In March, 2005, Sarah Dickerson and I were on a panel along with Boise State University’s Karen Uehling and San Francisco writer Steven Winn in which we addressed attendees at the National Council of Teachers of English’s Conference on College Composition and Communication about using journaling in the classroom. I asked Sarah if she would share the assignments she’d used in her college classroom with Writing It Realsubscribers, because I believe they will help those of you interested in writing in the “crafted journal” style, those interested in journal keeping ideas, and those using journaling as a classroom tool.

Some of my favorites in the crafted journal genre are This is How I Speak by Sandi Sonnenfeld and Epitaph for a Peach by David Mas Masumoto. Spend a moment thinking of books you’ve read that are fragmentary–written as journals or in letterform (84 Charing Cross Road is a classic). You might want to reread them or choose one I mention or one that Sarah mentions.

Once you get the sound of a crafted journal in your ears, you might, in emulating one, find rich and new material for the subject you’ve wanted to write about–the evolution of your small town into a city, the change in a woman whose role as caretaker shifts, surviving illness and imparting knowledge about how to avoid it and/or deal with it, or learning about music from a teenage child who has started a band, for example. Others of you are in possession of letters you might fold into a journal about how you are researching someone’s life and how your research and thoughts interact with your own life.

The Art of Journal Keeping: The Daybook as Creative Nonfiction
By Sarah Dickerson

In Spring 2004, I taught a non-fiction writing course at the University of Iowa. Using journals, students explored their lives and the world they lived in, not through freewheeling diary writing but in “carefully crafted” entries. They read “journal practitioners” like Rick Bass (Winter), Anne Lamott (Operating Instructions), May Sarton (The Journal of Solitude), and Doris Grumach (Coming into the End Zone, all authors that Carl Klaus, founder of the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa, used in the class I’d taken there.

Here are five assignments I created to help my students focus as they wrote for a minimum of five days straight for at least twenty-five minutes each day. Some of these assignments were also designed to ensure that students looked beyond their personal lives and considered other subjects for journaling. The idea was to show students how to turn the daily-ness of living into artful daybooks by keeping a focused, self-conscious journal full of deep reflection.

Journal Assignment #1: Days of our Lives
Often the diary or journal does nothing more than chronicle the days’ events: conversations had, meals eaten, ordinary occurrences, straight-forward observations. Often this simple kind of diary-keeping can be revealing, indeed, very interesting.

 For one week (at least five days, for at least twenty minutes), I’d like you to chronicle your days. I suggest you pick a time each day to do your journaling, perhaps nearer the end of the day, and offer an account of the days’ events (perhaps picking up on events from the previous evening. Then push it one step further. In making observations about your day, or relating conversations or encounters you had through the day, I’d like you to offer some reflection:   what does it remind you of?   what does it make you think of?   what’s your opinion?  what do you wonder about?  I’d also suggest you review the entry you’ve written the day before, before you proceed with the next.  After a couple of days, does a theme or subject seem to occur?  Try following this theme, and see where it takes you.

Please, and always, feel free to journal beyond the assignment on whatever you wish. Be prepared to share your journaling experience, and perhaps an entry or two, with a small group of colleagues.

****

Journal Assignment #2: From the Coffee Shop
For a change of scenery, and in an effort to get off yourself, if only for a week, (or for at least 25 min/day), I’d like you to take your journal somewhere other than home: the coffee shop, work, out for lunch, or somewhere else interesting: grocery story, Wal-mart, hospital, police station, the mall. Every day for at least five days (more if you wish), I’d like you to return to this same location and journal about your surroundings, the people, events, or even non-events you happen to observe, conversations you overhear, whatever. Do keep your pen moving for at least 25 minutes. I’ll be curious to see how observing things outside yourself reflects what’s going on within yourself. In other words, can you convey by your observations what makes you tick, what you’re interested in, what you think, without directly telling us? Can you infer through what you’re observing what you’re thinking?

Again, and always, you’re welcome (and might wish) to journal beyond twenty-five minutes, returning to a chronicle of your days, if you so desire, or following up on a theme or topic that you picked up on last week, or simply doing your own thing. Just remember for purposes of this assignment to return to the same location for a minimum of five days, and journal for 25 minutes on your observations. Again, see if you can follow whatever themes or subjects seem to emerge. Returning to the same location should also prove to be a good exercise in staying focused (we hope).

And there’s more. . .

Following your week’s journaling, please choose a brief selection to word-process, (less than a page please) editing if you wish, or clarifying/expanding what you wrote. After you do this, please write a response to the week’s assignment: How did it go? What did you discover about your writing over the course of this week? How was this journaling experience different from the first? How was it the same? Did anything surprise you? Disturb you? Delight you? Keep this brief as well, around a page, two at the most, word-processed. You can share these with a group.

****

Journal Assignment #3: The Others
This journal assignment might feel a bit like spying, or prying (or not) but I’d like you to spend the next week journaling about an “other.” Remember to journal for a minimum of 25 minutes for at least five days. This “other” could be anyone, or even anything (maybe even an animal!). This “other” might have to be someone (or something) you encounter every day, or nearly every day, but not necessarily — you might go on memory, if this “other” isn’t present in your every day life. This “other” might be a significant person in your life, a group you belong to (or from which you feel excluded), or an animal that compels you, or perhaps frightens you in some way. This “other” could be someone or something you know well, or not at all: the person who waits on you at the coffee shop each day, a teacher, past or present, a roommate, your mother, your dog, the squirrel in your backyard, a creature you’ve always been fascinated by, real or imagined. An object might be more challenging, but it’s certainly something to consider. Try to capture this “other” as well as you can, using description, anecdotes and passages of exposition that flesh out your relationship to the “other.”

Again, try to stay FOCUSED on this exercise for at least 25 minutes. Even if you run out of things to say, or it seems to be “boring” keep going. See if you can somehow acquaint the reader with the persona (you) in your writing (your attitude or relationship toward the “other”, your conflict, your “role” in the writing). If you feel you must continue: with personal matters, a chronicle of your days, other stuff, or you feel the need to pick up on last week’s themes, try to do so beyond the first 25 minutes (or so).

And there’s more. . .

Following your week’s journaling, please choose a compelling paragraph (two at most) from each day to word-process (or cut and paste), editing if you wish, or clarifying/expanding what you wrote. Then write a response to the week’s assignment: How did it go? What did you discover about your writing over the course of this week? How was this journaling experience different from the first? How was it the same? Did anything surprise you? Disturb you? Delight you? Again, stay brief. We’ll either share these with our group or discuss them as a class. Again, hand this in to me and I’ll offer some brief feedback. If you have specific questions or concerns about your journaling, please don’t hesitate to ask.

****

Journal Assignment #4: Outdoors

Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon the remembered earth. He ought to give himself up to a particular landscape in his experience; to look at it from as many angles as he can, to wonder upon it, to dwell upon it

He ought to imagine that he touches it with his hands at every season and listens to the sounds that are made upon it.

He ought to imagine that the creatures there and all the faintest motions of the wind. He ought to recollect the glare of the moon and the colors of the dawn and dusk.

N. Scott Momaday
Time to get outside and appreciate nature! For this journal assignment, I’d like you to spend a bit of time outdoors every day for a good fifteen to twenty minutes and journal about the world you live in (whether or not you decide to journal outside or journal afterward is up to you). You might choose to return to the same duck pond each day, or simply step out onto your own front porch. It’s up to you. You might go out during the day, or night, or both.

Some advice: Take a moment to be still each day — close your eyes and pay attention to your other senses: what you smell (imagine snow and rocks have an odor), what you hear, what you feel, maybe even what you taste. Open your eyes, too, and consider what you see. Try to “vary the distance” in your writing: where do you want to get in nice and close (close-ups); where do you want to pull back and take in a broader view (long shots).

Consider, also, what should be done with these observations; though sometimes the images themselves might be enough, try to give your observations some meaning. Offer your interpretation of the experience, your opinion or thoughts on these observations. Consider further what memories are triggered for you, what you wonder about, what you question. You may find your writing becoming a bit more meditative, more reflective, more meaningful if you can take it a bit beyond the straight observations of your experience (though again, sometimes the images can carry the writing all by itself).

I know not everyone is a nature lover, much less a nature writer, but get your butts out there and do it anyway: it’s your planet after all. You might find your observations and experience triggers tons of great material for you. This is your chance to spend a bit of time appreciating the world you live on.

Again, strive for 25 minutes or so (or more). See if any themes begin to emerge and try following them. See where it takes you.

And there’s not much more. . .

Since I’m asking you to spend fifteen minutes outside and another 20 to 25 minutes writing, you needn’t write a reflection of your week’s experience, but do give some thought to how the week’s journaling went. Perhaps you could incorporate some reflection on your writing in your daily journaling. Has your writing changed at all? Have you learned anything new about “ways” to journal? Did you come to appreciate nature or winter, or seasons in general? Were you able to get a bit beyond reporting of experience and observation, able to make any other connections to your own life?

****

Journal Assignment #5: Moments of Solitude

I am here alone for the first time in weeks to take up my ‘real’ life again at last. That is what is strange — that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life, unless there is time alone in which to explore and to discover what is happening or has happened. . . .I hope to break through into the rough, rocky depths, to the matrix itself.

May Sarton from Journal of Solitude
Time to shift gears once again. This journal assignment asks you to take time to be alone, to find those moments of solitude in which to meditate and reflect in peace and quiet on “what is happening or has happened” whatever that means for you. So, in effect, this assignment will likely be full of “I,” and it will primarily focus on you, your thoughts, your feelings, your reflections.

I would suggest trying to find at least a half an hour, or even more if you can, to be alone (for some of you this will be easy, for others, it may take some effort to find this alone time), even if you actually write for less time. Turn off the television, the music, get rid of all distractions, and take a close look at yourself and the life you choose to live. I suspect that what we see/observe inside ourselves will have some bearing on what we observe outside ourselves. I suppose we’ll find out, in any case.

I’ll be especially interested in seeing how this exercise in self-examination differs from the last one in terms of finding some “meaning” for your writing (some meaning for your life?). What is the difference between what happens inside our own heads, and what happens out there?

Again, journal for at least five days. See what happens; see what you learn.

Response: Do write a page or so in response to how this week’s activity was different or the same as the others, what you got from the assignment and how you liked it. Also, again, include a selection (or more if you wish) to word-process, and be prepared to a group about the week’s journaling experience.

****

Sarah encourages us not only to write about our personal lives but also to find something outside of ourselves to write about, which in the end not only informs those who read our writing but allows us to make deeper personal journeys on the page–remember, Emily Dickenson advised us all to “tell it slant.”

If you think of using the results of these assignments for a book or article or long essay you want to write, see if you can find a way to weave in the reflections on how the journaling went. Perhaps some of what you’ve written might become moving letters interspersed among the entries in the crafted journal or perhaps you’ll be keeping two parallel journals–one about the subject and one about you researching and delving into the subject. I think you will find that these exercises and ideas help you add extra layers of perception and feeling while they encourage you to continue writing.