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As part of planning for our next book, The Better Teacher’s Toolbox, I was reviewing some of my older Education Week posts.

I saw this one from over five years ago,  and the idea of a “Shared Journal” jumped out to me.  I can’t believe I didn’t jump on the idea then, but it does appear that the post was published the week we all closed down for COVID, so I guess I had other things on my mind.

This was written by Dr. Amanda Branscombe, an associate professor at Athens State University in Athens, Ala.:

The Shared Journal Process (Taylor, Branscombe, Burcham, and Land, 2011), was developed by Taylor and several kindergarten teachers. The approach involved having three students share a true story from their lives each day. The other students would listen, ask questions to learn more about the facts of the stories, and then decide which story would best represent the history of their lives during that school year. After the sharing, students would write and draw in their journals about a story….

This shared-journal process really created what Bishop (2011) described as creating windows and mirrors in the classroom. The children’s Shared Journal stories became windows and mirrors into their lives. “The mirror reflects the life of the child and includes context-specific references to the things they experience and the surrounding community where they live. Windows are openings to the world around learners and include consideration of all things that are possible in the world today.” (Catapano, 2018, p. 45).

I love this idea, though I’m not sure I would do it everyday – probably more like once or twice each week.  I’d start off by sharing some teacher models, then a “fill-in-the-blank” graphic organizer.

It seems to me it would be a great activity!