SMARTHINKING Writer's Handbook

Chapter 3, Lesson 3: Section 5

Journaling and Freewriting

Objective
To show students two useful methods for developing ideas in all stages of the writing process.

Introduction
Whether we are given topics by our instructors or not, getting started on a writing project is often one of the hardest steps in the entire writing process. You might ask yourself a number of questions. What is the best way to begin? What tone should I write with? How will my essay be organized? What will my thesis be, and how will I get around to proving that thesis? The questions go on and on; it's no wonder that writing that first sentence is a little intimidating!

Journaling and freewriting are excellent ways to start the writing process (and to jumpstart your writing when you hit a wall or stumbling block). Using journaling or freewriting allows you to write without having to worry about all of those questions or issues of organization, thesis and paragraphs. Both methods rely on this fact: we do our best thinking about our topics not before we start writing, but while we are writing.

Try both of these methods to see how they work for you.

Journaling

There is no one "right" way to keep a journal, so be sure to experiment a little to find the journaling technique that is most useful to you. The basic idea of journaling is to keep a regular record of your thoughts, reactions and ideas, so that you can draw upon them when it's time to sit down and put an essay together.

Imagine that you've been asked to write an essay about a book or movie. You're not sure how to get started, and you want to find a way to get your ideas on the page. Creating a journal entry will help. Your journal might consist of notes on the reading (such as quotations that seem important to you, or plot points you want to remember) as well as your reactions to parts of the film or book. You might even split the pages in your journal, like this:

In the above example, a student took notes from a book she was reading on the left half of her journal's pages, and on the right half she simply jotted down her reactions to parts of the book she was reading. She wasn't trying to write an essay or to develop a thesis; she simply wrote her impressions and feelings down as they occurred to her.

When this student has finished reading the book, she can review her journal and begin putting her essay together from it. She might find that her "Notes" section includes quotations or references to important passages from the text that will find a place in her essay. Her "My Thoughts" column might contain a lot of ideas that add up to her overall opinion of the book. For instance, after reviewing her journal, this student might realize that she found many aspects of the book unbelievable and unconvincing. Her thesis can be based on this reaction.

If journaling sounds like it could be a useful strategy for you, try getting into the habit of writing daily. Keep notes on whatever you are reading or discussing for your class. The more you write, the easier it will be to keep writing when it's time to put your essay together!

Freewriting

Like journaling, freewriting is a way to get your ideas flowing without worrying about thesis, organization, tone and so on. Again, the underlying reason to freewrite is that we can more easily access our best ideas while we are writing, and not while we are sitting and thinking about writing.

Freewriting is the process of sitting down with a pen and paper, or a keyboard, and writing without stopping. Don't stop to think of the right word. Don't stop to think of what you should say next. Just write and write and don't stop. Try to either fill a page or write for 5 minutes (you can develop your own guidelines depending on what works best for you).

Of course, much of what you come up with will be too random or freeform to include in an essay or writing project for a class. But usually, writers will find that after they've spent part of the page (or a few minutes) writing down ideas and thoughts, they begin to get a better sense of where their writing can go, what ideas might be interesting to explore, and how those ideas could be communicated to an audience.

Here is the freewriting of a student who has an essay assignment coming up. The assignment is to write a narrative essay about a significant experience from his past. He can't think of anything to write about, and so he has freewritten for a few minutes:

Okay here goes I don't really have any idea what I'm going to write about and in fact I'm not sure anyting that significant ever happened to me anyway. When I was 2 I fell down the stairs and broke my arm, but I don't really rmember that very well and I'm not sure how "significant" it was anyway. My parents moved to Colorado when I was 15, which I hated because I had to change high schools. I met Bernie there, who I'm not really in touch with that much anymore. We just started college, but he's in Minnesota and I'm still here in Denver. Bernie and I used to get into a lot of trouble together, but we had a lot of fun too. We email now and then, but it's not like seeing him all the time in the halls at high school. The guys in my dorm seem all right, but I can't tell yet if I'm really going to get along with any of them.

In this example, the student wrote without looking back; he didn't even stop to correct his spelling mistakes. While he may not have any sentences that will make it into a final draft of his essay, the student has come a long way towards locating a topic to write on. Towards the end of this short freewriting exercise, the student is writing about the difficulty of making friends in college, and the significance of losing friends from high school.

If the student isn't sure he wants to write about this topic, he could try freewriting again to see if any other topics come up. Or, he could freewrite again, but this time try focusing his mind a bit more on the idea of "making friends in a new environment."

Exercise
So, let's try both of these options. Take some time to complete the following exercises.

Part One Write a journal entry in response to something you've recently read or seen. In this journal entry, make a list of what you remember about this text or movie or TV show. Don't censor, and don't worry about what is ultimately "important"; instead, just make a list of everything you recall. If you'd like to include your impressions of what you saw or read, you can also include a "My Thoughts" portion of the journal. (See the example above, under "journaling" for an example.)

Part Two In order to practice what you've learned about freewriting, give yourself five minutes, and write about the events of the last 24 hours of your life. When you're done, try locating the most interesting lines from your freewrite, and then write another freewrite on the idea or events of those lines.

Summary
In this lesson, you've learned about two techniques you can use to record your thoughts. Many writers use both of these techniques at various points as they compose and revise a writing project. Some writers decide that they prefer one technique to the other, and some writers simply use both techniques, sometimes almost interchangeably and often for the same purpose: to get ideas flowing. The next time you are "stuck" or don't know how to begin writing or restart, try a journal entry or a bit of freewriting.