical difference in student reflections. Harvey et al.’s concluding question is the same as mine: “Can [results] now be used to investigate relationships between the affective domain, even discrete emotions such as joy, sadness or anxiety, and student academic performance?” (1148). Essentially, if emotion is critical to reflection, and if reflection is critical to learning, can emotive reflections impact other parts of the learning process? If so, how would a consistent emotive practice like an LJ affect other aspects of academic performance?

Bruning and Horn also investigate the connection between reflection and emotion, focusing on motivation in particular. They explain that “literacy researchers have long recognized this need—of not only helping students learn how to write, but learn how to want to write.” However, “for too many, the motivational balance tilts negatively—toward feelings of anxiety and dread, lack of control, and avoidance” (26). To counter these negative emotions, Bruning and Horn argue that writing authentically is key to fostering motivation and positive feelings toward writing. There needs to be something personal and real behind the process. Though prompts and expectations will always be attached to writing assignments, encouraging personality in consistent, low-stakes reflections (like LJs) may help to counteract the effect of more structured assignments. Bruning and Horn acknowledge this, asking what effects “response journals or personal essays . . . have on the quality of students’ creative self-expression and on their desire to write” (31).

Interestingly, both Bruning and Horn’s and Harvey et al.’s research pointed them in the direction of LJs. Both believed researching LJs and affect was the next step for understanding how emotion informs the writing process. I believe this is still the next step, particularly in composition studies. Though researchers like Waschle et al. and Alt et al. were able to draw conclusions about LJs affecting students’ comprehension of their feelings and, by extension, their feelings about other aspects of the class, these studies were done in scientific fields. I suspect that the effect would be similar in a composition course, but I would love to see a more nuanced, concrete investigation. In the meantime, though, I plan to run my own experiment of sorts next semester.

Based on the research about reflection and emotion, I’m hopeful that the consistent use of LJs, a form of emotional reflection, will help students reevaluate how they feel about different kinds of writing and different parts of the writing process. Even if the journals don’t have that effect, my students will reap other benefits from LJs, like the different thinking and deeper understanding of concepts that Creme explains. But if my experiment does work, then there’s a chance that LJs may be a small but significant step in helping my students reevaluate their original writing narratives and (re)discover the good aspects of writing—the aspects that were fun, interesting, and motivating—aspects they thought were lost to them.

Considerations for Using Learning Journals:

In the appendix, I outline how I imagine an LJ functioning in a WRTG 150 course. I’d like to preface how I set up the journals, though, by pointing out some of the important things to consider when using LJs. Though LJs have clear benefits, it’s important that they’re implemented in an intentional, focused way, particularly if they’re focused on emotional engagement. For example, Prebel discusses the importance of critical emotional reflection instead of just writing about random, passive feelings. By engaging difficult modes of feeling through reflection (she cites a range of reflection activities, including journals), she argues that a student can cultivate empathy that they can then apply to other situations in active, intentional ways.

In WRTG 150, the personal narrative unit asks students to think about themselves. In contrast, the other two writing units—the inquiry report and the advocacy paper—ask them to think about informing and persuading others. Thus, by ensuring LJs are both emotional and critical, students can use their feelings to better engage with other people. Sources with multiple perspectives are inherent to their second two papers, so recognizing how to transfer emotions from an individual context to a communal context feels relevant and important. I imagine, too, that this kind of emotional, empathetic engagement would increase attachment to the audience and, therefore, may influence motivation for these papers.

Similarly, O’Connell and Dyment find that LJs need to be more critical and active. They also explain that “researchers have consistently identified issues such as confidentiality of entries, the ethics of grading personal reflections that may be highly emotional, and ‘writing for the teacher’” as problems (though Miller et al. does a nice job of addressing “schmoozing” and how to prevent it). O’Connell and Dyment also point out that “researchers have found (via content analysis of entries) that students, in general, are not writing at a highly reflective or critical level of thought.” Finally, there are concerns that students will become apathetic to reflection from overuse of LJs and that LJs are not the right mode of reflection for every student. My LJs seek to address these concerns by a) only grading a student’s analysis of their entries as opposed to any individual entry, b) creating variability in the type of responses to encourage critical thought and reduce complacency, and c) encouraging students to engage different modalities in their journaling.

While Prebel and O’Connell and Dyment are concerned with critical thought in LJs, Everett finds that less rigidity in journaling can be a good thing, particularly for first-year students. First-year courses have learning outcomes, but they also seek to generally enhance the student’s university experience. Thus, based on numerous responses from her students, Everett found that having a place for students to vent, so to speak, was beneficial to their well-being. Because Prebel was studying students in advanced writing, O’Connell and Dyment were looking at LJs generally, and Everett was focused on first-year students, I aim to strike a balance between all their findings by asking for critical thought in some entries and general gut responses in other entries. As a caveat to the following appendix, there were not many examples of what LJs actually look like in the research that I found. There was plenty of discussion about what makes them work well and what the drawbacks are, so I’ve attempted to build on those principles to create an actual example of how to implement a journal, especially in relation to a first-year composition course.

Appendix: Learning Journals in a WRTG 150 Course

The following is an outline of how I’ll be implementing LJs in my course. The first section, variety, examines the types of entries I’ll be asking for. The second is measurement, which explains how I plan to assess the journals. The third section, frequency, breaks down how often journal entries will be completed

Variety

In order to keep journals from feeling too redundant or structured, I’ve created different kinds of entries as well as different modes of journaling. Entries can be completed on paper or online, and on specific days, I’ll ask students to incorporate pictures, video, or audio. For the first entry, I’m planning to make it very similar to the first reflection that my students have completed in the past two semesters, where they discuss their prior experiences with writing. I like this reflection because it will help both me and the students get a baseline for where they are in their writing journey. I’ll want to emphasize that whether they love writing or hate it, there’s room to grow—writing is an emotional process, and it’s unlikely that their feelings will stay completely stagnant throughout the course of the semester.

Here are examples of other types of entries:

Reflections on assignments: These entries will be done both during and after an assignment. I want students to feel like they have agency over their emotions in the writing process and to realize that reflection should happen through the process and not just after. This way, they can try to adjust as necessary before a paper is due. For example,

• (In-process reflection) We’re halfway through our Inquiry Report unit. We’ve worked on a lot of different things, like picking a topic, learning about source credibility, spending time in the library, doing source synthesis, and beginning research. Reflect on what this process has been like for you so far. What’s been enjoyable? What’s been frustrating? What’s been confusing? Why? What does this tell you about your writing process? Then, think about how you might adjust for the second half of this unit. (Ex. If research has been frustrating because you’re having trouble finding sources, will you reach out to a source librarian?) Word count: 250.
• (Post-assignment reflection) Return to the entry you wrote earlier in the unit about the Inquiry Report process. How did you adjust? Did these adjustments make a difference in the process? Now that you’re done, think again about what was enjoyable, frustrating, or confusing. Why? What might you do differently going into the Advocacy Paper unit? Word count: 200.

Reflections on life based on class discussions (i.e., real-world application): Typically, journals are based on personal, real-life experiences. Though LJs require more attention to be paid to what’s happening in class, I still want my students to have the opportunity to express what’s happening in their lives in a creative way. These journal prompts, then, will be a little more random, but they will ask students to incorporate principles we’ve discussed in class. For example,

• You’ve just completed your first week of college! Write about a specific experience that stood out to you this week using principles of narrative.Discuss where you were (setting), what happened and who was involved (event), some specific details (was it raining? Were you stressed?), and finally, why you wanted to tell this story in the first place (purpose). Word count: 200.
• Or, here’s a similar example but in a different modality: You’ve just completed your first week of college! In an audio recording, talk about a specific experience that stood out to you this week using principles of narrative.Discuss where you were (setting), what happened and who was involved (event), some specific details (was it raining? Were you stressed?), and finally, why you wanted to tell this story in the first place (purpose). Then, find a picture that represents this experience(serious or silly) and pair it with your audio recording.

Reflection on reflection: This entry will always be turned in for a grade and will be a metacognitive reflection (perhaps emphasizing synthesis, too) that asks students to think critically about what’s happening across all their reflections. More details are in the following section.

Measurement

Generally, students will receive credit for simply completing an entry. For each class, I’m planning to have a quiz that asks students whether or not they did the reading and if they completed their journal entry, so there will be a high level of self-accountability. I’m not sure if this is the right choice here, but because I’m trying to emphasize embracing emotion through the process, I want my students to feel comfortable writing things they might not want anyone else to see.

That being said, I still want to offer feedback on their reflections and ensure that they are thinking critically about the work they’re doing. Thus, every four weeks or so, I’ll have a “Reflection on Reflection” entry due. This journal entry will be submitted on Learning Suite. It will contain two components: 1) A copy of three previous journal entries, self-selected by the student, and 2) A short analysis of these reflections, with an emphasis on how their LJ entries have impacted their writing process.

I also want to engage in reflection by keeping track of how my students’ literacy narratives are developing. Using the first entry/reflection as a benchmark, I will take notes from their “Reflection on Reflection” submissions. I will also poll the class on how journals are going to adjust as necessary throughout the semester. At the end, I want to write a reflection on how I thought LJs went. Did I notice a difference in the way my students wrote about their writing? Are the feelings they’re expressing about their writing evolving at all? What patterns or trends did I see?

Frequency

Journal entries will be written twice a week. On Day 1, I plan to have entries due before class, whereas on Day 2, we’ll work on entries in class. My hope with this structure is that the consistency will ensure students are familiar and comfortable with the genre. Furthermore, completing 50% of the entries during class time will hopefully counter any burnout from requiring students to consistently keep a journal on their own time. When a “Reflection on Reflection” entry is due, that will take the place of the Day 1 entry for the week.

On weeks when one of the three main assignments—personal narrative, inquiry report, or advocacy paper—is due, students will only write one journal entry. That entry will likely be done in class to alleviate any extra writing assignments during what is already a writing-heavy week.