You will be required to keep a journal throughout the semester. Keep your journal on your hard drive and backit up with a disk or thumb drive. Then submit it by email. Doing so has advantages. Since I do not accept journals late under any circumstances, keeping a journal on disk allows you to submit it on time--even if you are laid low with the flu or decide to elope with your loved one. If you need help e-mailing, I'll assist you.
The central requirement of this journal is that you write one page five days a week. I have provided you with topics at the end of this page. You may write about those or topics of your choice. A large part of your journal grade will be determined by the consistency of your entries.
This need not be an intimate journal. Don't write anything you feel uncomfortable writing. If you prefer not to talk about personal affairs, talk about your classes, what you are doing and what you are learning. Read the newspapers; watch the news on television; write about what's going on in the community or the world and what you think about it. Avoid saying, "This is a boring day, nothing is happening." Something is always happening if you look about.
Most importantly, each set of journal entries must be written as a single Word file. Thus, when you submit each set of entries, you will only have one attachment. Do not make each journal entry a separate Word file. If you do, you will have ten attachments every time you submit your journals. That is time consuming. If you have questions about the proper way to submit your journal, please see me. I will help you.
I will collect the journals every other week. I will not give the journals a letter grade as I read them, but will give credit, partial credit, or no credit. At the end of the term, I will affix a letter grade to the entire journal. The central grading criterion will be consistency, not mechanics, organization or development. I want you to feel free to write without feeling that what you write will be scrutinized by a fault-finding grammarian.
Below are some ideas for journal topics. Feel free to use any of them. Also feel free to ignore them.
Write about:
a favorite movie
a favorite book
a favorite season
a favorite restaurant
a teacher
something you learned in a class
something you wanted to learn in a class but didn't
sports
love
food
your family
a friend
a pet
a news story
an event from your childhood
your grandparents
a hobby
a favorite place
clothes
computers
a university policy you approve of
a university policy you don't approve of
a city ordinance you approve of
a city ordinance you don't approve of
goals
a bad habit
a good habit
a memorable holiday
religion
politics
summer orientation
this list