We are writers, and so it is even more helpful for us to journal. Not sure yet? Let me share with you some tips from my journaling experience for how to write a journal.
Write for fifteen minutes about some aspect of your day as though you were writing in a journal. Your journal entry might be a drawing, a poem, or a list of words or cities you drove through.
Keep a journal if you want to. And if you think writing in a journal is stupid, don’t keep one. You might have written all day on your novel, and then some writer with six cats and seven litter boxes wants you to keep a journal.
The journal is a record of how you felt and what you did. Telling the truth will make you a reliable storyteller.
4 Advantages of Keeping a Journal
Now you know why journaling can be helpful. But how should you journal? It is very personal, and you should do what works best for you. But I will give you some tips to help you get started.
If you don’t want anyone to read your journal, keep it in a locked box and swallow the key. (Please don’t really swallow the key. It would be unpleasant to have to find it again, and you might choke.) Put the key in a safe spot, and then remember where you put it.
Record details like the time, location, who you were with, what you were wearing. Details will help bring the memory alive when you record using your five senses.
In my first draft, I wrote that the amount they said I owed was, $638 dollars. After I had completed the first draft I went back to the notes I had written in my journal, and the correct amount was over six thousand dollars. $6,846.48. Well, maybe there are some things we don’t want to remember.
You think you will remember when it happened, but without a written date, you might forget.
Now you know why journaling can be helpful. But how should you journal? It is very personal, and you should do what works best for you. But I will give you some tips to help you get started.
The advantage of paper is you can write without having to be plugged into an electronic device. You don’t have to worry about a dead battery, and you can write even when the sun is bright or the airline makes you turn off your electronic devices.
2. Find old friends
To this day, if I smell a certain kind of Japanese soup, I can remember vividly the day I flew to Korea to renew my Japanese visa, only to discover the Japanese embassy was closed for a traditional Japanese holiday.
When you keep thoughts in your head it can be hard to know how you think and feel. Writing down how you feel will help you process your emotions, as feelings become words, which can be then be edited.
Write for fifteen minutes about some aspect of your day as though you were writing in a journal. Your journal entry might be a drawing, a poem, or a list of words or cities you drove through.
Oh, and if you’re wondering about what type of preschool journal writing paper you need, or maybe you’re wondering if you need a printable template – the answer is no! There’s no need for special paper or a printable template when it comes to writing in preschool. Blank paper is the way to go!
What is the actual purpose of writing in pre-k? I once saw a poster in a classroom that said “The top ten ways to become a better reader: read, read, read, read, read, read… “. The very same is true for writing, the best way for children to understand that print carries a message and to begin developing their writing abilities is to provide them with consistent opportunities to write. The more experiences children have with using writing tools and writing on blank paper, the more quickly they begin to understand the purpose of writing and how writing works.
If we really want young children in Preschool and Pre-K to learn how to draw and write, then inviting them to draw and write about what is most meaningful to them is going to be more effective than telling them what to draw or write.
Before we begin a conversation about journals, it’s important to define what they are first. Simply put, journals are a place for writing and drawing.
Purpose of Writing
With the old-school journal method, children were invited to write or draw on one page of paper per day and then dictate what their drawing or writing was about to an adult. If they were lucky, kids would engage in this process a few times a week at most.
Here’s a bit of the backstory on how the way I see writing has changed over time:
Pre-K Pages was founded in 2001, over the years the site has changed as it has grown. In 2008 I read two eye-opening books: Already Ready: Nurturing Writers in Preschool and Kindergarten and About the Authors: Writing Workshop with Our Youngest Writers. It was then that I made the decision to remove the “old-school” information about journals from Pre-K Pages. I realized new advances and insights into the way children learn to write had emerged and I wanted to adopt these new ideas in my classroom as well as share them with you here. I encourage you to read the books listed above before deciding to do journals in your classroom.
Why make picture books with young children instead of just drawing on a single sheet of paper and calling it a day?
What if you could transform journal time into a part of your daily routine that really shines? A time that your kids looked forward to and begged to do, even if it wasn’t time.
Show your kindergartener why writing is important. You can do so by modeling the importance of writing. For example, when you write stuff down do so in front of your child.
The kindergarten classroom is the perfect place for young children to socialize, play, and pretend — but it also needs to be a place where children set the foundation for the rest of their education.
Though your kindergarten students may not have highly developed writing skills to express their thoughts, they do have bright imaginations filled with all sorts of creative ideas. In these kindergarten printables, your young students have the chance to explore their interests, emotions, and the lessons they’ve learned in school.
Further, mix it up and ask children to draw and write about activities they did that day. You want them to get used to writing things down, especially in this age of technology.
More Free Kindergarten Writing Resources
Use these kindergarten writing prompt ideas s to help your young students practice writing, reading, and reflection. By writing each day, kindergartners will become more aware of their thoughts and feelings while also developing their skills of articulation and expression.
To help your students get the most from this excellent exercise, we’ve developed a set of 52 easy writing prompts for elementary school students.
Encourage your child to write, write, write. Write when they are happy, when they are sad, and when they are not sure how they feel. Ask them to write funny stories or their name over and over again. You could have them trace the letters of their first name. Ask them to read back to you everything that they wrote.
To further encourage a child’s writing skill development, do not correct the child on the mistakes that he or she makes. Doing so could end up making them feel bad about writing. Remember, this is writing practice, not a test.
See the Handwriting Practice Sheets I have available for 3 styles - Manuscript, D'Nealian and Cursive and for different ages. They are free to download and they are A-Z practice sheets with dotted letters and lines to copy the different letter shapes.
Lined Writing Paper: different spaced lines for different ages
Looking for free printable writing paper for you and your children to use in your homeschool? The lined paper comes in four different formats.
Time4learning offers printable kindergarten worksheets as well as worksheet through the eighth grade. There are some free printable worksheets from Time4Learning, on this page as an example of what they offer.
K-8 Worksheets
Dotted Lined: a line divided into 2 (tall, short letters) with space between each new line of writing
Handwriting printables with drawing box - available soon. This lined paper is ideal for writing narrations and adding a drawing on to the page.
LessonPlanet is also an incredible resource which has 350,000+ resources to help teach different subject areas according to different ages. A time saving resource when looking for something specific to help you. They have a 10 free trial period. I narrowed down a list of free printable writing paper and handwriting worksheets and resources that may be of interest.
Check out these free homeschool printables on my site - graphic organizers, free printable writing paper, History printable worksheets and more.
The papers submitted to a conference are usually reviewed during a specific period and authors receive their acceptance or rejection letters at the same time. Conference papers are usually short and concise with a limit on the number of pages allowed. For journal papers, on the other hand, the amount of time needed for publishing is very flexible. If your paper is promising but there are edits required, there could be a lot of back and forth between you and your editor until your paper is ready to be published. The revision process for a journal paper undergoes a very meticulous peer-review process, far more detailed than conference revisions, that takes a very long period of time. For some journals, the revision period may not even be fixed, but open until the paper is ready. This usually depends on the publication frequency of the journal whereas a journal that publishes an issue twice a year will probably have a less flexible revision period than a journal that publishes an issue a year. Other journals have ‘open issues’ where an issue remains open and new papers are published in that same issue when they’re ready. If you ever find an issue containing just 1 or 2 papers, it’s most probably an open issue and if you go back and take another look a few weeks later, chances are you’ll find a couple more papers added to the issue.
So there you have it, you now know the difference between the two but all of this raises the question of where each type of paper could be published. Generally speaking, a journal paper will only be published in an open or closed access journal and will not be included in a conference proceedings book or online proceedings repository. However, a conference paper, though usually published in a conference proceedings book or online proceedings repository, could possibly be published in a journal. This usually depends on the conference organizers as well. If your conference organizer offers you the opportunity to be published, chances are you will be published in a proceedings online repository or a proceedings book. However, if your paper is truly above average and is regarded as very high quality work, you may be offered the opportunity to be published in a journal.
Almost all researchers have been there. The amount of confusion between the two has only been increasing in this Internet age where access to journals and conferences alike is readily available online. Let us just begin by saying that whether you are writing a conference paper or a journal paper, you are on the right track. You are not only learning from the academic community, but you are also positively and actively contributing to it and you may well be the reason why an advancement in a certain field could be accomplished.
The Difference between a Conference Paper and a Journal Paper
The Importance of Having an ORCID ID
First thing’s first, we must understand what a journal is and what a conference is. A journal is a periodical publication that focuses on a certain discipline. It contains a number of peer-reviewed papers that are generally considered credible and are very good sources to cite from. A conference, on the other hand, is a place where scholars, researchers, professors, and academics gather to discuss research and developments in a certain field. In most academic conferences, people gather to present their newest research while others attend to observe these milestones. Research is often presented orally with visualization.
The last question that you probably need answered is “is it bad that my paper wasn’t selected to be published in a journal?” The answer is No. The fact that you conducted your own research for months, maybe even years, were accepted to present in a conference, presented in front of fellow scholars and professors, and got your work published for the masses to read is something that you should be proud of. If you absolutely want to be published in a journal, you could just target a journal directly without submitting to a conference.