WRITING MULTI-GENRE AND MULTI MEDIA JOURNAL WRITING M&M’S

MAKING WRITING FUN AND INFORMATIVE BY MIXING IT UP!

CAN THE USE OF A DAILY JOURNAL AND SPECIFIC MULTI – GENRE ACTIVITIES DEVELOP SKILLS? The tangible is important, and more so in writing than any other subject we teach. Most teachers require students to save and organize notes, handouts and assignments. We will use our journal as a notebook to keep and organize our writing.

JOURNALING WITH MULTI-MEDIA USING MULTI-GENRES …makes writing more personal to the child

EACH STUDENT SHOULD HAVE THEIR OWN JOURNAL AND THEY SHOULD ALL BE IDENTICAL IN THE BEGINNING

Suggestions Use prompts on some days. Allow a free flow of thoughts and art work of any kind. Explain “school appropriate” and the concept of mandated reporting, but don’t over emphasize. If appropriate let your students make and present the rules!

Journaling can be great therapy, and you will find that most of your students will use this outlet appropriately but this style of writing does tend to foster emotions to be spilled out on paper, so be ready!

MULTI GENRE narratives, first, third, and even second person poetry—all sorts newspaper articles pictures (photos, collages, drawings, whatever) memories/ reflections perspectives of related people/ events recipes graphs fiction games/ activities point/ counterpoint or editorials, etc. comics or cartoons obituaries labyrinthine sentences box scores, charts Scripts timelines

WORK ON WORDS A color/word/wheel concept allows students to “bank” descriptive words. The activity helps students to associate those words with the feelings which they might evoke. They will think about word choice more after this activity. Do you think he can actually see red?

Work on Larger chunks of text Use sentence activities or golden lines and put them all together in your journal to make an entry! LET’S TRY THIS! Distributors give each person at the table an envelope. In the envelope are isolated lines of poetry. Take a piece of card stock and glue the lines on so they make sense to you. You have 5 minutes! Timers say GO!

Using cut words can help students to create authentic literature.

There is no wrong, there is only WRITE!

ALLOWING CHILDREN TO WRITE FREELY WITHOUT FEAR OF BEING WRONG WILL HELP TO CREATE THEIR VOICE.