English 101
Journal Assignments
The purpose of journal assignments is to provide you an opportunity to write without formal constraints. Journals are your chance to approach a "prompt" question in the manner which seems most appropriate to you. In most cases, you will find that you free up your own ideas and discover what you think about issues as you free-write about them. In addition, the more you write, the more comfortable you will feel about writing.
I am providing several journal assignments per week. I collect these journals from time to time and always with your formal essays. Your journal responses are to be written out of class (you will have "in-class writing responses").
I encourage you to keep journal entries regularly for yourself. Reading and writing journals are effective ways of exploring issues. Often you will find that as you are writing these journals, you are actually drafting materials for your papers. The "work" you do in your journals, which doesn't even seem like work, goes a long way to cutting down work you do on more formal projects.
For more information and suggestions on journals and journal writing, I suggest the following on-line sites:
Remember that along with other in-class exercises, your journals are
worth 10% of your grade.