Vonnegut Stories - Journal Entries

As we continue to work with various texts, there will be diffferent ways of using writing to expand your thinking. We've already discussed annotations this week. Now we will turn our attention to writing in your journals and the various forms those responses can take.

Yesterday at the end of the group work I asked you to write a short personal response to the summary, conflicts, and ending of "Unready to Wear." These in-class responses are a valuable tool - not only do they capture your thinking in the moment but also they give you an opportunity to flesh out your thoughts and expand them. Perhaps you didn't share an idea out loud in class, or you were moved by something someone else said, or have new questions at the end of a discussion or activity - the in-class response is a great place for all of that.

Sometimes you will write a more extended journal response. These go beyond the several minute in-class version, and instead are an opportunity to more fully express and explore your ideas.

• These journal responses are not formal essays. They are supposed to be messy and rough in spots, yet do focus on a point and your ideas about it.
• These responses will include quotations from the text (use your annotations!) as well as comments about the language and ideas they contain.
• They reflect your ideas, including potential connections to other texts, to current events, to anything you use to increase your understanding of it.

We'll try a test one today, focused on the last two stories you read: "Report on the Barnhouse Effect" and "Harrison Bergeron." Of course you can use your annotated versions of the stories as well as any notes you take. You can go in one of two possible directions:

• Character-Based. You can compare / contrast one character from each story, making a conclusion about what is important about them.
• Theme-Based. You can write about a theme or idea present in both stories. Are the messages the same in both stories, or different?

You'll have the rest of the period to write your journal response. Write it in a new Google document. When you are finished, please submit it to turnitin.com - I'll be happy to help you with that part. I will give you feedback on your work in a way that will help guide you toward writing excellent journal responses as we move forward. Don't worry about the grade - focus on figuring out some cool things to say and getting your thoughts onto the page.

• Journal Response Rubric