(About reading logs)Sometimes students choose topics for their entries, and sometimes teachers pose questions to guide students thinking about their reading. Teachers monitor students' entries, reading and often responding to them. Because these journals are learning tools, teachers rarely correct students' spellings; they focus their responses on the ideas but they expect students to spell the title of the book, the names of characters, and high-frequency words accurately. At the end of the unit, teachers review students' work and often grade the reading logs based on whether students completed all the entries and on the quality of the ideas expressed in their entries." (Tompkins P.47)
At first glance I did not agree that it was a good idea to not correct spelling and grammar in the journals but after reflecting on it I think that it is more and more of a good idea. I think that feeling less pressure to be correct would make the children more excited to write in their journals and as they are learning grammar and spelling in other lessons their journals will improve on their own. I think that the quality of the ideas would naturally be better because children could write more freely. I also think that it is a good idea to sometimes let students choose their own topics but also give them guided questions sometimes. I think it would be best to be flexible with that though. If the students are out of ideas and having writer's block that would be a great time to give them some direction with a good question to gt them going. If they are really excited about an idea, even if you had a question planned, I think it would be more beneficial to forget your question and let them run with their idea.
Q: What do you think about correcting student's journals? Is it ever appropriate to correct a student's writing journal?
I actually agree with you. I think a journal is to write personal feelings about something, the reason why I think it should not be corrected is so the purpose is to really say what you think rather than worrying about the grammar or punctuation. There are many other ways in which as a teacher you can correct spelling and grammar and perhaps you can let your students know that you will intentionally not correct grammar and punctuation in their journals but ask them to still try to write as appropriate as they know how.
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