FREEBIE: My Writing Journal

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته

It's hard to say just how important daily writing is for students. So many skills are taught and learned through this activity that a lot of focus is placed on it in classrooms. This year, students will write in their journals daily using this writing jounrnal insha'Allaah:

The journal is simple to assemble:

1. Print all pages (if you want a more printer-friendly copy don't print the first page and use the last page as the front cover for the journal).
2. Photocopy page two 21 times (1 page for each school day in September).
3. Photocopy page four or five (depending on how you spell the word colour) as many times as needed so that each student has 1 bookmark. This bookmark is to help students spell words that they might use during the first month of school in their writing. Page 3 is to show you where to fold down the book mark so you students can insert it into their writing journals. Once folded, the bookmark sits on the top of the page where the student last wrote.
4. Photocopy page six 4 times. Place this page after each 5th page. This page is for you, the teacher, to collect the journals once a week and look through that week's writing and write back to your students and briefly tell them about their writing for that week. The first section is for you to mention something positive about the student's writing, the second section is for you to mention some points you think the student should pay attention to or maybe some things that might help enhance the student's writing (i.e. like adding strong verbs or describing words to show and not tell). The third section is to again point to something positive in the student's writing. Here, you should strive to be genuine and honest. Look for something that resonates with you or something that you could relate to as you read his/her work or something that brought back a memory for you, and then, if you choose, share that with the student in this section insha'Allaah. 
5. Page 7 is the back page of the journal or if you want a more printer-friendly version of the journal, the cover of the journal.

Each month, I'll hope to upload new bookmarks, with new pictures & words, for the journal insha'Allaah - Check back! This is, alhamdulillaah, a FREEBIE. Just click on the picture, or the link above, or the Teacher's Notebook widget in the upper right hand corner, to download it.

Insha'Allaah you enjoy it and benefit from it!