Unjournaling

Today with my writing group, I was in charge of planning the OWA (Opening Writing Activity).  This is a short writing exercise to get our creative juices flowing.

For today, I settled on some writing activities from the book Unjournaling by Dawn DiPrince & Cheryl Miller Thurston.

I love the writing prompts from this book because they are quick and fun!  In my classroom, I will often use prompts from this book for our writing warm up at the beginning of class if we need a change of pace.

Today we wrote on two of the prompts:

• List the best reasons for doing nothing.
• Describe someone only by the details their hands.

Each of us in the writing group wrote something completely different, yet wonderful!  

Last year, I used this prompt with one of my classes:

• You have discovered an "orfenbellydorper." Describe what it is and what it does.

The kids had so much fun with this one that the orfenbellydorper showed up in stories throughout the year.  Talk about writing having an effect on students!

Journaling doesn't have to always be serious.  For kids who don't like to write, sometimes it takes 'unjournaling' to help them grow in confidence and creativity.

What other creative ways do you journal in your classroom?

See you back here on Thursday for Positive Thinking Thursday!