Tried It Tuesday (Shared Writing Journals!)

It's Tuesday and time to share more "Tried It" ideas from your classroom or home!

What is Tried It Tuesday?  Read more about it here.

<center> <a href="http://fourthgradeflipper.blogspot.com/"><img src=" http://i593.photobucket.com/albums/tt15/04fallingstar/3AM%20Blog%20Design/3am_triedittuesday_3_zpsd7a240d4.png" width=225 height=225 border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a></center> Awesome linky button above designed by the talented Michelle at The 3am Teacher! My Tried It: Shared Writing Journals! I started using shared writing journals this year after reading about them all summer in the blogging world.  You can read more about making them in my post here. I started the year with these four journals.  These covers I picked up from my blog idol (the reason I started blogging myself), Tara at 4th Grade Frolics.

 The Avery stickers are placed inside the journal and when students finish their entry, they place a sticker into their "individual writing journal" to keep track of finished journals.

Stickers placed in front cover of their individual writing journal after completing a shared writing journal:

Entries started out simple as one paragraph and gradually grew to multi-paragraphs following the format learned in class.

What I LOVE about SWJ (shared writing journals): 1.  Students were super excited to write in these when they were introduced. 2.  Students work on their writing stamina on a topic they are comfortable with. 3.  Students work on writing using multi-paragraphs on a topic they are comfortable with. 4.  Students can read other students' entries if they have extra time. 5.  Students were producing great writing examples as the year progressed! What I DON'T love about SWJ: 1.  Students don't love to write (surprise, surprise) and the novelty wears off fast! 2.  Most students don't finish planning their entry and writing it during one center time and need to finish later.  That means there is only one journal and it needs to be available for them to finish at another center time soon.  Sometimes they forget to finish. 3.  Most of my students only finished TWO writing entries this year so far!  This is mostly my fault because I have so many work on writing and word work activities that they can choose something else with the free choice aspect. What can I do differently to keep the interest alive? This is tough because it seems like the students really would rather do any activity that involves less writing than it takes to complete a shared writing journal.  Although, I do think that I need to manage this better.  It is still my first year trying a lot of new strategies and there has been quite the learning curve!   I FINALLY introduced some "new" SWJ's today.  I know, I know...what have I been waiting for?  I guess I was waiting for most students to have written in three out of the four journals, but with our time constraints and the lost novelty of the "old" SWJ's, this was not happening unless I took away the free choice of Daily 5.  One new SWJ introduced was a persuasive topic on whether or not gym should be cut from the curriculum.  That sparked some interest!  I forgot to take a picture of that one but you can find them by Fancy Free in Fourth here. This journal is about your best friend (easy, right?).   You can find this in a pack from Fancy Free in Fourth here.

This journal is a compare/contrast of two members of your family.
You can find them by Fancy Free in Fourth here.

Have you tried Shared Writing Journals?  I would love to hear more about how you use them!  

Check out other Tried Its by these amazing bloggers!  

Thank you so much for taking the time to share and collaborate ideas!!