Dialogue Journals - Launching

On the day that I launched dialogue journals with my students it was different than I imagined. I've selected once class to do this with. They were given about 25 minutes to read, write, and respond to me. This was the quietest my classroom has ever been. They were working so hard and actually writing without complaining. I am quite eager to see how they respond to this. It's interesting to see what they come up with and how they choose to respond to my short letter. My hope for the dialogue journals is that it will grow my students as writers. Some of my kids went ahead and personalized their journals.

Something I've noticed about the dialogue journals is that many of the kids really enjoy them. They begin to tell you things that you wouldn't normally get to know about them. One kid shared that he didn't really know how to use commas, but tried to use one in a sentence.

"My other ELA teacher's never taught me how to use comma's so I tried to use one last sentence." 

I was able to pinpoint when he used commas well and show him how to use them in his writing. It was nice because the journals opened the door for that dialogue with my student. Also, he was able to say that he tried something in a place that was not threatening.

My students beg me to write in their dialogue journals. It's been a bit rocky trying to find a routine for answering them. We've sort of worked out a system. The students know when their journals are in the basket, that it is filled out and waiting on them. When they've responded, they return their journals to my answering bag. I try to answer a few at a time instead of trying to answer them all at once. That was kind of a mistake when I tried to do that. I couldn't keep up and they begged me to fill them out. My instructional coach and I worked through a process to keep the momentum going. So far it seems to be working well.