Journal Writing: Lists
Some students take to journal writing like a fish to water and others not so much. The biggest struggle students have is trying to figure out WHAT to write about. This is where writing lists comes in handy. In class, we spend lots of time at the beginning of the year creating lists of things - Items we can't live without; Christmas List to Santa; Things that we are scared of; The qualities in a significant other; etc. The only requirement for these assignments is that the student take the list seriously and use color/art to create a visually appealing piece. It may look like "just coloring" to the untrained eye, but in reality this is the foundation of writing longer pieces and requires higher level order thinking to turn words into art.