Monday, April 18, 2011

Lena's Journal

These past few weeks, I've slowly been asking Lena to do a journal entry.  We're up, now, to making an entry each morning. 

I've found encouraging kiddos to write to be more challenging than I would have imagined. 

As an adult, I welcome the creative outlet of writing.  I enjoy writing for expression in a prayer journal as well as on this blog.  With the upcoming move, even, I have a list of people (and places, i.e. the library!!) to whom I intend to write a "sincere letter" of good-bye.  When you put something into words, it requires brain energy and thought, and I think that's a great creative outlet and use of time! 

Anyway, not so with my kiddos, at least.  I'm sure in my public teaching days, I knew kids who welcomed the chance to quietly reflect and write, but so far, I've not found that with Jack and Lena.  So, encouraging a journal entry from Lena each day feels a bit like walking on eggshells.  I want the experience to be free of frustration and full of positive reinforcement thus to encourage more writing!  And for the most part, I've had success presenting writing to Lena in such a way that she's starting to see it's not as hard as she would have thought.   

Write on!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Jenny you are an excellent writer and I still think you should think about publishing some of your wonderful thoughts and expressions. Love Janenne