Notebooks
and Journals:
Keeping journals is a productive mean to enhance the
creativity and critical thinking among students. Journal writing helps the
students to improve their comprehension, writing and learning. In this chapter,
Benjamin introduces the idea of Interdisciplinary language Journals. In this
kind of journal, learner connects one class to another by using the terminology
of one subject to another. I believe this is a high level thinking process.
Making the relations between different content areas using terminologies is a
difficult task for the learners.
I personally like the idea of writing journals
prompts. It allows to express personal thoughts. However, the idea of
interdisciplinary language journal is new to me. I had never used it before in
my academic period. I thought I should give
it a try. So I tried to make a connection between different classes which I am
currently taking . I found it very challenging to use one subject 's terminology for the other, as it is hard to do English in
Mathematics or vice versa. I think with a little practice, it becomes easier in
the future to make the links.
Although for first and second grade students, it is
hard to implement this type of writing due to limited vocabulary. However, I
can visualize the 4th and 5th graders making the
connection between different subject areas. I believe keeping a separate note
book to record interdisciplinary journal prompts helps the students to tie the
threads from different classes. It helps to develop critical thinking.
Hopefully, I will use the idea of across-the-board journal in my future classroom. I am planning for my students to have a seperate notebook to keep the interdisciplinary language journals. In this journal prompt , they will share their thoughts about different topics which they learned in other subjects and try to make a link between them.
Hopefully, I will use the idea of across-the-board journal in my future classroom. I am planning for my students to have a seperate notebook to keep the interdisciplinary language journals. In this journal prompt , they will share their thoughts about different topics which they learned in other subjects and try to make a link between them.
Iram, I also found the interdisciplinary journal as a new idea to me. I admire the thought of having a journal to keep a connection between all subjects. I think this technique doesn't have to be limited to the way Benjamin described. Some modifications do have to be made for younger students. Teachers may have to prompt or give hints to allude to a connection in another class. You might be surprised of how much higher order inquiry skills first and second graders have. The problem of limited vocabulary can be limited by a word bank and modeling of what strong journal writing is. Maybe lower elementary students can write a brief summary of what they had learned in class and as a challenge, they can find a common theme between all or multiple subject areas.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your comments, Manon. Definitely, some modifications has to be made to apply the techniques, Benjamin described for the interdisciplinary journals. Since for the elementary grades, fortunately most of the time one teacher teaches Math, Social studies and English; so she knows what topics students are covering in other subjects and she can easily help the students to maintain their journals.
DeleteIram, I agree with you that journal writing enhance creativity and critical thinking among students. I also like the interdisciplinary approach to writing journals, but I never thought of the challenge this approach would pose to students in the lower grades because of limited vocabulary; although this might be challenging to some students we have to expose them to higher level thinking at an early stage. The idea of having separate notebook to keep interdisciplinary language journal seems to be a good idea worth trying, but we must also take into consideration that this approach would not be applicable in all situations; some terms are discipline specific and do not relate to other comment areas, we have to assess the situation to see whether it is interdisciplinary or not when setting interdisciplinary prompt.
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