Journals
"Keep a journal and someday your journal will keep you."
                                                                                        -Anonymous

    As part of the eleventh grade curriculum, you will keep a journal.  This journal must be kept in a marble composition notebook (please, no spirals).  You will write in your journal on topics assigned during class.  You will be responsible for generating at least TWO pages each week.  Sometimes we will begin writing in class and you will have to finish for homework.  Other times, you will simply write your journals at home.    Each week, you will have one response journals and one literary / critical thinking journal.  You must respond to both topics.  Since the literary journal will often be a response to the literature we are reading, I recommend that you write in your journal weekly instead of the night before your journal is due.  Obviously, you are free to write on additional topics besides the ones we explore in class.  Actually, this is greatly encouraged.

        Your journal should be your record of your thoughts, reactions, and opinions.  As a student in my classroom, we will talk about various issues, ideas, concepts that I expect you to react to.  I expect you to express yourself in my classroom as much as I expect you to express yourself in your journal.  Find your voice in your writing.  Question.  Think critically.  Analyze your life.

        I will collect your journal one or two times during each nine weeks.  Your journal will count as a test grade.

JOURNAL TOPICS:
First Nine Weeks
The Week of 9/13
1.  What are your goals for the eleventh grade year?
2. What makes you really angry?

The Week of 9/20
1.  What's the worst thing that's ever happened to you?  How did you deal with it?
2.  What should be taught in American high schools?

The Week of 9/27
1.  What principle or belief is most important to you?
2.  Freewrite

The Week of 10/4
1.  How important is it to tell the truth?
2.  Thoughts on Homecoming...

The Week of 10/18
1.  Tell me about a prejudice you personally have witnessed.
2.  Freewrite

JOURNALS DUE MONDAY 11/8!

SECOND NINE WEEKS
The Week of 11/15
1.  Plans for Thanskgiving break....
2.  Do adults understand today's teenagers?


The Week of 11/29
1.  If you could meet any famous person, who would you choose?  Why?
2.  Freewrite

The Week of 12/6
1.  Cheating....
2.  What is the BEST / WORST gift you have ever received?

The Week of 1/3
1.  How simple is your life?
2.  Would you go to jail for a moral or political principle?

The Week of 1/10
1.  What's the scariest thing that's ever happened to you?
2.  Freewrite

JOURNALS due Friday 1/14!

THIRD NINE WEEKS
The Week of 2/7
1.  Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert?
2.  What moment in history will you always remember?

The Week of 2/14
1.  Valentine's Day...Is it overrated?
2.  Freewrite

The Week of 2/28
1.  How important is money to you?
2.  What is your reaction to yesterday's speaker, Pam Stenzel?  If you were absent yesterday, you may do a freewrite.

The Week of 3/21
1.  Spring break....
2.  Freewrite

FOURTH NINE WEEKS
The Week of 4/25
1.  Plans after high school....
2.  Computers in school--are they a good thing?  Will you like the change to Dell computers next year?

The Week of 5/16
1.  What is your favorite song?  Why?
2.  Freewrite

The Week of 5/30
1.  Describe the largest crowd you've ever been a part of .
2.  What's the worst argument you've ever been involved in?

The Week of 6/6
1.  Final evaluation of 11th grade / English class.

FINAL JOURNALS DUE THURSDAY 6/9!