Reading with an Analytical Eye: Why We Write about our Reading

When I was writing every day to my class, the quality of my student's journal responses improved.
Note: please forgive the first-draft, unedited writing.

After many hours of research and thought, I am getting a clearer vision for the purpose and expected out come of our Reader Response Journals.  I want my students to have daily thought-clarifying experiences that relate to their reading. I believe that the process of articulating their thoughts about their reading will improve their analytical and thinking skills.  I also believe that their engagement with this type of thinking must occur every day.   Last semester, I personally learned how difficult it was to write about my own reading as I tried to model the sort of thinking that I wanted my students to practice.  Each night as I finished my own choice reading, I could easily say, "That was good", but  articulating how the author created that feeling in me was agonizing at first.  The next morning, I would compose a letter to my students containing my thoughts about my reading.  After writing many of those letters, I now read with that "filter", always thinking of how to discuss the author's craft and literary elements such as characterization, conflict, metaphor, suspense, theme, symbolism, and so on.  I want my students to develop that same mental process, and I believe that reader response writing is a proven way to develop those critical thinking skills.

As a result, I have developed a list of possible journal prompts for students that should focus their thinking while they are reading in their independent reading books.  I developed this list in response to the common complaint that my daily journal prompts didn't always fit a student's reading experience from the night before.  By providing choice, but requiring variety, I hope to encourage more active reading.  Another advantage of this process should be that students will have questions in mind before they do their reading.  If they are reading these writing prompts in mind, they should become more engaged, analytical readers.

Certainly modeling will pay a large part in my student's ability to craft this sort of writing.  I am very grateful to have a new document camera so that I can display my own journal.  As you can see from the sloppy, brief letter to my students, I find the white board to difficult place to communicate your thoughts.  Now the challenge is to carve out time for my own choice reading on top of planning, assessment, parent contacts, meetings, paperwork, and family life.  Sustaining my own reading life is worth is though; the more share my reading life and experiences the more honest and courageous my students become in their reading lives.