Journals What’s that all about?

Self Improvement project How often do we write these? 1 per week, 14 to 16 total for semester. What do we write? A few sentences to around ½ page about our own process, weekly, to work on some part of our own individual lives. Examples from previous students: Stop smoking/drinking/binge drinking/binge eating; spend more time with friends (less time with friends) or time with self. Clean room. Do homework. Don’t do homework. Diet. Don’t diet. Yoga, meditation, exercise. Day without cell phone. Actually answer emails, etc….

Self Improvement Continued Why am I writing these? Because the teacher said so, and she’s crazy! Kidding. Because as we work on improving the world outside ourselves, it is important we do not neglect our own needs Activist burnout is real and this can help us keep ourselves as part of the loop of how to make things better.

Community Involvement: What is it good for. Nothin’. Huah Community Involvement: What is it good for? Nothin’! Huah! Haha Actually, It is the baseline for our class structure. We will try to help those we perceive as needing our help in small and larger ways as individuals and write about the experience in our journals.

Community Involvement part of journaling continued What can we do? Anything… You can help your family, your peers at school, your neighbors, friends, strangers in the street, organizations. Your community service should vary and be reflected on in a few sentences to around ½ page or more journal reflection. Examples from previous students: Help mom who is ill with chores; help friend with math homework; buy groceries for single parent neighbor, shovel walk for older neighbor; volunteer at Interfaith or Soup Kitchen with church; help with Key club food drives; play with little sibling; babysit for organization having meeting; volunteer with your church, club, job, family, etc—it all counts, volunteer because someone is making you—it still counts…work with Habitat for Humanity; help dad put storm windows on neighbor’s house; etc… Stuff you did this summer or last year won’t count instead of new weekly community work, but it makes great reflection and yes—some nice extra credit points your journal! Gotta love the extra credit!

Community Involvement How often do we write about our individual community involvement projects? Once weekly, total of 14-16 weeks What do we write? What we did. How we felt about it. Why we chose this. What happened. How the other person/people responded. Anything else you feel like. Write a few sentences to around ½ page, but often a page or more is nice! ***Once per month—write at least a page about one of these!

Our Service Projects: Write about your impression of each of the experiences

BOOKS (OR SOMETIMES ON SCHOOLOGY or IN CLASS REFLECTIONS INSTEAD) 1 BOOKS (OR SOMETIMES ON SCHOOLOGY or IN CLASS REFLECTIONS INSTEAD) 1. Write your impressions of the book. What it makes you feel, compare and contrast with other texts, and overall thoughts-good and bad. 2. Answer questions/queries made by instructor about the book. Sometimes these are formal book notes—sometimes informal discussion questions.

Thematic Reflections (Also sometimes on schoology or in class) You should also write responses to the discussion questions/queries the teacher suggest, such as your “Walkabout” later this week. ***NEW: These will often be turned in separately from your journal, but if you are absent—you can do this as a journal reflection. Examples of topics from previous semesters: ISMS (Racism, classism, elitism, sexism, agism, heterosexism, religiousism or bias, etc.) Bullying issues in school Food and world poverty Immigration issues Environmentalism in Laramie Suicide and suicide prevention, mental health issues

Grassroots and Policy Change: (the intro and the capstone of the course) You will interview people, go out into the world and reflect upon it, and research how to best make change in the world in areas which are important to you. You will reflect upon this experience along the way and afterwards. You will be able to do this in creative and expository and expressive ways.

What else should go in my journal? Anything you think will make the journal a good experience for you. Some students have written stories and poems in previous semesters, for example. What if I disagree with the class or even the teacherabout a topic we are writing about? Then write about it. This is about your experience and its actually good to be where you are and not where you think people want you to be… It helps the dialogue overall and it is all and all, your reflective journal! How much is the journal worth? Same as a test. 100 to 350 points. There are more journal checks than tests, so it can make and/or break your grade. HOW OFTEN DO YOU COLLECT JOURNALS? Around 8-10 times per semester. Around every two-three weeks. *I collected them monthly last semester and they recommended collecting them more frequently.

What else will we cover in class? Class discussions. Also a big part of your grade. This is why we spend SO much time building community in the class. Tests over books and films. This is just to show if you understand the concepts we are studying and are thinking critically about them. They are heavy on opinion and reflection. Two/Three research projects: 1. Favorite person who promoted positive change. 2. Big Policy and Community research projects Your personal implemented service project (GRASSROOTS) Service Projects and reflections Collaborative book club projects Creative reflections Guest speaker and film reflections

What’s different for the last 2 years. 1 What’s different for the last 2 years? 1. We’ll try to do some book and project reflections in class AND do some on schoology, therefore communicating with each other instead of just reflection..both are important, after all.  2. We’ll turn journals once per month.  3. We’ll still have to do community service and self fulfilment projects weekly.