See attachment 2

JOURNAL WRITING GUIDELINES

PURPOSES/OBJECTIVES FOR WRITING JOURNALS

The main purpose of writing journals is to gain practice in gathering your thoughts and focusing on a particular topic, as well as meeting the 5,000 typed words requirement for this course. Nevertheless, there are many other objectives in writing journals as well. A primary reason to participate in this activity is to practice using proper MLA style in regard to using proper heading, header, font, spacing, and title placement. Once you have typed several journals, this format will become more natural for you to use and will also ensure that you use the proper format for the major essays. Another objective in creating journals is to do “prewriting” for major essays. Another reason is to become accustomed to writing a specific word requirement of 300 typed words. When you become used to writing 300 typed words for these assignments, then you will be more prepared to write 750 typed words for the major essays. Finally, another reason is to have an arena for you to express your personal opinions and more “creative” license. You may be creative in your journals since you are not limited to specific essay format (i.e. paragraph structure, thesis and topic sentences, full paragraph development, etc.). In other words, you will have the chance to be more poetic or focus on creative responses than in the more formal major essays (Essay 1, Essay 2/Midterm, Research Paper, and the Final Exam).

GRADING STRUCTURE FOR JOURNALS

You will receive full credit for the journals as long as you fulfill the following requirements:

· Type 300 words

· Make an attempt to address the specific topic presented as the focus of the journal (i.e. you need to stay on topic – if you are asked to respond to a certain reading, you need to refer to it specifically)

· Demonstrate that you have read the assigned reading or assignment instructions that pertain to the journal topic (most journals will be based on specific assigned readings; others will be writing practice journals such as body paragraph structure, argumentative strategies, etc.)

· Do not use ANY outside sources – use only your original ideas, information from the stories, and information from the class discussions – you are not allowed to use any reference to the biographical information on the author, any historical information, or ANY outside sources to complete the journals – this includes ANY Internet source information, the dictionary, etc. – please note – students who use outside sources in their journals will receive an automatic ‘F’ for this assignment and will be penalized based on the Plagiarism Policy posted on the syllabus.

· You will not be graded on grammar concerns in the journals – you WILL be graded on length and the above concerns; in other words, this is mainly a completion grade – if you follow the above guidelines you will receive full credit for each journal

FINAL GRADE FOR JOURNAL FOLDER

You will receive 10 or 20 points for each of the journals done throughout the semester. If you complete all journals and submit them by the specified deadline, you can make a 100 on this assignment. This practice is very important to help you grow as a writer and it is also a chance for you to improve your final grade in the class. This grade is 10% of your final grade and it can help your overall average. I hope you will all take advantage of this completion grade and fulfill this portion of your class participation/homework.

JOURNAL TOPICS

In regard to the “reading” based journals, you may do any of the following to fulfill your reading response journals:

· Answer one or more of the questions in the Questions for a Literary Analysis handout, OR the Questions for Analyzing Fiction handout derived from The Little, Brown Handbook, 10th edition. You can access the handouts in the mywritinglab Document Sharing list.

· Compare the reading to an example in your own personal life (be sure to mention the story at least 50% of the time in your response)

· Compare the reading to a modern day example

· Describe how the story makes you feel

· Write a personal opinion about the story -- write about whether you like it or not; or you can write about what parts you like and what parts you do not like—be sure at least 50% of your journal directly relates to the reading to show you have read and understood it

· Write about what you do not understand in the story or what you found to be most interesting

· Compare this reading to another reading you have done in your life (be sure to mention the assigned reading at least 50% of the time in your response)

· Use the journal as a “prewriting” activity for one of the major assignments

· Use the journal to practice writing introduction, body, and conclusion paragraphs as presented in class lecture notes – refer to the Essay Writing Guidelines handout posted in the mywritinglab Document Sharing list

· Use the journal to practice using direct quotes from a story (i.e. use journals to practice using proper MLA citation format to help you gain expertise in using direct quotes – a skill that will be required in the major essay 2/midterm and argumentative writing assignments in MyWritingLab)